Disney's Animated Humanimal

(1)

Disney’s Animated Humanimal

A textual analysis of Lady and the Tramp (1955 and 2019) and

Dumbo (1941 and 2019) on anthropomorphism, human-animal

relations, anti-anthropocentrism and audience engagement

University of Amsterdam (Graduate School of Humanities) MA Media Studies: Television and Cross-Media Culture

Thesis Supervisor: dhr. dr. J.W. Kooijman Second Reader: dhr. dr. T. Pape

Master Thesis submitted by: Rik Vleer (11026014) Date: 30 June 2020 Words: 23188

(2)

Abstract

Animals in Disney films can do marvelous things. They walk on two legs, they talk, laugh, cry and wear clothes. Even the characteristics in their appearance are adjusted to make them look more like humans. They are thus anthropomorphized in various ways in these films. The old cartoon figure Mickey Mouse is a classic example: a mouse that walks on two legs, wears clothes, talks in a human language, has exaggerated human-like eyes and possesses human skills. These (humanized) animal characters also often interact with humans in these films and this interaction or relation also influences the animal’s representation. Recently, Disney has started to produce live-action remakes with animals that are animated looking very much like real-life animals. I examine in this thesis how the animals are anthropomorphized and

animalized in the original Disney films compared to these recent remakes. A textual analysis of Lady and the Tramp and Dumbo is done because they both have recent remakes. In this thesis I argue how certain human-animal relationships and animal-animal relationships are used in various ways to represent the animal characters either as anthropomorphic or animalistic. Furthermore, I examine the various types of anthropomorphism and anti-anthropocentrism that are present in each film and to what degree or level of

anthropomorphism these types belong to. Finally, I argue how the personhoods of the animal characters are constructed as animalistic or anthropomorphic and how the spectator is invited to identify with the animal characters in an anthropomorphic or animalistic way.

Keywords: anthropomorphism, anthropocentrism, anti-anthropocentrism, human-animal

(3)

Introduction

Although stories strictly belong to the world of human beings, there are plenty of stories that are told through animals as narrators and protagonists. Particularly, the Disney company has produced a lot of stories in which animals play a significant role. The company has made audiovisual material with animal protagonists and narrators from cartoons to feature films. The animal characters in this material interact with humans and even look like humans in certain cases. Disney’s famous characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are good examples of animal characters that look human-like. Disney seems to humanize its animal characters in order to tell their stories. Scholars have written about this humanization or anthropomorphism of animal characters is Disney films. However, recently the Disney company has produced several live-action remakes with animal characters looking more like real-life animals. There has been very little research done on the humanization of the animals in those live-action remakes.

In this thesis, I want to examine the ways in which the animal characters are anthropomorphized or instead animalized in the original Disney films and their recent remakes. To do so I examine which human-animal relations or interactions are portrayed in both films and what these mean. How are the animal and human character related to each other in each film and what does this mean for the representation of the animals involved? Do they become more animalistic or anthropomorphic? The same questions could also be asked about certain relations between animals in the films. How do the animals relate to each other and what does this relationship do to their representation? Furthermore, which types of anthropomorphism and anti-anthropocentrism are detectable in each film and to what degree do they anthropomorphize or animalize the animals? I am also interested in how the spectator is invited to identify or engage with these animal characters in an animalistic or

anthropomorphic way. I will compare the original films and their remakes to each other throughout the thesis in order to answer these questions.

The corpus of this thesis consists of two Disney films that have recent live-action remakes. This made the list of Disney films I could choose from much more narrow. The first Disney film I have chosen to examine as one of the case studies within this thesis is Lady and the Tramp (1955). The live-action remake of this classic Disney film was released in 2019. This is one reason for choosing this Disney film. There are some other reasons for selecting these films. These films both have animal protagonists that help to tell the story for example.

(5)

Moreover, in both these films there are animal and human characters portrayed as well as their relationships to each other. Finally, I could not find much academic literature about this remake, which makes this thesis much more relevant. The choice for the second film was more difficult. I chose The Lion King (1994) at first. This Disney classic also has a remake from 2019. After analyzing Lady and the Tramp however, I thought this choice would not fit within this thesis because there are no human characters in The Lion King. The human-animal relations, which are a significant part of this thesis, would not be present in this film and therefore I looked further at other options. At that moment I chose Dumbo (1941) instead as the second case study of this thesis. This Disney classic also has a remake from 2019.

Moreover, there are animal protagonists that interact with human characters in both films and unlike with The Lion King there are not much academic articles written about the remake of Dumbo. This made Dumbo a perfect second case study for this thesis.

This thesis is divided into three chapters. In the first chapter I will explore the theory and discussion around human-animal relationships, anthropomorphism,

anti-anthropocentrism, animal personhood and spectator engagement. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section discusses the theory around the relationship between animals and humans in the world and the representation of this relationship in media. Two very important concepts related to that subject are introduced in this section: anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism. The second section discusses several ways in which animals are anthropomorphized by humans. The third section focuses on various ways in which animals are represented by humans in an animalistic or anti-anthropocentric way. These two sections also focus on how animals in media such as film are anthropomorphized or animalized. The fourth section discusses how animal characters can have personhood, how these personhoods can be constructed through animal or human cues and how the spectator is subsequently invited to identify those animal characters as anthropomorphic or animalistic.

The second chapter contains a textual analysis of both Lady and the Tramp films. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the various human-animal relations and animal-animal relations that are present in both films and how these relations are used to either anthropomorphize or animalize the animal characters (in various ways). I will examine how these relations are visualized or depicted through the framing of the shots, the angle of shots or the narrative for instance. The second section focuses on the various types of anthropomorphism that are detectable in both films. Here I try to examine which types are used on both films and which are only used in one of the two films. Furthermore, I try to determine which types of anthropomorphism are more effectively humanizing the animals

(6)

than other types or how certain types together help to lift the level of anthropomorphism. This section also contains the part in which the construction of the personhood of the animal characters is examined. Here I examine how the personhood of the animal characters is constructed in an anthropomorphic way. Finally, I examine how and in which moments the spectator is invited to identify these animal characters as anthropomorphic. The third section has the exact same structure as the second section of this chapter but there the focus is on an animalistic representations of the animal characters. This means that various ways in which the animal characters are animalized in both films are discussed, combined with

animalistically constructed personhoods and the ways in which the spectator is invited to identify the animal characters as animalistic.

