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Most people who know who Popeye is know that he is a sailor man, he eats spinach to get strong, he has a girlfriend/love interest called Olive Oyl, an enemy/rival called Bluto and that he punches things a lot. They might know about other peripheral characters like Wimpy too. Most people who know who Betty Boop is know what she looks like and possibly her catchphrase. Both characters may have survived and still be recognisable icons, but in terms of making a movie, Betty Boop has no plot hooks or conflict. A Popeye movie will almost certainly feature eating spinach to get strong, some kind of romance plot with Olive Oyl, and fighting Bluto. I have literally no idea what a Betty Boop movie might feature other than Betty Boop being in it. Of course that doesn't mean you can't make a movie with Betty Boop, but it does means it's much more of a blank slate than something like Popeye who has all these attendant ideas already attached. For a studio that feels more risky, and for a viewer, it's less familiar and comfortable. Look at the breakout (or even the flop) terrible cartoon adaptations of the past few years, pretty much all of them have a simple easy to sum up concept. Marmaduke is a dog who is big and hard to control. Garfield is fat and sarcastic, has a luckless owner Jon, and torments a dog called Odie. The smurfs are magical gnome men, have an enemy called Gargamel and there's only one girl one. The Chipmunks are naughty/smart/chubby respectively, have a caretaker called Dave and sing in silly voices. Yogi Bear steals picnic baskets, is in conflict with a park ranger and has a small friend called Booboo. For all these movies, a sizeable part of the audience was familiar with the basic setup, and whatever plot the movie stapled on top of it they went in with a broad knowledge of the base situation. Popeye is like these, Betty Boop, for most people, isn't. Fatkraken fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 18:16
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Betty Boop is probably going to be an annoyingly self-aware movie that stops every 5 seconds to wink at the audience.
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Jun 22, 2014 19:26
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Fatkraken posted:Both characters may have survived and still be recognisable icons, but in terms of making a movie, Betty Boop has no plot hooks or conflict. A Popeye movie will almost certainly feature eating spinach to get strong, some kind of romance plot with Olive Oyl, and fighting Bluto. I have literally no idea what a Betty Boop movie might feature other than Betty Boop being in it. This is exactly what I've been posting about, except it avoids the obvious connotations in the pattern you're pointing out. Those more 'accessible' characters are all males, whose characterization and conflict are positively defined in contrast with with negatively defined female characters (if they even exist): Jon or Dave's attempts at romance, Nermal and Arlene, the Chipettes, that one lady version of Yogi Bear nobody remembers because she's just a girl Yogi, etc. I'm not asking anybody to think a Betty Boop movie will somehow be less sexist, or that it's even likely. But a thread on Animation should have just as much enthusiasm for the concept as any number of the above lovely movies that you've mentioned, which were based on characters who, while greater in number, are actually far less historically or culturally significant. So if the field of nostalgia is dominated by characters with invisible, implied dicks, that's the definition of phallocentrism. All of the stuff you mentioned is critically important as well, but stopping there is description bereft of analysis. It's the 'how' without the 'why,' and whether or not one explicitly agrees with it, it inevitably buttresses circuitous logic of corporate and cultural phallocentrism, which you aptly identified in your middle paragraph.
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Jun 22, 2014 19:32
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Nermal is actually a guy.
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Jun 22, 2014 19:49
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Examining sexism is all well and good, but I think you're reading a little too much into it. What killed Betty Boop was the Hays Code, her flirty personality had to be severely toned down and her boyfriend got turned into her pet because they thought it was promoting bestiality.
