Preparatory Task

How do the cultural contexts and identities impact on the content and function of animation?

Joanna Quinn - Body Beautiful (1990)

• Rob Brydon worked on the script.
• The Cardiff Ely Bread Riots - racially motivated violence after a dispute between two shopkeepers over the selling of bread; in the suburb of Ely in Cardiff during the September of 1991.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Ely_Bread_Riots

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-37183995

• In 1990 the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill made provisions to license and monitor the performance of fertility treatment clinics and any research using human embryos in the UK. (www.wellcome.ac.uk) The independent taxation for women was introduced. For the first time married women were taxed separately from their husbands. (www.woyla.co.uk)

Isao Takahata - Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

• Takahata is the co-founder of Studio Ghibli. It is based on the 1967 It is based on the semi-autobiographical short story Grave of the Fireflies by Akiyuki Nosaka.
• March 13: Seikan Tunnel opens, connecting Hokkaido and Honshu by rail for the first time. This link had been considered since the Taishō period (1912–1925), but serious surveying commenced only in 1946, induced by the loss of overseas territory at the end of World War II (1 Sep 1939 – 2 Sep 1945) and the need to accommodate returnees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikan_Tunnel
• The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 is a US federal law that granted reparations to Japanese Americans (American citizens or legal permanent residents) who had been interned by the United States government during World War II, but not the ethnic Japanese that had been taken from their homes in Latin America regardless of whether they remained in the United States, returned to Latin America or were deported to Japan after the war. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans#Japanese_Latin_Americans)

Disney - The Princess and the Frog (2009)

• Directors Ron Clements and John Musker pitched the film to Oprah on a trip to Disneyland, just for fun. She loved the idea so much that she asked to be a part of it (she plays Eudora).
• [Country of origin in the time set of the film]: Harlem Renaissance, term used to describe a flowering of African-American literature and art in the 1920s, mainly in the Harlem district of New York City. Southern black musicians brought jazz with them to the North and to Harlem.
• [In country of origin in the place of production (2009)] Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America, becoming the first African-American President of the United States.
• 2 April 2009, one of the main 5 stages of one of the most serious crisis’ to hit the global economy since the Great Depression. At the London G20 summit on 2 April 2009, world leaders committed themselves to a $5tn (£3tn) fiscal expansion, an extra $1.1tn of resources to help the International Monetary Fund and other global institutions boost jobs and growth, and to reform of the banks.

Jan Švankmajer - Jabberwocky (1971)

• The film is loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky; Alice reads this as a sequel to her adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass (1871).
• Normalization refers to a time where the restoration of firm party rule and the reestablishment of Czechoslovakia's status as a committed member of the socialist bloc, the restoration of continuity with the pre reform period
• February 11- The US, UK, USSR and others signed the Seabed Treaty, which prohibited the emplacement of Nuclear Weapons and other weapons of Mass Destruction on the ocean floor.

ParaNorman (2012) - produced by Laika

• There were 178 individual puppets created for the film's 61 characters (the main character Norman had 28 individual full body puppets and more than 8,000 faces). https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/the-tech-behind-paranorman/
• February 21- In Maryland, USA, County Council passes a bill prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity. November 6- voters approve Question, or the Maryland same-sex marriage referendum in response to the enactment of the Civil Marriage Protection Act; allowing same-sex couples to obtain a civil marriage license after 1 January, 2013.
• March 1 — Malaysian High Court Judge Rohana Yusuf rules that police have the power to ban a gay arts festival that aims to fight discrimination. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-police-reportedly-ban-gay-festival-in-malaysia-2011nov03-story.html