The third chapter is structured in the exact same way as the second chapter but in this chapter the Disney film Dumbo and its live-action remake are analyzed. This means that the first section focuses on the various human-animal relations and animal-animal relations in each film and how they are similarly or differently used to anthropomorphize or animalize the animal characters. The second section discusses the various types of anthropomorphism that are present in both films. Similarities and differences between the two films are addressed and I argue which types of anthropomorphism more effectively humanize the animal characters. That way I am able to argue how each film anthropomorphizes their animal characters and to what degree. This section also includes the personhoods of the animal characters and how they are constructed in an anthropomorphic way. Finally, I examine how the spectator is invited to identify or engage with these animal characters in an animalistic way. The final section of this chapter is focused on the animalistic ways in which the animal characters are represented in both films. This section is structured in the same way as the second section. This means that various animalistic representations of the animal characters in both films are discussed, similarities and differences are examined and I argue to what degree the animals are animalized in both films. Finally, the animalistically constructed personhoods and the animalistic ways in which the spectator is invited to identify with the animal characters are discussed.

(7)

Chapter 1: Human-animal relations, anthropomorphism,

anti-anthropocentrism and non-human personhood

There are plenty of famous films and stories in which animals are talking and living among humans. Particularly children’s stories are full of animals that talk, look and behave like humans. These animals interact with people in all sorts of ways and are humanized in various ways. Disney’s films for example, are full of these human-like animals that interact with humans. Mickey Mouse, the talking mouse that wears clothes for instance or the animals in The Jungle Book (1967) that talk to the human boy called Mowgli. I wonder where these animal interactions and this urge to humanize animals come from, what these human-animal relationships mean, in what ways human-animals are being humanized or rather human-animalized in media such as film and what this means for the identification with those animal characters by the spectator of the film.

Therefore, I have divided this chapter into four sections. In the first section I will introduce the terms anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism because they both belong to theory about the relationship between animal and human. Here I discuss theory about the relationship between humans and animals, how this relationship can be depicted in media and what these relations tell about both the humans and animals involved in that relation. In the second section I will introduce several types of anthropomorphism and discuss several ways in which animals can be humanized by humans, in the world and in media (film). The third section will discuss theory about how animals can be represented in an animalistic way. Here certain anti-anthropocentric concepts will be introduced such as: becoming animal, pure animal, critical human, better- and worse fictional animals, animal agency etc. The final section of this chapter focuses on what a character is, how animal characters can have personhood, how these personhoods are constructed and how the spectator engages with the animal character in a film: in an anthropomorphic or animalistic way.

Section 1.1 Human-animal relations

The relation between ‘human’ and ‘animal’ is very complex. Many scholars have tried to define what makes the human human and in what way they are different from non-human animals. There is also still no consensus about how humans should look at animals and try to understand them. Therefore, questions of how humans relate to animals, what makes them

(8)

different or similar, trying to understand their behavior and motives are central in this area of expertise. Epley et al. provide a useful and clear definition of the concept anthropomorphism:

“Imbuing the imagined or real behavior of nonhuman agents with humanlike characteristics, motivations, intentions, and emotions is the essence of

anthropomorphism. These nonhuman agents may include anything that acts with apparent independence, including nonhuman animals, natural forces, religious deities, and mechanical or electronic devices.” (Epley et al., 864-865).

This is the first part of anthropomorphism, in which the behavior of non-human animals is explained or understood through human behavioral aspects like emotions for example. The second aspect of anthropomorphism is to attribute a humanlike mental state to a non-human being or thing (Epley et al., 865). To give an example: humans can describe an animal as affectionate (behavior) but they can also understand this behavior as love (mental state).

Humans tend to anthropomorphize or humanize because this is part of their process of understanding the world around them according to cognitive scientist Stewart Guthrie:

“Nothing is so important to us as other humans. Because we are preoccupied with each other, we are sensitive to any possible human presence and have tolerant standards for detecting it. Mostly unconsciously, we fit the world first with diverse humanlike templates. Our preoccupation with a human prototype guides perception in daily life.” (Guthrie, 91).

The process of perception is a process of interpretation (Guthrie, 98). When humans perceive something, they interpret it as something they already know (something humanlike). They can make sense of it, by humanizing it.

Moreover, according to Guthrie this process of anthropomorphizing is something primal in young children:

“Developmental psychologists show that children and even infants interpret

phenomena as humanlike, as caused by humans, or both. Clinical and experimental psychologists, and ethnographers, show that adults do so as well. In sum, the research shows that a generalized anthropomorphism is spontaneous and primitive in children and persists in adults.” (Guthrie, 121).

(9)

In other words, according to Guthrie the process of humanizing the non-human is something that young children have since birth and persists in adult people. For children this is a basic way of making sense of the world around them, including the non-human animals around them.

Anthropocentrism is a slightly different term that describes the human-animal relation as well. According to Sam Cadman anthropocentrism in general is: “[a]ny view magnifying the importance of human beings in the cosmos, e.g. by seeing it as created for our benefit” (Cadman, 167). Anthropocentrism is thus the view that sees the human being as the most important thing in the universe, in which everything is made for their benefit. Cadman also gives a definition of the term from animal studies theory: “anthropocentrism as an ideology which, by means of an essential human/animal binary, operates to ‘maintain the centrality and priority of human existence through marginalizing and subordinating nonhuman perspectives, interests and beings’.” (Cadman, 167). In this sense, anthropocentrism is the process of representing non-human animals as inferior or subordinate compared to the superior human. This also suggests that anthropomorphism stimulates anthropocentrism. By humanizing animals and other things, people are again trying to make sense of things through a human centered perspective.

However, anthropocentrism does not always have to be caused by a goal of human superiority. Steve Baker suggests in his book Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity, and Representation (2016), that animals are often objectified by humans. Western people have the tendency to create oppositions in order to organize things and to make categories. That’s why they also tend to make oppositions between animals and humans. This human:animal

opposition is created for people’s process of self-definition (Baker, 78-79). The self of the human is opposed to ‘the animal other’ in this case.

This process of opposing oneself to the ‘other’ also happens within human societies. People try to define their selves and their own groups by defining certain people as insiders and others as outsiders (Baker, 79). This is exactly what people do with animals. However, this does not always result in negative images of the animals. People tend to divide animals “into ‘tame animals’ that are ‘like people’ and ‘wild animals’ that are not; or ‘tame animals’ are divided into ‘pets’ that are ‘like people’ and ‘livestock’ that are not.” (Baker, 80). The pets are thus insiders to people. They are a part of their group. In this case, the anthropocentrism does not lead to a subordinate depiction of the non-human animal. They are rather depicted as being ‘like us’ (humans).

(10)

defined by the media. Jonathan Burt adequately describes how in modernity the relationship between human and non-human animal changed. To do so, he quotes Steve Baker: “the modern animal is … the nineteenth-century animal (symbolic, sentimental), which has been made to disappear.” (Burt, 25). By this he means that physical interactions between humans and non-human animals in their natural habitat decline and other interactions decrease. Examples of these other interactions are petkeeping, anthropomorphism and sentimentality (Burt, 26). The animals are being pictured, represented or framed in a unnatural way. That’s why Baker questions whether this development “intensifies the alienation and disappearance of animals that is seen as the central consequence of modernity.” (Burt, 26).