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Jun 22, 2014 20:12
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computer parts posted:Nermal is actually a guy. ... I'm suddenly flashing back to the moment when I first figured this out as a kid. To be fair (or, more accurately, to cover my rear end) whenever he was voiced in the cartoon, Desirée Goyette gave him a very naive voice, and its feminine tones I don't think could be lost on anyone. (I am aware that female voice actors frequently provide the voices of both male and female characters, especially younger ones. Rugrats, The Boondocks, and The Simpsons are just some examples.) Robindaybird posted:Examining sexism is all well and good, but I think you're reading a little too much into it. This is also true. But 'reading a little too much into it' is actually a more accurate description of the spurious logic of those Hays Code censors. (In the same way that Clean Pastures was targeted for its 'burlesque of religion,' when clearly the cartoon is explicitly pro-religion, and just happens to do it by getting you to identify with Black characters and Black angels.) Censorship and sexism go hand-in-hand quite frequently. Betty Boop obviously never has sex, and her character is coy while being importantly virginal. Seamus Culhane, ref. in Stefan Kanfer, Serious Business: The Art and Commerce of Animation in America from Betty Boop to Toy Story (1997, p. 71) posted:When women were thought of in terms like ‘quiff,’ ‘snatch,’ and ‘gash,’ a la Studs Lonigan, there was no possibility of a story being written where Betty Boop used her charms in a light, flirtatious manner. Betty was a ‘good’ girl with a hymen like a boiler plate, and her sex life would never be more than a series of attacks on that virginity by unpleasant characters with heavy hands.
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Jun 22, 2014 20:44
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Lest we forget, Betty Boop was already modernized in Comedy Central's excellent series, Drawn Together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sywQGeH-fYo&t=21s  Cartoon nudity
Irish Joe fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 21:17
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K. Waste posted:Comparing Olive Oyl for President to Betty Boop for President is fascinating. On the one hand, Popeye sees the utopia that Olive Oyl will create, and becomes a champion for women's rights, campaigning for the first woman independent party president. On the other hand, most of Olive Oyl's conception of a perfect America is almost entirely predicated on... you guessed it! Marriage, fashion, children, and maternity. The most radical she gets is basically by just fulfilling Popeye's sadomasochistic fantasy: the 'woman on top' of the business ladder. I can't watch the Popeye sketch at the moment, but those respective platforms are more representative of the political attitudes of the time more than anything else. The 1932 campaign was a stark contrast between the Democrats led by FDR, who had already instituted many social welfare programs as Governor of New York, and the Republicans led by Hoover, whose perceived indifference to the plight of the poor is pretty clearly mocked by the "Mr. Nobody" character in the Betty Boop sketch. 1948, however, was a much different election at a much different time. Much of the population of the US, having gone through the turmoil of the Great Depression and immediately brought into the Second World War, was pretty anxious for a return to some semblance of what they believed to be normalcy after two decades of crisis. So in that regard, a platform of "Marriage, fashion, children, and maternity" would have been exceptionally appealing to a large number of Americans tired of the rapid advancement of social struggles at that time, both male and female. Part of the reason why the Republicans won big in the Congressional Elections of '46, and part of the reason (Aside from Eisenhower running, who could have probably carried the election even if he ate a child on stage) why they won in '52.
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Jun 22, 2014 22:38
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Acebuckeye13 posted:I can't watch the Popeye sketch at the moment, but those respective platforms are more representative of the political attitudes of the time more than anything else. The 1932 campaign was a stark contrast between the Democrats led by FDR, who had already instituted many social welfare programs as Governor of New York, and the Republicans led by Hoover, whose perceived indifference to the plight of the poor is pretty clearly mocked by the "Mr. Nobody" character in the Betty Boop sketch. 