3rd July 2007, 6:07 AM
DJ and I were bullshitting about hidden meanings and how they were used in cartoons like Dexter's Lab and I wanted his opinion on a story dynamic i'm working on and he says Uncle Jesse wants me to post it and get everyone's opinions, so ta-da!
Begin copy past'd
Me: Do you like stories with hidden meanings? Like Kubrick or ... cellphone packages?
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DJ: Hidden meanings... like when they have "making of" documentaries? Or, like magic? :D
Anyway, I don't know much about the peoples like one of them Kubricks, but I do enjoy hidden meanings every now and then. I also enjoy stories that lack allegory completely. Sometimes I get the inspiration for this or that, and sometimes that monster or this thing might be inspired by something but I don't mind not really knowing it. Then there's stuff like Dexter's lab. That just gets funnier with time.
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Me: Dex was just awesome, I was so pissed when it got canceled. It was the first modern cartoon I saw where I thought "Wow this is good". The hidden stuff about family, upbringing even sexuality and incest was written so well that people fell in to it and, the older the viewer, the more they understood. Just plain genius. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is also good, you should give it a shot if you haven't already. There's alot of play around the separation of childhood and adulthood with the teenage girl being the link who suffers the slings and arrows of responsibility (teaching the younger characters who adapt and actively watch her struggles) while the main character (Max) teaches her how to still enjoy childhood. The whole spin on the series seems to be targeted at teens with a statement of 'dont try to grow up too fast'. It's pretty well done, almost every episode deals with a younger character in a delima with an older character offering guidance - the younger character then gets different opinions from other 'older' characters from a visceral old rabbit to manly-men and so on until the younger character who has the issue can gain the understanding to overcome it.
I have found two distinct levels of serious story telling of which all categories can be placed within. There are directors and writers who crutch on the ideal of retelling an event. Let's take the story of Moses from the old testament except Moses is an ant, Egypt is a backyard, God is the neighbors cat, etc. Now you can tell this engrossing multifaceted arc and it 'feels' new to the viewer but has the same morals as what the bible story teaches (but how many people besides me do you know that actually read bibles and not just for certain passages?) so the audience is none the wiser.
I call that method 'passive' subtextual story telling. The hidden meaning is just a backdrop to add a level of meat to the story. This is what most writers/directors use. It's most simple form is where the writer takes an event like a car crash or personal experience and retells it to convey the same emotion and learned lesson. A writer who faced depression, attempted suicide and all that fun stuff will find a way to share it in a easily grasped generality. Batman would fit here with the obvious overtones of depression, isolation, etc. If you ever saw (or read) Stuart Little you would find it's actually a complicated story about a child dealing with adoption - the writer (and later the director of the movie) were both adopted and wanted to share that emotional construct.
The flipside is 'active' subtextual story telling - both are passive in nature but while passive story telling just offers a substructure to build on the active story takes it a huge step in a different direction. This is where the writer is going to take an event in history (birth of America) or a thought process that's generally well known (religion) and study it to a degree that actually allows them to philosophize and educate others but in a hidden way so as to not come across as a soap box preacher and allow the viewer to gain their own insight and opinion from it. This Kubrickian process is the same as what was done with things such as the multiple versions of the bible and even the structures of governments within world powers (balancing the masses).
But it's most common form is ads and commercials where groups of designers come up with a campaign based off the wants and needs of basic human elements and covertly establish a level of social acceptance in order to sell a product (even lying to do so) - but they, like Kubrick, will first sell you its idea and concept - causing the viewer to gain his or her own opinion on whether they want it or not which isn't entirely your own since what you know about it was dictated by its source which raises our inability to trust our own judgment and rely on the social acceptance aspect and when its done really well you can have an entire nation or even the world buying a drink that actually tastes bad or a 600 dollar MP3 player.
The story teller doesn't want to lie to you so instead of trying to get you interested in some meaningless product there's a deep significance and morality such as human life, social climate and understanding, dynamics of faith Vs. reality and whats applied to life or gaining a fully encompassing understanding of the ideals of a historical event that would normally take volumes upon chapters and hours of education in a relatively short period of time and in a way that you weren't conscious to because just like the ad designers who used tried and true psychology with images and sound to attack your subconscious the master story teller applied the same rules - suddenly seeing a movie that has nothing to do with God or the ideal of God has actually given you a significant understanding of the ideal of God.
what do you think?