John Berger also talks about animal imagery. According to him: “animals are always the observed. The fact that they can observe us has lost all significance. They are the objects of our ever-extending knowledge. What we know about them is an index of our power, and thus an index of what separates us from them.” (Berger, 257). The non-human animals are being observed by humans and not the other way around (anthropocentrism). Humans tend to depict these animals as substitutive, a spectacle, empty or mass produced (Berger, 256-257). This is the case because of modernity. Berger gives the examples of zoos, commercial animal imagery like Disney and realistic animal toys to explain how animals have become marginal ever since the animals started to disappear from daily life (Berger, 260). People are only interacting with these representations of animals that modernity gives them. They do not interact with the ‘real’ animal.

Akira Lippit builds on Berger’s argument by saying: “Modernity can be defined by the disappearance of wildlife from humanity’s habitat and by the reappearance of the same in humanity’s reflections on itself: in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and technological media such as the telephone, film, and radio.” (Lippit, 2-3). In other words, Lippit is also saying that non-human animals are vanishing from people’s daily lives and are only still visible to people through representations of these animals. However, Lippit puts more emphasis on

technologies that represent the non-human animal by naming the telephone, film and radio. Berger said that the zoos ‘killed’ the ‘real’ animal or wildlife, whereas Lippit says that: “In this manner, technology and ultimately the cinema came to determine a vast mausoleum for animal being.” (Lippit, 187). Meaning that technology like film meant the ‘death’ of wildlife or the ‘real’ animal, since people would just interact with the representations of those real animals.

Animals are a common phenomenon in various media. According to Erica Fudge especially media meant for children has a dominant focus on non-human animals: “The use of

(11)

animals in children’s literature is an old one, and is one that opens up ideas about how we wish to live with animals.” (Fudge, 69). She quotes Freud to explain why this probably is the case: “Children show no trace of the arrogance which urges adult civilized men to draw a hard-and-fast line between their own nature and that of all other animals. Children have no scruples over allowing the avowal of their bodily needs, they no doubt feel themselves more akin to animals than their elders, who may well be a puzzle to them.” (Fudge, 70). Children thus seem to lack the arrogance that adults have, that makes them think they are totally different from non-human animals. In childhood, animals are of a particular value and that’s why animals appear in many books which are written for children (Fudge, 70). This also goes for films that are made for children such as the animated Disney films. The interactions between the animals and the humans in these stories can help to rethink the relations between humans and animals in the world according to Fudge (74).

Paul Wells agrees with Fudge that animals in children stories can learn people something about the relationship between human and animal. However, his focus is dominantly on animated animals: “Further, rather than seeing animals in animation as “imposters,” it is useful to recognize their status as phenomena embodying the relationship between animal and humankind.” (Wells, 11). Furthermore, he states that animating animals is not a process of showing humankind’s superiority over animals and it is not meant to ridicule the animals in order to make them ‘safe’ to people (Wells, 11). The animated animal rather makes people rethink human-animal relationships and animal identities.

Section 1.2 Various types of anthropomorphism

Fudge also gives examples of various types of anthropomorphism that she recognizes in children stories. She explains: “Part of growing up, it seems, entails a growing away from animals.” (Fudge, 73). As people get older they lose the connection with animals according to Fudge. This also comes back in a lot of stories made for children. Fudge gives the example of stories in which children are able to communicate or talk with animals within the story, while the adults in the story are not capable of doing this (Fudge, 72). This is the first type of anthropomorphic story she mentions.

Another type of children stories has animal protagonists who can speak to all human characters. They can understand each other and the animals live among people without this being strange (Fudge, 72). These forms of anthropomorphism tell something about the relation between human and animal. They both give people the idea of equality between

(12)

human and animal. In the second example every human being is able to talk with animals and in the first example only children have this power. Like Fudge says, this could change our way of thinking about animals: “If we could hear animals speak to each other, could we still do what we do to them?” (Fudge, 74).

To explain a third kind of anthropomorphism in children stories, she gives the

example of Lassie Come-Home (1940). In this book the writer Eric Knight tells the story and is able to translate the barking of another dog into human language but there is no actual conversation between them (Fudge, 75). The narrator is also capable of describing or looking in the minds of people and animals (Fudge, 75). The thought processes of people and Lassie are described throughout the story. This means that the animal is given a thought process (Fudge, 75). In other cases, the thoughts of Lassie are not described and are therefore not really clear. This however, gives the reader room to guess or think what the intentions of the (animal) characters are (Fudge 76).

This kind of anthropomorphism recognizes that the world of animals is difficult to understand but it argues that some communication between human and animal is possible (Fudge, 76). This example of anthropomorphism and the example with children being able to communicate with animals, both give the adult a feeling of missing out on communication with animals (Fudge, 75). These forms of anthropomorphism can help people to rethink their relation to non-human animals (Fudge, 76). For example, anthropomorphism might serve in an ethical way: “if we don’t believe that in some way we can communicate with and

understand animals, what is to make us stop and think as we experiment upon them, eat them, put them in cages?” (Fudge, 76).

Animals are also frequently anthropomorphized in Disney films, since animal characters play significant roles in many of these films. They are known for their use of anthropomorphic animated animals according to Stephanie Eidt: “Anthropomorphic animals have become a hallmark of Disney films, accounting for a large portion of those animals appearing as main characters in 77 movies from 1937 to 2012” (Eidt, 7). Various types of anthropomorphism are used in these films such as animals that are able to talk in a human language and animals that can express their emotions (Eidt, 7). Other ways in which this anthropomorphism functions are animals wearing clothes, having jobs or playing instruments (Eidt, 7). Animals are fictitiously represented in these Disney films: “These movies create an idealized nature to which the real thing cannot compare, perhaps somewhat analogous to Photoshop for wildlife.” (Eidt, 6).

(13)

cute and harmless: “like a bloodhound’s droopy ears and floppy gums or the puffy little cheeks and fat little torsos of chipmunks and squirrels.” (Wells, 94). Stephanie Eidt adds to that: “Often the protagonists and sidekicks are given eyes and ears of clearly exaggerated size, even for newborns.” (Eidt, 7). This phenomenon makes it easier for the spectator to feel empathy for these animal characters and bond with them emotionally, but it may influence the connection between the human spectator and the real-life animal behind the portrayed

animated animal (Eidt, 7). Eidt is afraid that these representations of animals by Disney misinform the children spectators about the biological world. Therefore, she pleads for more realistic representations of animals in Disney films in order to inform children the right way (Eidt, 20).