1948, however, was a much different election at a much different time. Much of the population of the US, having gone through the turmoil of the Great Depression and immediately brought into the Second World War, was pretty anxious for a return to some semblance of what they believed to be normalcy after two decades of crisis. So in that regard, a platform of "Marriage, fashion, children, and maternity" would have been exceptionally appealing to a large number of Americans tired of the rapid advancement of social struggles at that time, both male and female. Part of the reason why the Republicans won big in the Congressional Elections of '46, and part of the reason (Aside from Eisenhower running, who could have probably carried the election even if he ate a child on stage) why they won in '52. I wouldn't necessarily be so quick as to label Betty Boop's platform as aligned with FDR and in binary opposition with Hoover and the Republicans. In both cartoons, the female candidates are depicted as having no party affiliation, and, in fact, need to circumvent party politics in order to institute 'real change.' At one point Boop even pulls her hat down and transforms into a Hoover caricature, but her lyric, "I won't talk on the radio when I'm the president" could just as easily apply to FDR as Hoover. I think "Mr. Nobody," because he's such an absurd, negatively defined entity, and while Betty's platform may be closer to the Democratic one, it's difficult to assign him any political motivation, which is the whole joke. You're right in that Betty Boop for President (full title, Max Fleischer Nominates Betty Boop for President) speaks directly to feelings of popular disaffection with American politics, while Olive Oyl for President speaks to an almost contrary desire for a return to normalcy and trust in the American Dream; but I think it's more accurate to frame both of these viewpoints as in necessary opposition, but representing 'impossible dreams' of escapism that not only transcend partisanship, but transcend politics and socioeconomics altogether. A huge part of the humorous appeal of both toons is that a woman fundamentally can't represent either the Democratic or Republican platforms, because these are the domains of the social sphere dominated by men. Both Betty and Olive (though, really, not Olive at all, but Popeye's dream of Olive) effectively liberate the imagination from the cynicism of real-world politics, although the ways in which both cartoons achieve this is markedly different on both a political and structural level. In particular, it's worth noting the scenes involving both women delivering their State of the Union addresses before Congress. In Betty Boop for President, Betty initially wins over the Republicans by appealing to a sense of American morale, which the Democrats reject. But when she advocates getting "everything for nothing" (which works just as well as a Republican criticism of Democratic ideals), the tables turn. Finally, however, even though in both cartoons the way in which the candidates will achieve their goals is completely inconsequential, Betty is depicted by the end as winning the election by a landslide to much popular fanfare. It's clear that it's neither Democratic nor Republican policies that have won, but rather the popular imagination which has won out over the Great Depression, with Betty as our Jazz bandleader. In Olive Oyl for President, the Congressional scene is very different. Still in dreamland, Olive Oyl wins, but the opposition between the Democrats and Republicans is now totally binary. In fact, the Republicans never once accept one of Olive Oyl's platforms. As a solution, Olive Oyl literally uses 'love' to bring them together. But the cartoon ends with Popeye 'waking up' and vehemently campaigning for Olive Oyl. But Olive isn't a bandleader, nor does she have the support of popular culture. Instead of leading the parade, she's paraded around by Popeye, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, and calling her the "Soul of America." This is an unintentional acknowledgment that Olive Oyl on her own poses no threat to the status quo, but already is the status quo -- the desire for the return to normalcy.
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Jun 22, 2014 23:46
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This Popeye/Betty boop thing is nice and all, but where does Felix the cat fit in all this?
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Jun 23, 2014 00:58
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Pixeltendo posted:This Popeye/Betty boop thing is nice and all, but where does Felix the cat fit in all this? Pat Sullivan's company that produced the first Felix cartoons also pioneered modern merchandising with Felix dolls, though the practice would be perfected by Roy Disney.  You can briefly glimpse a Sullivan studios doll in the background of the photo studio scene of F. W. Murnau's Sunrise.
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Jun 23, 2014 02:29
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I feel like it's worth pointing out that, in addition to the lapse in time and attitudes, Betty Boop for president and Olive Oyl for president were done by two totally different studios. By the time of the latter, Fleischer Studios had closed and production of Popeye cartoons had gone over to Famous Studios, who have the notable distinction of making some of the lamest cartoons to ever star one of the greatest cartoon characters of all time. So while all the aforementioned cultural influences certainly had a lot to do with the content of both cartoons, the fact is that completely different people were making it. Now, would the Fleischers have made a cartoon as toothless as OOFP? I sure hope not. While we're on the subject, I'd also like to really recommend Robert Altman's Popeye to anybody who hasn't seen it. It's a terrific adaptation of the character and does a lot of its own weird little things that make it stand apart from the cartoons, and most musicals. It's streaming on Amazon Prime if anyone is interested.
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Jun 27, 2014 08:14
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Kaiju Cage Match posted:How does it feel being so wrong? Look at the hanging meat on the right end. He punched that bull so hard that it's kosher.
