Chris and Alex take to the basketball court for a sports-themed instalment of the podcast by looking at Space Jam (Joe Pytka, 1996), the part-animated, part-Michael Jordan sports comedy that has lots to say about the spectacle of stylistic hybridity, animation’s longstanding relationship to sport, and nostalgia via its many callbacks to Golden Age Hollywood cartooning all through the lens of NBA basketball. Joining them for Episode 70 is Professor Paul Wells, who is Director of the Animation Academy at Loughborough University, as well as being an internationally established scholar, screenwriter and director, working across and within both academia and industry contexts. Paul’s work has been central to the study, practice and research of animation as a field, and he has also written and directed numerous projects for theatre, radio, television and film. Listen as they discuss Space Jam as a laboratory for thinking about sport as a social metaphor for how societies should run; animation’s status as controlled drama (versus the unscripted nature of sport); notions of the professional versus the amateur in relation to sport’s rules, codes and conventions; the cultural practice of stars Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, and their ability to act as ciphers for the contemporary moment; how the medium provides a version of ‘perfect motion’ through its excessive lyricism; the politics of race and what Space Jam tells us about black identities and whiteness through its black musical vernacular; and how Joe Pytka’s film reveals how animation can manage the very metaphors of sport.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) (with Becca Harrison)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) (with Meredith Braun)
Mary Poppins Returns (2018) (with Christian Kaestner and Frederikke Glick)
Ex Machina (2014) (with Andrew Whitehurst)
The Valley of Gwangi (1969) (with Astrid Goldsmith)
Corpse Bride (2005) (with Emily Mantell)
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012) (with Richard Haynes)
Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) (with Robert Maslen)
Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) (with Stuart Messinger)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) (with Simran Hans)
King Kong (2005) (with Barry J.C. Purves)
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) (with Shaun Gunner)
Waltz with Bashir (2008) (with Bella Honess Roe)
Gulliver’s Travels (1939)
Pogles’ Wood (1965-1967) (with Simon Costin)
Aladdin (1992) (with Steve Henderson)
Peppa Pig (2004-) (with Richard Dyer)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2019 (Part 2)
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