Guthrie names some other anthropomorphic things that people assign to animals: “Animals also widely live in kingdoms, with kings and parliaments, or in other political communities. They conduct warfare (usually between domesticated and wild animals or between two species, such as a predator and its prey), make peace treaties and alliances (often between species), and conduct legal relationships including lawsuits and criminal trials. They marry, again throughout the animal kingdom and often across species. They conduct humanlike relationships with humans; are farmers, laborers, merchants,

tollkeepers, physicians, and musicians; and observe human religions. In short, animals of all sorts are conceived as having human social characteristics and relationships.” (Guthrie, 113).

In other words, people tend to project all kinds of human social relationships onto the animal. This also means that if a relation between a human and animal character in a film is depicted as a human social relationship, this also makes the animal characters involved in that relation more anthropomorphic. If the relationship between a human and animal character is not depicted as a human relationship, this makes the animal involved more animalistic. It is thus clear that people can anthropomorphize animals in very different ways and this is also the case in a lot of animation films with animal characters.

Section 1.3 Anti-anthropocentric animals

The previous section explored various types of anthropomorphism. This theory was all focused on how animals are being anthropomorphized in animation. However, there are also scholars who claim that there is a representation of the non-human animal possible, away

(14)

from anthropocentrism.

Paul Wells uses the concept of becoming animal to describe how animators and writers should work, when they make a representation of the non-human animal. Becoming animal is the process in which: “The artist and the animal are, it seems, intimately bound up with each other in the unthinking orundoing of the conventionally human.” (Wells, 18-19). In this process, the animator becomes one with the animal that he or she is animating and the animator tries to make a representation of the animal without using conventional thoughts or understandings about that certain animal. As a result, the represented animals have the same behavior, primal motivations and actions as the ‘real-life’ animals would have:

“My instincts leading me to conclude that animated animal narratives essentially remain coherent and plausible so long as they retain the inner logic that informs the anthropomorphic intentions and outlook of the characters, but they fail more readily if they do not manage to accommodate what simplistically may be called recognizably true animal actions, behavior, and primal motivation.” (Wells, 22).

An animal’s representation without these true animal characteristics would be a failure according to Wells. The spectator is also able to ‘become’ the animal due to this kind of animation.

Wells introduces four types of animal representations that he recognizes in animated film. These four representations together form what he calls the bestial ambivalence model (Wells, 51). These four representations are not static and an animal character can be

represented in more than one way (Wells, 51). The first type of representation that he mentions is the pure animal. This term is “concerned with when the animal character is represented only through known animal traits and behaviors” (Wells, 51). This representation seems to linkup with his idea of becoming animal, in which true animal behavior is portrayed. This type of representation will also be the best way of avoiding anthropocentrism. The second type of representation is called the aspirational human. Within this representation the animal’s "character is used as a tool by which to demonstrate favorable human qualities and heroic motifs” (Wells, 52). This kind of representation is for example recognizable if an animal character acts heroic, is able to negotiate or acts like a true leader.

The third type of animal representation in film he mentions is called: critical human. In this case “the animal character is used to critique humankind” (Wells, 52). An example of this is an animal protagonist that resents human domination. The last representation that Wells

(15)

introduces, is the hybrid humanimal. This is an animal character that “seeks to show when a conceptual idea is shared by the parallel terms that have evolved to define and explain both the human and animal world.” (Wells, 52). To explain he gives the example of Shere Kahn. This is the tiger protagonist from The Jungle Book (2016). This animal character, who is at the top of the food chain in the animal kingdom, has the voice and accent of an English aristocrat in the film. According to Wells, signifiers for power and agency in both the human (English aristocrat accent) and animal (tiger at the top of the food chain) world are connected through this animal character (Wells, 52).

Cadman agrees with Wells on what the best representation of non-human animals in fiction looks like. He says that it is impossible to fully avoid anthropocentrism while one is dealing with fictional animals and therefore he divides them in: “‘worse’ fictional animals (anthropocentric) and ‘better’ (anti-anthropocentric).” These anti-anthropocentric animals or better fictional animals “possess a unique subjectivity not dependent for meaning on human consciousness” (Cadman, 168). Worse fictional animals on the other hand possess for instance human traits or knowledge (Cadman 172).

For Cadman, it is not necessarily a problem if the fictional animals can speak, as long as their consciousness and what they speak of is not dependent of human knowledge or meaning (Cadman, 173). To clarify the meaning of this, Cadman gives the example of a dog that tells another dog that she ate something in the park (Cadman, 173). This is an example of an better fictional animal. The language used to describe what one dog says to another, is just a technical device that helps to show the viewer or reader what these animals are

communicating about with each other (Cadman, 173). However, a dog that tells she liked the architecture surrounding the park or talks to a human in the English language is an

anthropocentric fictional animal, because it uses human understandings (Cadman, 173). It is thus possible to represent fictional animals in an anti-anthropocentric way according to Cadman.

The last concept that describes a way of avoiding anthropocentrism regarding animals in film, is called animal agency. Burt explains that this concept often is understood as “the lack of power animals have in relation to that which humans have over them.” (Burt, 31). However, to Burt the concept is meant to “outline the impact animals have on humans rather than always seeing animals as the passive partner, or victim.” (Burt, 31). This means that animals (in film) are able to act on their own and are able to have an impact on humans. This goes against anthropocentrism. Randy Malamud agrees with Burt that animals are able to act and affect humans and he also recognizes this in recent films with animal protagonists

(16)

(Malamud, 15). He gives the example of Remy the rat from Ratatouille (2007). Remy acts on his own and helps the human chef to cook better. Furthermore, Malamud says that

anthropocentrism can also be avoided by depicting the animal in its natural habitat, with a realistic appearance and behaving in a natural way (Malamud, 15).

In this section it has become clear, that it is possible to avoid an anthropocentric representation of animals in film. The animal should be portrayed as a self-acting thing that behaves in a natural way independent of humans. It is even more anti-anthropocentric if the animals are depicted with a realistic appearance, habitat and behavior. In the next section it will become clear how animal characters are constructed in film and how these animal

protagonists are given personhood in order to engage the audience with the characters and the narrative.

Section 1.4 Animal characters, personhood and the engaged spectator

The previous three sections discussed the relationship between human and animal and the representation of animals in media. This section focuses on what a character is, how animal characters can have a personhood, how these personhoods are constructed through

anthropomorphic or animalistic cues and how the spectator is able to recognize or identify with an animal character after being aligned with that animal. It will become clear how the spectator is invited to engage with the animal character as either animalistic or

anthropomorphic.

