Catharsis, and the overall narrative of the art of Greek Tragedy, has always played an immense part in the storytelling of the horrific within the Disney filmography, ever since their first feature-length film venture in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). As a form of dramatic release, catharsis is best described as a form of tragedy that “…brings recognition of who and what we are.” (Rorty, 1992), and “…provides us with the appropriate objects towards which to feel pity or fear." (Lear, 1998, 196). Such a metaphor is held hand in hand with the treatment of Disney’s child audience who views such themes. Instead of allowing the audience to view, for example, the remains of Mufasa in The Lion King (1994) in its full grotesquery, they are
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Its sequence of Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky is a psychedelic and horrific occult piece. Described by Gabler as “…inspired by a Slavonic legend about evil spirits gathering on Walpurgis Night…” (Gabler, 2015) Chernobog unfurls with powerful, unsettling movements, with yellow eyes void of pupils that strike brightly against the otherwise inky background. “Disney's vision of hell is no caricature— “, he continues, “…but a Boschian menagerie of the grotesque.” …show more content…
In the 2009 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a study conducted by assistant professor of Psychology Azif Ghazanfar, he speculates that the phenomenon of the Uncanny Valley has roots in biological revulsion and pathogen avoidance, as seen in his experiment regarding the effect within human-related primates, using Macaque monkeys. He quite rightly states that the phenomenon has “reported anecdotally—“ within the medium of Animation within the past decade, citing examples such as the “—strong negative audience responses to computer-animated films such as The Polar Express.” (Ghazanfar and Steckenfinger, 2009, 1). Reviews called the animation of The Polar Express (2004) “dead-eyed” (Papamichael, 2004) and “both disturbs and delights” (Nathan, 2016) with both its quality of animation as well as the method in which it was made, becoming one of the most notorious motion capture animated films of the
Its sequence of Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky is a psychedelic and horrific occult piece. Described by Gabler as “…inspired by a Slavonic legend about evil spirits gathering on Walpurgis Night…” (Gabler, 2015) Chernobog unfurls with powerful, unsettling movements, with yellow eyes void of pupils that strike brightly against the otherwise inky background. “Disney's vision of hell is no caricature— “, he continues, “…but a Boschian menagerie of the grotesque.” …show more content…
In the 2009 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a study conducted by assistant professor of Psychology Azif Ghazanfar, he speculates that the phenomenon of the Uncanny Valley has roots in biological revulsion and pathogen avoidance, as seen in his experiment regarding the effect within human-related primates, using Macaque monkeys. He quite rightly states that the phenomenon has “reported anecdotally—“ within the medium of Animation within the past decade, citing examples such as the “—strong negative audience responses to computer-animated films such as The Polar Express.” (Ghazanfar and Steckenfinger, 2009, 1). Reviews called the animation of The Polar Express (2004) “dead-eyed” (Papamichael, 2004) and “both disturbs and delights” (Nathan, 2016) with both its quality of animation as well as the method in which it was made, becoming one of the most notorious motion capture animated films of the