Animation is a powerful medium for cultural critique, utilizing caricature, fantasy, and exaggeration to address sensitive issues without causing significant offense. The animated adult series Masameer County (2021) exemplifies this by transgressing societal boundaries and exposing taboo topics. This blog explores how the show has critiqued societal and cultural norms in Saudi Arabia. I demonstrate how the series has depicted content that is deemed offensive in a Muslim and Arab society yet has remained popular by using animation to circumvent restrictions. The show relies on situational irony ..read more

The Flesh of Animation: Bodily Sensations in Film and Digital Media by Sandra Annett is an insightful exploration of the intertwining of the physical body and the ‘flesh’ of animation.  The author plays with the concepts of body and flesh assuming a hermeneutical perspective on the worldliness and carnal dimensions of the intersection of body and animation.   This is achieved through an examination of various perspectives of worldly embodiment emanating from the vertex of the animated work.  Illustration inspired by The Flesh of Animation © 2024 Jack Parry The book integrat ..read more

There are few things more sought out by desperate American parents than the “banned” episodes of Bluey. We not only want the extra content for our kids, but for a show so intentional about world-building and Easter egg hiding (literally) we know that any and all details could come back with added importance in the future. So when episodes are aired in the show’s country of origin, but not on Disney+ in the United States, the internet detectives are sent out.  Most of what has been at least initially cut or changed in the trans-Pacific exchange is literal “potty” humor – a scene with a “un ..read more

In addition to the Society for Animation Studies (SAS) community celebrating the life and work of Millie Young in Sydney during SAS35, her friend Pedro Serrazina closes the tribute to Millie in the Animation Studies 2.0 with a personal message. Figure 1. Millie Young in orange dress, taken at the Society for Animation Studies’ (SAS) conference in Lisbon 2019, during the workshop Millie coordinated with Debjani Mukherjee and Eduardo Amaro. Photo by Eduardo Amaro.Figure 2. At the SAS conference in Singapore 2016. From left, Karen Kriss, Yanyun Chen, Millie Young, Pierre Floquet, Pedro Serrazina ..read more

Nowadays, AI (artificial intelligence) is the top technological subject, and as suggested by Alan Warburton (2024) its consequences are compared to those of personal computers when they were introduced into our lives. However, the AI revolution is more profound due to its structural nature, so the comparison is not accurate. Moreover, despite the care of artists and scholars who have dedicated themselves to this new technology, we have also often witnessed those who approach this technology without proper attention to or consideration of its aspects. Such division demands that we&nbs ..read more

In the last couple of years, adult content platforms have faced the spread of user-generated synthetic visual sex media created by generative AI algorithms. This type of content is often referred to as the controversial ‘deepfake pornography.’ As a response, even before its release, OpenAI had announced that its new text-to-video model generation Sora will not allow users to generate sexual content with the technology to prevent abuse, as measures are in place to ‘reject text inputs requesting videos that contain … sexual content … as part of its safety measures and precautions.’ (OpenAI, Febr ..read more

This text explores the integration of live-action performance within the realm of animation by highlighting the transformative journey from traditional methods to the incorporation of advanced technologies such as AI. Live-action performance has been an essential component in the production of animation since its early days. From rotoscoping to motion capture, and now to AI-driven animation, each technological leap has introduced new challenges and opportunities for animators in how they capture and present performances. Through in-depth studies of live-action performances and leveraging their ..read more

For many of us, the annual Society for Animation Studies (SAS) conference is more than an opportunity to share research. We get to meet friends that we do not see any other time. Their ideas inspire us and their enthusiasm recharges us for the year ahead, none more so than Millie Young.  I left the 2023 conference with renewed energy as a scholar working in immersive animation. There was much to be excited about. Numerous papers addressed different aspects of immersive animated experience – domes, presence, projection mapping, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR). Tom Edgar proposed a ne ..read more

Figure 1. Lynn Tomlinson dedicated her presentation on Fulldome Animation at the 2023 SAT Fest in Montreal to Millie Young. Photo credit Craig Saper. Every few days for the past several weeks, when checking my email, an uncanny reading suggestion from Academia.edu appears in my inbox. Based on my “Reading History,” I might be interested in an article titled “Drawing a Motion on Death” by Millie Young. Or perhaps I would like to read a pdf titled “An experiment in putting an ardent hand-crafted 2D animator into the heady dimension of the non-linear world of 360° and seeing what floats”. And my ..read more

Image: Wolfwalkers, Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, 2020. Since its creation in 1999, Kilkenny-based Cartoon Saloon has consistently stood out within the animation landscape, praised for its stories based on Irish folklore and showcasing a ‘painterly hand-drawn aesthetic’ (Rooney 2002). The studio’s first feature film, The Secret of Kells (Moore and Twomey 2009), was released at the end of what Sam Summers terms the ‘computer-animated feature’s formative decade’ (2020: 1). This article examines Cartoon Saloon’s self-representation in relation to contemporary animation aesthetics and techniques. D ..read more