The definition of a character that Patrick Power makes, will be used here: “What defines a character within a narrative context is that it is an entity with agency: an intentional agent relevant to the story.” (Power, 29). A character is firstly someone or something that acts within a story and is relevant to that story. It is a crucial part of the story. Power goes on by saying: “modern conception of character both in the arts and everyday terms is an entity that is ‘affected by experience, built of goals, intentions, and emotions, from which actions flow’” (Power, 29). Thus, a character has some sort of goal he or she wants to achieve and is influenced by things he or she experiences. Furthermore, is a character filled with intentions and emotions that make him or her act. Their actions and motivated intent drive the story.

If the desires, intentions and motivations of characters are not clear to the audience, the narrative will not work. The spectator tries to mentalize or read the mind of the characters (Power, 38). The audience tries to find out what the characters’ desires, intentions and

(17)

the audience with the story, the characters need to have some agency, intent and motivation. The audience can also be engaged with the characters and the narrative through empathy (Power, 38-39). This is a “sharing of affect that can be evoked by perceiving another’s

emotional state, either directly or indirectly through narrative.” (Power, 38-39). Bringing over emotions from the characters to the spectator thus stimulates engagement.

Joseph Bates agrees with Power on this. He is a scholar in artificial intelligence and writes about animated characters and how people engage with them. He writes: “The apparent desires of a character, and the way the character feels about what happens in the world with respect to those desires, are what make us care about that character. If the character does not react emotionally to events, if they don’t care, then neither will we. The emotionless character is lifeless, as a machine.” (Bates, 2). This means that the character needs to have desires and emotions. Furthermore, the emotions need to be clearly defined in order to engage the audience with the character. It is thus clear that Bates puts a lot value on emotions within characters, to give them more believability and emotional engagement with spectators.

Power also talks about animal characters in animation film. People tend to

anthropomorphize animal characters in order to understand their intentions and motives just like they do with human characters (Power, 36). The animator and the spectator

anthropomorphize the animal characters in order to tell a story (Power, 36). The

anthropomorphic animal characters are needed to tell the story: “Anthropomorphs however, by virtue of their liminal dynamics, always personify a tale to be told.” (Power, 37).

Otherwise, it would not be clear to the audience what their intentions and motivations are and thus will the narrative not be clear. The audience would not be engaged with the animal characters and the narrative.

Engaging with animation film can also happen in multiple ways according to Power. Brain research has shown that “the more realistic the imagery, the more it triggered agency and intent, whereas the ‘peculiarly rich experience’ (Whitfield, 2006: 923) afforded by the animated dreamscapes might register more aesthetic or emotional reward.” (Power, 40). This means that more realistic animation triggers the audience to read the minds of the characters in order to find out what their intentions and goals are in the story, whereas the less realistic animation engages the audience on an emotional level with the characters and the narrative.

Pete Porter writes also about the engagement of spectators with characters. He specifically writes about engagement with animal characters. He uses the theory of Murray Smith. Smith wrote about the spectator’s engagement with characters. Spectators use Smith’s

(18)

person schema to test whether characters are persons or have personhood (Porter, 404). The person schema consists of:

“1. a discrete human body, individuated and continuous through time and space; 2. perceptual activity, including self-awareness; 3. intentional states, such as beliefs and desires; 4. emotions; 5. the ability to use and understand a natural language; 6. the capacity for self-impelled actions and self-interpretation; and 7. the potential for traits, or persisting attributes.” (Porter, 404).

The spectator can judge whether or not a character has personhood or agency with help of the person schema. This also means that the schema helps the spectator to engage with the characters.

According to Smith, this schema can also be used by spectators in order to explore the personhood of non-human animal characters (Porter, 405). Porter writes: “personhood and individual existence are not distinctly human features and are therefore not anthropomorphic.” (Porter, 402). In other words, personhood is also to be found in non-human animal characters and the person schema can help to do so. The schema is not a strict definition, it is rather an explanatory tool and therefore it can be used loosely (Porter, 404).

Porter introduces three cues of nonhuman personhood. These are cues that make the spectator form a sense of personhood around a non-human animal character (Porter, 406). The first he mentions are primary cues. These are cues of nonhuman personhood which are

formed by a non-human character (Porter, 406). These are thus animalistic cues that make the animal characters look more animal-like. An example of this is a little bear that stays with her dead mother, cries and keeps touching her with her paw. In this case the non-human character forms her own personhood with its voice and behavior.

Secondary external cues form the second category. These cues of personhood are assigned to non-human animal characters by other human characters or a narrator (Porter, 406). The last category consists of secondary internal cues which “come from the human performance of the nonhuman.” (Porter, 406). This is the case with animal characters that have human voices or are played by humans in animal costumes. The personhood of an animal character can thus be constructed through animalistic and human cues. This also has an effect on how the spectator will engage with the animal.

To determine how the spectator engages with an animal character Smith’s structure of sympathy can be used. The structure of sympathy is a model that consists of three

(19)

components: recognition, alignment and allegiances (Porter, 410). Recognition means when spectators construct a character. For example, they recognize Remy the rat from Disney’s Ratatouille (2007) as the same character throughout the film with certain specific traits and characteristics. Porter’s cues help the spectator to construct the characters. Alignment is explained as: “spectators are also provided with visual and aural information more or less congruent with that available to characters, and so are placed in a certain structure of

alignment with characters.” (Porter, 410). In other words, the spectators and the characters go through the same situation with the same information or knowledge and this aligns them. The longer a character’s screen-time or spatial alignment (the spectator gets to see the character) and the use of point-of-view shots stimulates the feeling of alignment between spectator and character (Porter, 410).

If the spectator is aligned with the animal behaving animal-like, looking animal-like, with an animalistic personhood and through the animal’s perspective he or she will recognize the animal as animalistic. The same thing goes for the alignment with an anthropomorphic animal: the spectator will recognize this animal as anthropomorphic. The spectator can also evaluate the values that a character embodies and those are called allegiances (Porter 410). Everything that the (animal) character does is evaluated by the spectator and this makes them like or dislike them: a positive or negative allegiance.

Conclusion

This chapter shows that there are various theories about how humans and animals relate to each other and should relate to each other. The representation of animals and the interaction between animals and humans in media like film are also important in this discussion. The way animals are depicted in film and how animals and humans relate to each other in film tells people a lot about that relation in the real world and about the real-life animal. This relation can be represented in an anthropocentric way in which the animal is subordinate to people or in an anti-anthropocentric way in which human and animal are represented as equals in film. This relation can also help to either animalize or humanize the animal characters involved. Furthermore, the chapter touches upon various ways in which animal characters within a film can be anthropomorphized or animalized. Finally, the chapter shows how spectators are able to construct the personhood of animal characters through animalistic or anthropomorphic cues. All of this can than lead to the spectator that engages or identifies with the animal character in an anthropomorphic or animalistic way.

