From: dan@wombat.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Dan Parmenter)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.animation
Subject: Re: Watching Funky Animation While Stoned
Date: 7 Oct 92 18:59:12 GMT
Organization: /home/fsg/dan/.organization

In article <1992Oct5.152833.7978@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu 
(Chris Meadows) writes:

>   Why do you suppose it is that some people want to get stoned before
>   or while watching really funky animation?  I've heard it about YELLOW
>   SUBMARINE, and when I was at PINK FLOYD'S THE WALL last night, about
>   half the people in the theater were high on something.  Really weird.

>   ---Chris Meadows

This has been a pet peeve of mine for years.  Whenever people get into
some "weird" movie or animation, somebody inevitibly brings up the
"clever" notion that it would be "really cool" to watch the movie (or
show, or whatever) while "chemically altered".  This bothers me on
several grounds: First, it seems to imply that the original, no matter
how good, will invariably be improved by chemical alteration.  Second,
it indicates a sad lack of imagination on the part of the drug users
who can't think of anything better to do with their altered state of
mind than to sit around as couch potatoes drooling and giggling.
Third, even the Home Shopping Club can seem fascinating, depending on
how far "gone" one is, so why single out animation  for this sort of
treatment? 

Sadly, a frightful percentage of recreational drug users do not view
these substances as conduits to different states of consciousness,
following in the footsteps of people like Aldous Huxley, William S.
Burroughs or Timothy Leary, they view them as basically, beer - that
is, medication against reality, a way to get a "buzz" and to appeal to
purely hedonistic urges.  Is it any surprise that these tend to be the
EXACT SAME PEOPLE who have one bad trip or paranoid episode and later
either prosletyze against the evils of drugs or simply 
characterize their experimentations with drugs as mere youthful
pecadilloes - goldfish swallowing for the post-Vietnam era. 

Mind you, filmmakers are quick to exploit this potential angle - the
1968 re-release of Fantasia played up the film's "psychedelic"
content.  2001 was advertised as "the ultimate trip".  The initial
release of Yellow Submarine seemed similarly biased towards chemical
interpretations of the film.  This seems like a disservice to the
films - if they're really good, they'll survive on their own merits
and if they're bad, no amount of drugs will save them.  

Not that there's really anything wrong with bong hits and Bugs Bunny,
but I really detest the notion that the experience will be any
"better".  Different, maybe.  Better?  Not necessarily.  The way some
people behave when, er, "altered" is so catatonic and sedentary that
it's impossible to imagine that they'll get any of the subtle bits and
only focus on the visuals, which means you miss half the fun...

- Dan


--
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| Dan Parmenter       |"I'm waiting for a time, when I can do without these  |
| dan@gnu.ai.mit.edu  | things that make me feel this way all of the time"   |
|                     |                            - Spiritualized           |
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