Artefact 5 & 6 - a new perspective

For the last two artefacts, I decided to go slightly beyond the field of comedy into oratory in general, and political speeches in particular. It occurred to me that there is something peculiar about the way parodies of one of the most reviled characters in history (Adolf Hitler) are made. 

There seems to be little need for artistic license in parodying Hitler. And there is almost a feeling that those portraying the dictator want us to see this, as if to say: `we don`t have to try hard, the man does most of the job already by just being himself ` . 

I think this is rather misleading. In terms of stage persona, the Nazi leader obviously had an outrageous, larger than life appearance; but the interpretation of this stage persona could not be as obvious to its contemporaries as today`s parodies would have it. The film The Wave is a good example of what I`m trying to get to: 

The last two items then can be said to look at the possible traps that comedy can land us into. For the sake of making us laugh, matters can be trivialised and taken out of context. So let`s look into what builds our context as an audience. What are you prepared to hear when you sit down in front of your TV, in a theatre seat, listen to the radio? How does the environment, the people around you, their reactions, the reason why you are there in the first place affect your perception of what the person on stage is trying to say?

Artefact 5 Evaluation

Artefact 5 was generated by observing the fact that, of all the parodied characters, the one for which comedic exaggeration is least required is Hitler. To test this, I interviewed Adina Huma from The University of Plymouth, specialising in Discourse Analysis and asked her to watch a collage of an original speech of Hitler, a cartoon version and a Monty Python sketch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzs6rMqwRJg

She thought that indeed, the cartoon and the sketch had only slightly exaggerated the stage persona of the original. Even for the cartoon version, which seems to present a raging lunatic, there is evidence of a similar behaviour on the part of the original "His oratory used to wilt his collar, unglue his forelock, glaze his eyes..."(Janet Flanner for the New Yorker).

Since the rendition of the character in terms of tone of voice, gestures, mimicry, body language was similar, the next question was how come one version produced laughter, while another was a stern reminder of past atrocities. 

The interviewee remarked that in its original context, the speaker`s ability not only to articulate the anger of its audiences, but actually recreate it on stage (“People feel it, but don't articulate it... Hence, if you don't become one of them in your articulation of it, you can't convince them that that is the truth.”). The response is visceral; the speaker`s engagement with his subject is played out rather than argued.

There is a catch with this ridiculing of Hitler, in the sense that placing the character out of context easily turns him into a loon and acts as a sort of eulogy of today`s individual who feels  he would never fall for someone as ridiculous and outrageous.  

Artefact 5 - abort and redo

Artefact 5 has proved to be quite a pain. I have made the animation but decided to redesign the artefact from scratch. I`m going to do an interview instead but before I explain why the sudden change, I`d like to take the time to explain some things I did gain from the experience of making the animation.

Having to draw and animate, both processes involving significant amount of time, even for a short and very basic project, makes you boil down your message to its essence. You think about what is really crucial in getting your point across because you don`t want to waste time working on details that add nothing to the final  work.

If you have the additional problem that I do of not being skilled in drawing, you`ll also have to consider how `simple can be better`. Simple drawings, simple actions, cut to the chase in a few frames.

The theme was `people who project their personal beliefs unto random patterns discovered on everyday objects`. The main inspiration came from the Mitchell and Webb sketch I posted earlier, but there are a few other sources to look at:

 So, why the sudden change? I just felt that although the subject was interesting, I was straying from the central point of my argument right at the end of the project. This research project`s aim was to examine how what performers do on stage, their delivery as a whole, affects how the audience understands the underlying message. The focus is on different aspects of a performance, and animation is in a way, in a league of its own, especially when it doesn`t rely on anthropomorphous characters and doesn`t use recorded voices. 

Instead, I have arranged for an online interview on the subject of discourse analysis, using a video collage as a starting point.  

Artefact 5 conundrum

I`ve had trouble deciding on what the fifth artefact should look like. First, I thought I would look at animation, on how a comedic content delivered not by a live performer but by animated characters influences the audiences` perception. More specifically, I wanted to see whether a comedian could get away with an outrageous view on a sensitive topic by dressing his argument up in the clothes of animation.

Initially, I looked for some examples. I found a few sketches from That Mitchell and Webb Look which were done using animation.

An sketch parodying a very modern day obsession called `interactivity`. In an unrelenting quest to find out what the viewers think, TV shows have become less and less reliant on delivering and uncovering facts, but have morphed into a narcissistic exercise for the masses. It`s all about what YOU think, and YOUR opinion is important to us (irrespective of whether it is an informed one or indeed, if it is relevant to anyone else except you).

Corporate ethics...rrrright! Improving our record day-by-day (disclaimer: not really!)

So, I decided to do a short animated sequence inspired by the following sketch:

Things to consider:

a) how to translate the message of the original sketch into an animated form (since the animation will not be an exact replica of the filmed version)

b) what does animation bring to the comedy table?

c) seeing that I won`t be able to record voice actors, how can animation compensate the lack of paraverbal cues?

Artefact 4

As I mentioned in an earlier post where I talked about the meaning of gestures, I wanted to do a second experiment that would encompass this side of a performance. Only, the way I did it this time, was to choose the same performance (a segment from a film) and, taking advantage of the language barrier, write an alternative set of subtitles that would fit the scenario. This way, hopefully, I could focus the respondents` attention on nonverbal and paraverbal cues. The scenarios were quite different; the original one was of two guys trying to blackmail and humiliate a barmaid in order to get free drinks; the alternative version re-cast them as thugs, coming for protection money.  

It should be interesting to note:

a) whether judging by the gestures and tone employed by the actors on screen, the audiences will find both scenarios plausible

b) if they will find it hard to tell which one is the original version

c) whether or not they will identify the importance of paraverbal means in their choosing the right version