(20)

Chapter 2: Human-animal relations, animal-animal relations,

anthropomorphism and anti-anthropocentrism in Lady and the Tramp

(1955, 2019)

A male and female dog romantically going out for dinner in an Italian restaurant, eating spaghetti, enjoying some live music and kissing each other on the lips may seem rather implausible but this is exactly what happens in the film Lady and the Tramp. The film tells the love story of two dogs named Lady and Tramp, a posh pedigree dog living with people from the upper class and a stray dog living on the streets. The film is known for its classic romantic scene in which the two dogs eat spaghetti of the same plate and end up accidentally kissing each other. This scene is present in the original film and in the remake. Both films are full of scenes in which the animals behave, act and think like humans. The main questions that will be answered in this chapter are how the animals relate to humans and to each other and how the animals are represented, as anthropomorphic or animalistic.

The first section will focus on how human-animal relations are portrayed and what this means for the representation of the animal characters. I will discuss how certain human-animal relationships make certain human-animals look anthropomorphic or rather human-animalistic. Moreover, I will argue in this section how certain animal-animal relationships make certain animal characters more anthropomorphic or animalistic. In section 2.2 I will discuss various types of anthropomorphism that are present in the two films. Here I will look at how animals behave like humans, talk like them or wear clothes for instance. The person schema will also be used to determine if the animal characters have personhood and the cues of personhood will be used to determine if their personhood is constructed as anthropomorphic. The structure of sympathy will finally be used to describe how the spectator is engaged with the animal characters as anthropomorphic. The last section of this chapter will focus on how the animal characters are depicted in an animalistic way in both films. Concepts like becoming animal, pure animal, critical human, better- and worse fictional animals and animal agency will be used here and the cues of personhood and the structure of sympathy will also be used but in this case to determine how the animals are portrayed as animalistic.

Section 2.1 Human-animal relations and animal-animal relations in Lady and the

(21)

First of all, both films have a narrative that portrays an anthropocentric human-animal relation. This means that in both films it is emphasized that the dogs like to be owned by humans and to be subordinate to people. The narratives of both films are pretty similar to each other. In both films Lady and her pet dog friends seem to love being owned by humans and are trying to be the best pet possible for their owners. However, Tramp seems to think

differently. In both films Tramp tells Lady that it is wonderful to be a free dog. He is trying to persuade Lady into joining the free life of a stray dog. Lady seems quite interested after seeing how easy Tramp manages as a street dog. However, in both films Lady still wants to go back home to protect her owners she calls family. She eventually ends up back home with her human owners. The happy ending to this story however, is when eventually even Tramp comes to live with the human family. Even he seems to be happy to be a pet dog.

Thus in both films the relation between human and dog is one in which the dogs ultimately want to be owned by people. The remake is even more anthropocentric in this sense than the original film. Only Tramp is a street dog that happily ends up with human owners in the original film. The remake however, shows two other street dogs that tell Tramp they finally got a human owner and that they are thrilled about that (figure 1). In the end of the film there are even two more street dogs that happily ended up with a human family. The remake is thus emphasizing even more that dogs love to be owned by humans. In other words, both films have a narrative that portrays an anthropocentric human-animal relation but the remake emphasizes this human-animal relation even more by adding more animal characters to the story that happily end up being owned by humans.

Figure 1. Two other street dogs tell Tramp they

have a human owner and that they are very happy with it. These animal characters only made this reappearance in the remake.

(22)

The framing of the shots in both films is used to portray certain human-animal relations. In both films multiple human-animal relations are portrayed and the framing of shots is used differently. The film from 1955 frames the animal characters at the center of the shot,

therefore the human characters are only partially visible in these low angled shots. In most of these shots the heads of the human characters are ‘cut off’ by the edges of the screen. In figure 2 and 3 are Lady and her (human) owners Darling and Jim Dear shown. However, their bodies are not fully visible in these shots. Their heads are cut off by the frame.

The human characters become anonymous because of this way of framing and thus the spectator is invited to identify with the animal. The spectator sees things from an animal’s perspective. This immediately creates a clear distinction between the human and the animal. Their human-animal relationship is one between owners and dog. They are not as equals framed within one shot. This kind of framing remains throughout the film. There are moments in which the human characters are fully visible in one shot with the animals but then their faces remain (partly) unseen. By framing Lady and her owners separately from each other, Lady is portrayed as an animal separated from what is human. In other words, the framing of the shots makes her more animal-like.

However, there is another relationship between human and animal to be found in the original film and the framing of the shots is also different. In this scene Lady and Tramp are shown within the same shot as two human characters. This is the scene where Lady and Tramp are visiting Tony’s restaurant. Tony and Joe who work at the restaurant are friends with Tramp. They are happy to see their friend. Human and animal seem to be equal in this scene and this also comes back in the framing of this scene. Figure 4 shows Tramp and Tony both fully in the same shot hugging each other. Tony is not anonymous in this shot. This triggers a sense of equality between the human and animal character.

Figure 2. The human character Darling with an anonymous and

incomplete body within the frame. The dog’s perspective is visible.

Figure 3. The human character Jim Dear anonymously framed

(23)

Tramp and Tony seem to understand each other in this scene. Tramp brings Lady there to have dinner together. Tony does not hesitate when he sees them together and creates a table for them. He even takes their order and claims that Tramp ordered a spaghetti with extra meatballs after he barked. When his colleague Joe says that dogs cannot talk, Tony answers with: ‘He can talk to me.’. This scene emphasizes the friendship and equality between the human character (Tony) and animal character (Tramp). The scene ends with Tony and Joe playing live music for the two dogs. Now all the characters are in one shot (see figure 5) and fully visible and recognizable. Here the human and animal world come together and this is visually portrayed by this longshot. A final shot from this scene that visualizes equality between animal and human is to be seen in figure 6. Here Lady and Tramp are at eye level with Tony. He does not look down on them but rather looks from the same perspective.

Figure 4. Human- and animal

character in the same shot.

Figure 5. All the human- and animal characters of this scene in

one longshot. Equality between them is visualized.

Figure 6. Lady, Tramp and Tony are portrayed at eye-level with

(24)

In other words, in this scene there seems to be a (human) relationship between the animal- and human characters and this is visualized through the framing of the shots. There is a connection between the dogs and the humans and they are equal. They are friends to each other. This human relationship between animal and human makes the animals more anthropomorphic. There are thus multiple relations in the original film: between dogs and owners and between the dogs and the restaurant workers. In the remake there is a shift of these human-animal relations. They are different there.