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Jun 27, 2014 15:02
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FunkyAl posted:I feel like it's worth pointing out that, in addition to the lapse in time and attitudes, Betty Boop for president and Olive Oyl for president were done by two totally different studios. By the time of the latter, Fleischer Studios had closed and production of Popeye cartoons had gone over to Famous Studios, who have the notable distinction of making some of the lamest cartoons to ever star one of the greatest cartoon characters of all time. So while all the aforementioned cultural influences certainly had a lot to do with the content of both cartoons, the fact is that completely different people were making it. Now, would the Fleischers have made a cartoon as toothless as OOFP? I sure hope not. Famous Studios was really just the Fleischer studio reorganized. Mostly made up of the same animators and artists, just without the Fleischers. Also, they did fantastic work in the first few years, but the quality sort of went down when the budgets were stripped down more. Also, the Fleischers kind of went through a dry spell from 1939-1940 after putting so many resources into Gulliver's Travels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncvO9UEQKZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZFNBQBSW_0 Me Musical Nephews and The Hungry Goat are two of the best Popeye cartoons. Even the later color cartoons were often quite good, even if not as sure-fire as the 1933-1938 Popeyes.
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Jun 27, 2014 15:26
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Egbert Souse posted:Famous Studios was really just the Fleischer studio reorganized. Mostly made up of the same animators and artists, just without the Fleischers. Also, they did fantastic work in the first few years, but the quality sort of went down when the budgets were stripped down more. Also, the Fleischers kind of went through a dry spell from 1939-1940 after putting so many resources into Gulliver's Travels. With that first one, you'll notice they've basically just forsaken pretense and literally made Popeye into Donald Duck. That goat does have a lot of personality, though. I do tend to prefer the Fleischer period cartoons, Bulldozing the Bull is my personal favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5VBMNtYP98
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Jun 27, 2014 16:05
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FunkyAl posted:While we're on the subject, I'd also like to really recommend Robert Altman's Popeye to anybody who hasn't seen it. It's a terrific adaptation of the character and does a lot of its own weird little things that make it stand apart from the cartoons, and most musicals. No it's not.
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Jun 27, 2014 16:20
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K. Waste posted:With that first one, you'll notice they've basically just forsaken pretense and literally made Popeye into Donald Duck. That goat does have a lot of personality, though. Awww popeye doesn't want to hurt the animals  Kaiju Cage Match posted:How does it feel being so wrong? O-oh popeye...what happened to you? Did that bull kill your parents? 
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Jun 27, 2014 16:40
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That thing you posted is actually evidence of how great that movie is. "Swee' Pea's Lullaby" is a beautiful musical number. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjGaV3Xk6Q8
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Jun 27, 2014 16:52
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So it's not a film, but y'all should definitely eyeball Glen Keane's new short film for Google. It is BEAUTIFUL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9CG_PoEWCg
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Jun 27, 2014 17:57
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K. Waste posted:That thing you posted is actually evidence of how great that movie is. "Swee' Pea's Lullaby" is a beautiful musical number. Yeah, Popeye is pretty much a spot-on translation of the Fleischer cartoons to live-action. I think it's hilarious how Robert Altman ended up directing it since the Fleischers were pretty much doing the same things he was doing in the 1930s - overlapping dialogue, long takes, and fogged backgrounds to make characters stand out. Even the songs are stylistically close to the great Sammy Timberg tunes of the thirties.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:24
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Altman's Popeye is fantastic and I won't hear a word otherwise.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:26
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Altman's Popeye is fantastic and I won't hear a word otherwise. redcheval posted:So it's not a film, but y'all should definitely eyeball Glen Keane's new short film for Google. It is BEAUTIFUL. The animation on this is totally gorgeous but I didn't find it very... I dunno... meaningful? It felt to me like a technical exercise, and kind of kitschy.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:53
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The best part of the live action Popeye is when Sweet Pea babbles "A ma ba" and Williams improvs "You're a baby, yeah, it says so right here."
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Jun 27, 2014 19:25
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Egbert Souse posted:Famous Studios was really just the Fleischer studio reorganized. Mostly made up of the same animators and artists, just without the Fleischers. Also, they did fantastic work in the first few years, but the quality sort of went down when the budgets were stripped down more. Also, the Fleischers kind of went through a dry spell from 1939-1940 after putting so many resources into Gulliver's Travels. See now while these cartoons are fine by most standards of quality you could judge them by, they don't really even feel like Popeye cartoons. Like K. Waste said, the first one is basically a Donald Duck cartoon, and that goat is pretty much just Bugs Bunny. The Fleischer cartoons are full of bizarre jokes and asides that you don't really see anywhere else, like this bit with Bluto. They still feel fresh and unique, but the Famous Studios output just feels like stuff we've seen before.
