‘I’m Not a Real Boy, I’m a Puppet’: Computer-Animated Films and Anthropomorphic Subjectivity

Abstract

This article rethinks anthropomorphic representation and animated animality within the context of the contemporary digital era and, more precisely, against the rise of the computer-animated feature film. By interrogating the fractured identity of the anthropomorph as a necessarily hybrid figuration, it suggests how popular computeranimated films have rejected ánthrōpos and instead exploited the non-human morphē element to manipulate virtual space through anthropomorphic subjectivity. The anthropomorph is here refined into a more prescriptive and functional agent, absorbing the audience into a spectatorial game that sharpens their awareness of the digital realm. Films such as Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007) and Bee Movie (Simon J. Smith & Steve Hickner, 2007) are offered as case studies that reflect the shift towards the form or morphē element, one that is registered through a particular mode of subjectivied address. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze's notion of 'gaseous perception' to elucidate this delivery of enlivened space, this article argues that the computer-animated film is implicated in a hierarchical switch away from humanlike behaviour to embrace the possibilities of the anthropomorph's nonhuman morphē identity, thereby upturning the received narrative of how anthropomorphism has been conceptualised among critical studies of animation.

The Afterlife as Emotional Utopia in Coco

“…Pixar, and by extension Coco , ‘becomes [a] singular exemplar of not only hyperanimation but of hyperDisney animation, the pure and empty form of Disney animation’ (p. 90). 4 Christopher Holliday (2016: 246–247) has analysed how, in animation, animals and objects are frequently anthropomorphized and are designed ‘around behavioural patterns that are anchored to recognizably “human” psychology, intentionality and proportion’. Pushing this further, we might see human animated figures as themselves anthropomorphized, dealing as we are with representations of humans imbued with recognizable human traits.…”

İnsan Biçimcilik ve Canlandırma Sanatında İnsan Biçimli Hayvan Karakterlerinin Kullanımı

“…Bu görüntüler, canlandırma sinemasında güven duyulan kahramanların hikâyelerini anlatmakla birlikte, "saf nesnelliğin" insan mantığından sıyrılmasıdır. "Gaz algı" bu nedenle canlandırma sinemasını, insan öznelliğinden ayrılmasına ve nesnelerdeki olasılıklara geçişi temsil eder (Holliday, 2016). Burada bilgisayarın sanal kamerası, "serbest akış" ile hareketi değiştirilmiş halüsinasyon hali ile izleyici üzerinde algılanma ve sıra dışı algıyla etkileşime girmektedir.…”

“…Burada bilgisayarın sanal kamerası, "serbest akış" ile hareketi değiştirilmiş halüsinasyon hali ile izleyici üzerinde algılanma ve sıra dışı algıyla etkileşime girmektedir. Bilgisayarın sanal kamerası ile oluşturulan nesneler, insan dışı ritmik hızla hareket eder, alan ve boyutlarının görünür haldeyken aniden kapanması veya engellenmesi sayısal teknolojinin alansal yönleri olarak görür (Holliday, 2016).…”

Animated Images and Animated Objects in the Toy Story Franchise: Reflexively and Intertextually Transgressive Mimesis

“…Such films do not focus on anthropomorphic animals or animal–human hybrids, which are another (and quite different) important and recurring topos in animated films. Christopher Holliday (2016: 250) has recently stressed how ‘computer-animated film narratives have increasingly mined the non-human element of the splintered anthropomorph for its expressive, creative potential’. Such anthropomorphs’ man-made origins are thereby downplayed, with a focus instead on their inherent ‘non-human morphē ’ (p. 252).…”

“… 10. The toys also seem to understand expected forms of behaviour relating to the organic beings which they replicate, although they adhere to these forms of behaviour in an ambiguous manner. Holliday (2016: 250) has recently argued that computer-animation is undergoing a ‘representational shift towards [non-human] form ( morphē ) at the expense of humanity ( ánthrōpos )’. As a result, ‘computer-animated film anthropomorphs are … no longer burdened with the anthropocentric teleology of humanity, but are instead free to indulge gesture and rhythms that are rooted in their non-humanity.’ The Toy Story films, however, contain no such focus on non-human form ( morphē ) at the expense of humanity ( ánthrōpos ).…”