The owners and the dogs are namely much more equal in the remake and all the human characters and their faces are framed within the same shot as the animals in this film. Figure 7 and 8 show the same scenes as depicted in figure 2 and 3. However, in the remake the human characters and their faces are framed in the same shot as Lady is in. By framing Lady and her owners like this, dog and owner seem much more equal than in the original film. The human characters are also less anonymous because of this and the animal and human are present in the same world. The spectator does not see things from an animal perspective. The framing also matches the (human) relationship between Lady and her owners who all seem to understand and care for each other. It no longer looks like a dog and owner relationship but rather as a friendship between equals. All this together makes Lady more human-like.

The framing of Tony and Joe from the Italian restaurant is quite the same in the remake. Figure 9 again shows how Tony, Joe, Lady and Tramp are framed within one longshot. Again, in this scene the animal character Tramp is helped by his human friends Joe and Tony. They create and serve a table with spaghetti and extra meatballs because Tramp ordered that according to Tony. Just like in the original film, Tony seems to understand Tramp when he barks. This equality and friendship is also visualized through the framing

(25)

visible in figure 9. The human characters are not at eye level with Lady and Tramp but by framing all of them in the same long shot they still are equal.

The remake thus also emphasizes the human relationship between animals and people in this scene by framing the characters like this in one shot. In other words, the animal characters are again anthropomorphically portrayed because they are in a human relationship with the human characters, which is emphasized by the framing of the shots. However, scenes in which Lady and Tramp encounter the man from the dog pound who wants to lock them up are differently framed. The man and the animal are almost never in the same shot. If they are in the same shot, it looks like figure 10. The man from the dog pound is not fully visible in these shots. Here the difference between the animal and human character is visualized. They are not equal; dog and human do not understand each other and the man even feels like he has the right to lock them up. There is a sense of human superiority in this example. The man from the dog pound is anthropocentrically portrayed in relation to the dogs in the film.

Figure 10. Lady and the man

from the dog pound are not both fully framed in the same shot. A clear difference between human and animal is visualized here.

Figure 9. Lady, Tramp, Joe and Tony in the

(26)

This also means that there is no human relationship between animal and human in this case. This is also the case between the animal characters and the human characters in the original film (except for Tony and Joe). In both films, this creates an animal perspective through which the spectator can see the story world and becomes more animalistic. Lady is therefore also more animalistic in this scene of the remake because there is no connection (visually) to be seen between Lady and the dogcatcher. The same human-animal relations and framing techniques are thus findable in both films but there is a shift in how they are used.

There are also animal-animal relations present in both films but there are differences in the way animal-animal relations are depicted in both films. Animals interact with other animals in various ways within the films. These relations also help to make these animals more anthropomorphic or more animalistic. As Baker has argued (discussed in the previous chapter), people tend to oppose oneself to ‘the other’ in the process of self-definition. This could lead to anthropocentrism regarding animals. Animals would be divided into tame animals which are ‘like people’ and wild animals. The wild animals being objectified to being ‘other’ or subordinate.

This human-animal relationship is also recognizable in Lady and the Tramp. The film from 1955 portrays pets as insiders to people. They are depicted as ‘like people’. The pet dogs in the film can talk to each other, think and behave like humans. They are also very

intelligent. This all goes for Lady, her neighbor pet dogs and the pet cats. Moreover, this also goes for Tramp. He is stray dog, but he used to be some human family’s pet dog and ends up being a pet dog in the end of the film. Tramp also knows how to talk to other animals and is very intelligent. He even knows how to trick human characters for his own benefit. In other words, these pet characters are portrayed as ‘like people’.

However, the wild animals in this film are depicted in a different manner. The rat antagonist of the story is portrayed as ‘the other’ or as non-human. This animal character does not talk and only behaves like a natural rat would behave. The rat is also the ‘bad guy’ of the film. This means that he is prominently being opposed to the other human-like characters. Other wild animals that appear in the original film are other stray dogs living in a small alley. In that scene, Tramp has to fight with them in order to save Lady. It is a real dogfight with biting and barking (figure 11). These street dogs are also not talking in the film and therefore pictured as wild, other and not like people. They also don’t seem to be able to behave

properly (like humans), they are rather violent.

The live action remake does not make a clear distinction between pets and wild animals. In this film, there is the same scene in which Lady is helped by Tramp against a

(27)

street dog that lives in an alley. However, Tramp does this in two very different ways. Figure 11 shows Tramp fighting with the street dogs to protect Lady. There is no talk involved and therefore it is very animalistic and wild behavior. In figure 12 Tramp is to be seen in the remake, where he uses words to fool the street dog and to get rid of him. An important difference here is, that in these animal-animal situations both films show different

relationships. The original film shows an animalistic relationship between the animals and this makes them more animalistic. The remake shows two animals being in a human-like relationship: talking to resolve the situation. This makes the animal characters more anthropomorphic in the remake.

The rat also seems to be less wild and animalistic in the remake for the same reason. Although the rat is still not talking in the remake, the other animal characters interfere with it differently than in the original film. In both films there is a scene in the beginning of the film, where Lady finds the rat and goes after it. She chases the rat and keeps barking at it until it is out of sight. The difference in the remake is that Lady talks to the rat. In this case, she warns the rat that it will be in trouble if it does not go away. The same difference is present in the scene where Tramp confronts the rat in the room of the human baby. In the original film, Tramp only uses animal behavior to keep the rat from coming near the baby. He growls, barks, bites and shows his teeth. This kind of behavior is also present in the remake but here Tramp also uses words to keep the rat away from the human baby. These scenes show again that the animal-animal relations are different in the two films. The remake shows an animal-animal situation in which one animal acts like it’s a human relationship: by talking to the other animal. The animals both become more anthropomorphic because of this animal-animal relation than the animals in the original film. In the original film, the animal-animal relation is Figure 11. Tramp fighting street dogs like a real-life dog would do

it. The dogs are behaving like wild animals.

Figure 12. Tramp talking to the street dog to save Lady. Here the

(28)

more animalistic because they use an animalistic way of interacting with each other. This also results in more animalistic animal characters in this scene.

Section 2.2 Anthropomorphic animal representations in Lady and the Tramp

There are different ways in which the animal characters are anthropomorphized. Some are in both films and some in one of the two. There is a difference in the way the appearance of the animal is anthropomorphized in both films. Most of the animal characters in the original film have exaggerate characteristics in their appearance to make them more anthropomorphic and the characters in the remake become more anthropomorphic when they start to talk. Figure 13 and 14 show Lady in the original film and Lady in the remake. The Lady in figure 13 from the original film has some human characteristics in her appearance. She has human-like eyelashes and eyebrows. Her ears are also very exaggerated in the original film to make them look like human hair.

