From: mauser@INTERCON.COM (Richard Chandler)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.furry
Subject: Gallery essays on the "Humanity" issue
Date: 17 Oct 92 04:24:05 GMT

All this talk of the "Humanity" thread reminded me of these two essays I put 
in the "Editorializification" section of Gallery #4.  I think you might find 
them interesting reading.

By the way, I've since read some of Peggy Charron's positions on violence on 
television and I'm suprised to find that they agree with another essay I 
wrote about how violence is okay, but that it should be portrayed realisticly.

=====

  The Case for Funny Animals

  I have recently heard that Peggy Charron of Action for Children's 
Television has come out against the recent proliferation of anthropomorphic 
cartoons, particularly the "Disney Afternoon".  Whether this is true or not, 
I'm not sure, (I'm not on ACT's mailing list) but I'm all raring to go.
  It's not that I'm all that worried about Disney's ability to withstand 
ACT's attack ("Go away lady, can't you see weUre making money here?") but I 
just can't stand sloppy reasoning.  
  A statement I heard attributed to Ms. Charron was "Children should have 
human role models".  Perhaps this is true, but that doesn't mean that 
children should have ONLY human role models.  Children can learn from 
anything they're exposed to, if they want to, and my contention is that if 
you want to educate children through entertainment, funny animals are just 
another tool to use.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there are some 
things that should be done with animals instead of humans.
  My favorite example is this.  If you want to teach children about the evils 
of racism, you could do it with human characters, but then you would have to 
do it with a realistic situation.  The cartoon would have to portray a Black, 
Hispanic, or Asian character being discriminated against by a group of 
Whites, whom you would probably portray as ignorant boors.  Your sympathetic 
character would be a white person who would be razzed by the group for being 
nice to the victim, who would turn out to be a swell guy.  This is the 
classic model, and lord knows, we've seen it repeated often enough.  It's 
been given the official "Stamp o' Approval" by the parents groups and the 
child psychologists.  It's also pathetically flawed.


First of all, the minority child learns that no matter what a nice guy he
 or she is, people are going to hate him, so why bother?  Second, the white 
child is shown that if they're nice to a minority child, they will be ostraci
zed by their other friends, and no matter what an author
ity figure says while moralizing at the end of the  story about how it was the
 right decision, childhood friends are measured in quantity, not quality.  Al
so, it goes against all the "progress" made in having multi-racial groups o
f kids in all these cartoons (read, tokenism).  But the most harmful lesson
 taught by this scenario is that Black, Hispanic, and Asian people 
a
re the traditional victims 
o
f racism.
  For just that last reason alone, I think it would be far bette
r to tell the story with, say, Dogs and Cats.  That way, your true lesson,
 that it's wrong to hate a person strictly because of their outward appeara
nce, doesn't get obscured by real-world considerations.  The only thing th
e realistic human cartoon teaches about r
character or jump off the roof to be like Superman.  Some of my best friends
 are nutcases, so I'm not going to make fun of them.

ainment, funny animals are just another tool 

robably learned in high school literature called "the suspension o
f disbelief."  Normally, if your story is close to reality, but slightly diffe
rent, to get the reader to accept your story and get into it, you have to conv
ince him that it is possible.  Thus you have to explain world war three to t
ell your post-apocalyptic stor
y, or say where history diverged to tell about the Confederate States of Am
erica.
  With Funny Animals, the suspension of disbelief is inherent.  After a
ll, if you can accept talking dogs in business suits, whatever they do when 
they get home obviously g
oes with the territory.  You can do anything and the reader will accept it a
t face value.
  The same technique goes along with Japanese Rubber-suit Mons
ter movies.  They're just SO far out that you don't even try to fit them in
to your concept of reality.  You don't have to suspend the viewer's disbelief,
 because they haven't even engaged it.
  The upshot of all this is, using fu
nny animals allows the artist to be as freely creative and unrestricted as 
he wants
  In general, I find that funny animal artists are also good storytellers, 
and usually, they can tell damned funny ones.  One of my favorites is a three 
page story by Will Faust, which still makes me laugh whenever I uncover a 
copy of it.  It works on a number of levels, but particularly because it 
plays on the very nature of funny animals, juxtaposing human and animal 
problems in a sort of '50's housewife commercial.  "Oh dear, little Bobbie 
has Rabies, and my bridge club will be here in twenty minutes.  How can I 
find time to shoot him and still get the house ready in time?"  Sheer 
brilliance.
  Of course, some people take their funny animals too seriously, but I'm not 
going to get into that.  It's just like the kids who kill themselves over 
their D&D character or jump off the roof to be like Superman.  Some of my 
best friends are nutcases, so I'm not going to make fun of them.