Zoltán Varga

The Appearance of Genre Characteristics in Hungarian Animated Films

Abstract: In Hungarian cinema if we see the animated film in the point of view of popular film culture, we can find those genres which are mainly missing in the Hungarian live-action cinema. From crime genres through science fiction to horror, there are remarkable genre tendencies in Hungarian animated films. I am going to introduce Captain of the Forest (Az erdo kapitánya) as detective/cop movie, Egon & Dönci as space-travelling science fiction, while Cat City (Macskafogó, directed by Béla Ternovszky, 1986) shows a quite daring, entertaining and rexflexive mixture of several genres including spy film, war film and vampire movie.

Biographical statement: Zoltán Varga is currently a Ph.D. Student of Doctoral Program in Film, Media and Contemporary Culture at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary. His research areas are: popular film culture, genre theory, history of genres, animated film (theory and history). His earlier publications include essays based on animation related material – in Hungarian: about Tim Burton, basic concepts of animated film, connections between live-action film and animation, clay animation; in English: Wordless Worlds? Some Notes on the Verbality in Animated Films through the Use of Verbality in Péter Szoboszlay's Animated Films. In: Ágnes Petho (ed.): Words and Images on the Screen: Language, Literature, Moving Pictures. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. pp. 242-256.

Adam de Beer

Shiver me timber: animating gay porn

Abstract: With the exception of the Japanese tradition of Hentai, academic discussion is inhibited when focussing on pornographic imagery and films. This tends to stigmatise and obfuscate the social implications of pornography. It is in the genre of gay pornography that CGI sex is finding an audience with the release of films such as Pirate’s Booty (2009) and Tales from the gods (2010). This paper considers why specifically gay pornography has chosen to include animation as narrative technique and returns to early topographical work by Thomas Waugh (1985) to discuss this move from fantasized public space to fantasy space as backdrop for the sex act.

Biographical statement: Adam de Beer is presently working on his doctorate in film studies in the Centre for Film and Media Studies (CFMS) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in Cape Town, South Africa. He lectures on Video Production and Storytelling for the centre with a focus on animation and gay and lesbian films. His research centres on topics related to his thesis, namely animation, movement in animation and the history of animation in South Africa.

Richard Leskosky

Insomniac Nightmares

Abstract: A distinct subgenre of Hollywood theatrical animated shorts concerns itself specifically with sleep, or more properly speaking, the act of sleeping or trying to sleep. In essence in these films, a character tries to sleep and someone or something repeatedly stymies that endeavor. One, two, or three character types may be involved the would-be sleeper, an interrupter who deliberately or accidentally awakens him, and one who attempts to keep the first asleep. This presentation will explore this subgenre employing a highly modified Proppian structural analysis I have used in analyzing other animated sub-genres at previous SAS conferences and in print.

Biographical statement: Richard J. Leskosky is the Academic Programs Coordinator for the Department of Media and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a past president of the Society for Animation Studies. He studies pre-cinematic animation devices, animation patents, and animated film genres, and has presented papers in all these areas at previous SAS conferences. He is currently working on a volume on animated film genres.