Begin copy past'd
Me: Do you like stories with hidden meanings? Like Kubrick or ... cellphone packages?
---
DJ: Hidden meanings... like when they have "making of" documentaries? Or, like magic? :D
Anyway, I don't know much about the peoples like one of them Kubricks, but I do enjoy hidden meanings every now and then. I also enjoy stories that lack allegory completely. Sometimes I get the inspiration for this or that, and sometimes that monster or this thing might be inspired by something but I don't mind not really knowing it. Then there's stuff like Dexter's lab. That just gets funnier with time.
---
Me: Dex was just awesome, I was so pissed when it got canceled. It was the first modern cartoon I saw where I thought "Wow this is good". The hidden stuff about family, upbringing even sexuality and incest was written so well that people fell in to it and, the older the viewer, the more they understood. Just plain genius. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is also good, you should give it a shot if you haven't already. There's alot of play around the separation of childhood and adulthood with the teenage girl being the link who suffers the slings and arrows of responsibility (teaching the younger characters who adapt and actively watch her struggles) while the main character (Max) teaches her how to still enjoy childhood. The whole spin on the series seems to be targeted at teens with a statement of 'dont try to grow up too fast'. It's pretty well done, almost every episode deals with a younger character in a delima with an older character offering guidance - the younger character then gets different opinions from other 'older' characters from a visceral old rabbit to manly-men and so on until the younger character who has the issue can gain the understanding to overcome it.
I have found two distinct levels of serious story telling of which all categories can be placed within. There are directors and writers who crutch on the ideal of retelling an event. Let's take the story of Moses from the old testament except Moses is an ant, Egypt is a backyard, God is the neighbors cat, etc. Now you can tell this engrossing multifaceted arc and it 'feels' new to the viewer but has the same morals as what the bible story teaches (but how many people besides me do you know that actually read bibles and not just for certain passages?) so the audience is none the wiser.
I call that method 'passive' subtextual story telling. The hidden meaning is just a backdrop to add a level of meat to the story. This is what most writers/directors use. It's most simple form is where the writer takes an event like a car crash or personal experience and retells it to convey the same emotion and learned lesson. A writer who faced depression, attempted suicide and all that fun stuff will find a way to share it in a easily grasped generality. Batman would fit here with the obvious overtones of depression, isolation, etc. If you ever saw (or read) Stuart Little you would find it's actually a complicated story about a child dealing with adoption - the writer (and later the director of the movie) were both adopted and wanted to share that emotional construct.
The flipside is 'active' subtextual story telling - both are passive in nature but while passive story telling just offers a substructure to build on the active story takes it a huge step in a different direction. This is where the writer is going to take an event in history (birth of America) or a thought process that's generally well known (religion) and study it to a degree that actually allows them to philosophize and educate others but in a hidden way so as to not come across as a soap box preacher and allow the viewer to gain their own insight and opinion from it. This Kubrickian process is the same as what was done with things such as the multiple versions of the bible and even the structures of governments within world powers (balancing the masses).
But it's most common form is ads and commercials where groups of designers come up with a campaign based off the wants and needs of basic human elements and covertly establish a level of social acceptance in order to sell a product (even lying to do so) - but they, like Kubrick, will first sell you its idea and concept - causing the viewer to gain his or her own opinion on whether they want it or not which isn't entirely your own since what you know about it was dictated by its source which raises our inability to trust our own judgment and rely on the social acceptance aspect and when its done really well you can have an entire nation or even the world buying a drink that actually tastes bad or a 600 dollar MP3 player.
The story teller doesn't want to lie to you so instead of trying to get you interested in some meaningless product there's a deep significance and morality such as human life, social climate and understanding, dynamics of faith Vs. reality and whats applied to life or gaining a fully encompassing understanding of the ideals of a historical event that would normally take volumes upon chapters and hours of education in a relatively short period of time and in a way that you weren't conscious to because just like the ad designers who used tried and true psychology with images and sound to attack your subconscious the master story teller applied the same rules - suddenly seeing a movie that has nothing to do with God or the ideal of God has actually given you a significant understanding of the ideal of God.
what do you think?