Dietmar Meinel

Pixar's America

The Re-Animation of American Myths and Symbols

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book examines the popular and critically acclaimedfilms of Pixar Animation Studios in their cultural and historical context.Whether interventionist sheriff dolls liberating oppressed toys (Toy Story)or exceptionally talented rodents hoping to fulfill their dreams (Ratatouille),these cinematic texts draw on popular myths and symbols of American culture. AsPixar films refashion traditional American figures, motifs and narratives forcontemporary audiences, this book looks at their politics - from the frontiermyth in light of traditional gender roles (WALL-E) to the notion of voluntary associations andneoliberalism (The Incredibles). Through close readings, this volume considers theaesthetics of digital animation, including voice-acting and the simulation ofcamera work, as further mediations of the traditional themes and motifs ofAmerican culture in novel form. Dietmar Meinel explores the ways in which Pixarfilms come to reanimate and remediate prominent myths and symbols ofAmericanculture in all their cinematic, ideological and narrative complexity.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer International Publishing / Springer, Berlin
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 978-3-319-31633-8
• 1st ed. 2016
• Seitenzahl: 252
• Erscheinungstermin: 5. September 2016
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 153mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 462g
• ISBN-13: 9783319316338
• ISBN-10: 3319316338
• Artikelnr.: 44570868

Autorenporträt

Dietmar Meinel is a research and teaching assistant at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, in the Department of Anglophone Studies. He has published essays with the European Journal of American Culture, NECSUS European Journal for Media Studies, and the Animation Studies Journal as well as in the essay collection Rereading the Machine in the Garden (2014). Meinel has co-edited the volume Black, White, and In-Between (2008) to which he also contributed the essay "White Western: Whiteness and Race Politics from John Wayne to Clint Eastwood."

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction: Exceptional Animations; The Rise to Popularity: The Pixar Studios and Digital Animation.- Chapter 1; Transnational Aesthetics? The Animation and Mediation of American Culture.- Chapter 2 "You Better Play Nice:" Digital Enchantment and the Performance of Toyness in Toy Story (1995) Fearful Sheriff Dolls and Oblivious Space Ranger Action Figures Stupid, Little, Insignificant Toys.- Chapter 3; An Animated Toast to the Ephemeral: The Multicultural Logic of Late Capitalism in Toy Story 2 (1999).- Chapter 4; Chapter 9; Driving In Circles: The American Puritan Jeremiad in Cars (2006) Narratives of Individual and National Decline.- Chapter 10; Animating a Yet Unimagined America? The Mediation of American Exceptionalism in Toy Story 3 (2010)