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Jun 27, 2014 20:47
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Irish Joe posted:Lest we forget, Betty Boop was already modernized in Comedy Central's excellent series, Drawn Together. I think we're all better off forgetting Drawn Together.
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Jun 28, 2014 05:30
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neonnoodle posted:The animation on this is totally gorgeous but I didn't find it very... I dunno... meaningful? It felt to me like a technical exercise, and kind of kitschy. Funnily I kind of agree, but I just love the way that it looks. I'm also incredibly jazzed to see what Glen Keane is up to these days. Maybe it's just me but after Disney gutted its animation department it's always really exciting to see legends like Keane still working in 2D.
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Jun 28, 2014 05:40
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raditts posted:I think we're all better off forgetting Drawn Together.
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Jun 28, 2014 06:04
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Drawn Together's sole purpose was to inspire the creation of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.
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Jun 28, 2014 07:11
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redcheval posted:Funnily I kind of agree, but I just love the way that it looks. I'm also incredibly jazzed to see what Glen Keane is up to these days. Maybe it's just me but after Disney gutted its animation department it's always really exciting to see legends like Keane still working in 2D. Now do one where the boy is a ballet dancer and the girl is a rock climber 
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Jun 28, 2014 11:18
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I'm gonna have to disagree with the majority and say that Popeye isn't a very good movie. It's a vision of a Fleischer cartoon if they were completely lethargic.
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Jun 28, 2014 16:05
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Captain Invictus posted:Drawn Together's sole purpose was to inspire the creation of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. I don't know what that is, but it sounds like some kind of creepy anime and being inspired by Drawn Together sounds like it's the worst of both worlds.
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Jun 28, 2014 16:48
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raditts posted:I don't know what that is, but it sounds like some kind of creepy anime and being inspired by Drawn Together sounds like it's the worst of both worlds. It's basically Ren & Stimpy if the main characters were jerkass angels with Psuedo-PPG style art.
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Jun 28, 2014 17:44
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Kikka posted:I'm gonna have to disagree with the majority and say that Popeye isn't a very good movie. It's a vision of a Fleischer cartoon if they were completely lethargic. I don't think that's a minority opinion. I hate it myself for the same reason, they go to the trouble of building a huge seaside town and assembling a perfect cast and then make a movie that just shuffles along with no energy and occasionally pauses for a dirge slurred by shuffling sailors.
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Jun 28, 2014 17:44
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raditts posted:I don't know what that is, but it sounds like some kind of creepy anime and being inspired by Drawn Together sounds like it's the worst of both worlds. Pretty much. Only the creators somehow realized that's what would happen and made it awesome instead. First couple episodes are on YouTube, check it out.
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Jun 28, 2014 17:59
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raditts posted:I don't know what that is, but it sounds like some kind of creepy anime and being inspired by Drawn Together sounds like it's the worst of both worlds. It shits all over otaku, the humor is great and crude as hell(and knows it), the animation is extremely stylized and can be incredible at times(while being ridiculously framey at others), the main characters are really strong and entertaining, too. The soundtrack is outstanding as well. If you're not okay with sexual humor then skip it, but otherwise it's a really fun self-aware romp that takes the piss out of both anime and western cartoons. Also, the dub voice actresses/actors had an absolute blast doing it. I also really like its use of onomatopoeia. 
Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jun 28, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 21:45
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Also has one of my favorite endings of all time
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Jun 28, 2014 22:40
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Drawn Together is probably the most unfunny thing I have ever watched
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Jun 29, 2014 00:18
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Hat Thoughts posted:Drawn Together is probably the most unfunny thing I have ever watched Someone did not see the televised abomination that was Allen Gregory, which is on the short list of "worst thing I've ever sat through multiple episodes of".
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Jun 29, 2014 03:38
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is Allen Gregory the one with the gay parents where one raped the other into gayness? Because holy poo poo I'm surprised that got past the pitch.
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Jun 29, 2014 04:30
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Allen Gregory. Alle- -gory. Never seen the show, but is there a reason for that?
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