The lady in figure 14 does not have these noticeable eyelashes and eyebrows. Her ears could still look similar to the haircut of a human woman though. Another factor that makes the Lady from the original film anthropomorphic, are the eyes. The eyes are too big and there is too much white color in them, making them look like human eyes. The Lady from the remake in figure 14 does not have these human eyes. The original film has thus

anthropomorphized Lady more than in the remake, focusing on these characteristics.

The same difference is noticeable in the depiction of Tramp. In the original film Tramp is depicted with eyebrows and eyelashes that stand out in his face and he has big human-like eyes (see figure 15), while Tramp in the remake looks more like a real-life dog without these

Figure 14. Lady in the remake looking more like a real-life dog. No

obvious human characteristics are visible in her appearance, except for her ears.

Figure 13. Lady in the film from 1955 with human characteristics in her

(29)

human characteristics. The dogs in the remake may look more like real-life dogs but when they start to talk this makes them immediately look not animal-like and more humanlike. Whereas, these dogs in the original film do not immediately look more anthropomorphic in their appearance when they start to talk. The talking animals are thus the most important kind of anthropomorphism in the remake, whereas these talking animals in the original film are only an element of the broader combination of anthropomorphism.

Nonetheless, there is an exception. The rat is for instance in the original film not

anthropomorphized in his appearance (just like in the remake). Figure 17 shows the rat. It does not have eyebrows, eyelashes or exaggerated eyes and is thus not humanized in its appearance in the original film. The remake still also portrays the rat without these human characteristics (see figure 18). In this case, the animal character is thus equally animalistically depicted in both films. The same level of anthropomorphism that is present in all animal characters in the remake is thus also present in the original film regarding the animated rat character (not considering the ability to talk).

Figure 15. Tramp in the original film with human-like eyebrows and

eyelashes that stand out. Moreover, his exaggerated human-like eyes make his appearance anthropomorphic.

Figure 16. Tramp in the remake with no obvious human

characteristic in his appearance. He looks like a real-life dog.

Figure 17. The rat is portrayed without anthropomorphic

characteristics in its appearance in the original film

Figure 18. The rat is portrayed without anthropomorphic

(30)

In the previous section I argued that the wild animals in the original film became more wild and animalistic because of certain animal-animal relations in the film. By depicting the rat in the original film like one sees in figure 17, the rat becomes even more wild and ‘other’ than the pet dogs (with anthropomorphic characteristics in their appearance). The rat is also in the remake slightly more animalistic or wild than the pet animals because he does not talk and therefore his appearance does not change.

Another type of anthropomorphism that turns out to be present in both films is the fact that the animals are able to understand and talk in a human language. In the original film the dogs can talk. They are able to talk to each other and to other animals. They also talk to people but they do not understand them. However, the dogs do understand the humans and their language. An example of this in the original film is when Jim Dear calls Lady: “That dog”, and she is shocked because he never called her that before. The dogs are even capable of reading English. This becomes clear when Tramp takes Lady to the zoo and he reads the sign that says: “No dogs allowed”. These two examples show that the dogs understand a human language.

The animal characters in the remake are also capable of talking to each other and they are able to understand what the humans say. An example of this is when the man from the dog pound says that he thinks Tramp is sick and another street dog says: “Oh no, he is sick.” The dog is clearly able to hear and understand what the human has just said, because he repeats it. A difference with the original film is that in the remake there is no sign that indicates that the animal characters can read a human language. In that sense, the animal characters are

differently anthropomorphized in the remake: slightly less anthropomorphic because they lack the human skill of reading.

The animal characters are also anthropomorphized in both films by a combination of human-like aspects: human skills, behavior and a human setting. Both films have a scene in the dog pound, where a dog puts up a performance with singing and dancing. Figure 19 and 20 show the dog performing on a stage and in the spotlight in both films. Singing and performing a song are human-like skills and by adding the stage, the spotlight and an

audience of other dogs that watch and listen to it makes it a human setting. There is a human relationship between the dogs in this scene.

(31)

This makes all the animal characters in this scene very anthropomorphic. Both films

anthropomorphize in the same way. Both dogs are also equally anthropomorphic because of this human behavior and setting. The appearance of both dogs does not influence the level of anthropomorphism in this case. The characters are thus in both films anthropomorphized by giving them human skills, human behavior and a human situation or setting.

In both films there is yet another combination of human-like aspects used to

anthropomorphize the animal characters differently: human skills, gestures and human-like dialogue (only in the remake). In this scene, two cats start to sing. Moreover, the cats behave in a human way too. At a certain moment in this scene they use a human gesture. In both films the cats intertwine their tails as though they shake hands or high five each other (see figure 21 and 22). The cats in both films are thus anthropomorphized because they possess human skills and gestures but there is a difference in what the cats sing about in the films.

The cats in the original film only sing about that they want to stay there for a while. That would be something a cat could be talking about, because it does not require human knowledge or meaning. In the remake however, the cats sing that they want to redecorate Lady’s house. Redecorating a house is something of meaning to humans. It has human

Figure 19. A dog in the dog pound singing and performing a song. Figure 20. A dog in the dog pound singing and performing a song.

Figure 21. The cats intertwine their tails as if they are

shaking hands or high fiving like humans in the original film.

Figure 22. The cats intertwine their tails as if they are

(32)

meaning and therefore does not fit to the cats. This is what Cadman would therefore call a worse fictional animal (Cadman, 173). The animals are thus differently anthropomorphized in the remake: there is another type of anthropomorphism added to the combination of the original film. Here the dialogue was thus used to anthropomorphize the animals even more.

Another type of anthropomorphism which is used in both films is the use of human emotion. This happens in various ways. Both films for instance create a sad situation for the dogs who are locked up in the dog pound. It is dark and wet in there and they are behind bars. Although in both films the dogs are anthropomorphized by making them look sad in this situation, this is done in different ways. The original film has dogs that are crying like human beings would do (see figure 23), with tears coming from their eyes. The animals are thus portrayed as ‘sad’ through human signifiers for sadness: tears.

In the remake, the dogs in the dog pound are also portrayed in a ‘sad’, dark and wet situation, yet here the sadness is depicted through the dog’s howling and high pitched noises. Thus the human emotion of sadness is still projected on the animals but now through more animalistic signifiers that nevertheless result in anthropomorphism. In both films, the animal characters are anthropomorphized in different ways, yet in both films the human emotion of sadness is the result.

The last type of anthropomorphism that will be discussed here, is animals wearing clothes. The only animal character that wears clothes is Jock and this only happens in the remake. In figure 23 one sees Jock wearing a sweater. This immediately anthropomorphizes the animal (Eidt, 7).

Figure 22. A dog is crying like a human being to

Disney's Animated Humanimal