a sense of joy and then a panic

I think he needs somebody to mail him this macro (http://moronail.net/img/1156_Its_time_to_stop_posting_lolcats).

From:

LOL!

From:

Hey hey hey hey, or: we could not use different animal species to symbolize different groups of people, especially when you're using stereotypical animal traits to match up with stereotypical human group traits.

Right?!

I hate arguments from nature so much--and applying animal stereotypes is a kind of argument from nature--because all people do anthropomorphize nature... and then apply that back onto people. Here is how this animal is like a person. Now let me talk about people in terms of this characteristic that I've read into an animal.

From:

Icon!!!

Yeah, I just feel like "animals do not deserve our shit" in this regard. I hate that so many "allegories" pick cats to be bad guys, because we've categorized them as some kind of evil feminine antagonist to the good, loyal dog. It's all such bullshit. Cats and dogs are not biological mortal enemies. Humans don't deserve it either for that matter, and of course they're the ones who actually read the book.

From:

Whoops, and I realized I dropped out the word "is" in that comment:

All people do IS anthropomorphize nature.

(The other statement I can't verify at all!)

From:

wendigomountain.livejournal.com

Psst...Yann, you just showed your hand. I'm calling your bluff. Spiegelman ought to ask for royalties.

Just goes to show that if you are an established name-brand writer, you can come up with all sorts of unoriginal crap and as long as your editor believes in you, your work will be published.

Blecch. Another anthropomorphous animal book about the Holocaust. We need to turn this into a drinking game!

I'm not a fan of Martel anyway, what with that contrived tiger-on-a-raft nonsense and all. I kept wondering when Pi was going to figure out that the chicken had already eaten his sack of grain by the time he got back. :)

From:

LOL drinking game. Indeed. Two drinks for each "And Zombies/Vampire Hunter" remix.

I've never read any Martel, but I almost want to read this just to see if it's as bad as everyone says it is.

From:

Oh is that him?! Oh brother -_-

I kept wondering when Pi was going to figure out that the chicken had already eaten his sack of grain :D

From:

I was under the impression that that isn't what was up with Maus, but I could be mistaken.

From:

sorry for inconsistent tense

From:

It's possible that it's not (I've never read it), and I think he used a different methodology to pick animals (more in keeping with the way political propaganda picks what animals to use in cartoons - "The French being frogs recalls an oft-used nickname, itself a lampoon of French culinary use of frogs.")

From:

I mean, seeing as it was about his father's time in a concentration camp, or something...

From:

ah, here:

"The Jews, as mice, satirizes the Nazi portrayal of Jews as vermin. Also, this may symbolize the resourcefulness many Jews exhibited during the Holocaust and the inability of the Nazis to completely wipe out such a species. On page 42 of Maus II (page 202 of The Complete Maus), the author is questioned by an Israeli Jew, depicted as a rather stuffy mouse who has gained some weight. When asked what particular animal he would have chosen to represent the Israelis, Spiegelman answers: "I have no idea... porcupines?""

From:

"The use of animals in the graphic narrative may seem incongruous, but instead of creating social typecasts, Spiegelman lampoons them and shows how foolish it is to classify a human being based on nationality or ethnicity.[8] His images are not his: they were "borrowed from the Germans... Ultimately what the book is about is the commonality of human beings. It's crazy to divide things down along nationalistic or racial or religious lines... These metaphors, which are meant to self-destruct in my book — and I think they do self-destruct — still have a residual force and still get people worked up over them."[9]"

From:

Yep, that is the page I took the French frogs thing from. Hence why I said he was using a different methodology.

From:

Then how can you ridicule the both of them for being stereotypical and whatnot?

From:

I do think that Spiegelmann is still dealing in human and animal stereotypes, although he goes about it differently (and inconsistently - it depends on the animal). The vermin one is the Nazi stereotype of Jews (and that's the most interesting one). Frogs is a worldwide association with French cuisine, plus his own assessment of French people's un-sweetness. Gypsy moths are... word association. The Swedish reindeer appear to be regional association. The pig one I'm not sure, because the wiki page is a little vague. I mean, it's very hard not to deal in stereotypes of some kind if you're going to make an allegorical shortcut that people will immediately "get."

I don't know why he chose cats or dogs, although I would guess he was going for the traditional Tom and Jerry motif (mice are the sympathetic protagonists, cats are evil, dogs are allies of mice) that Western audiences are familiar with. And yeah, this is the one I dislike the most.

Granted, that doesn't take into account his quote about wanting the metaphors to self-destruct. Maybe they do; I don't know. It's hard for me to imagine how they could, but I've been wrong before. I think that classifying Jews as vermin (but in a positive light) is definitely lampooning and destroying a Nazi metaphor, but as for the other animals/characters, I don't see it. It feels more like replacing Nazi animal-human metaphors with his own.

From:

*Spiegelman, that is

From:

I don't really care how he chose the animals so much as how the characters actually act. I don't think you can judge the choice of characters just based on how he chose what animal for who. Then you're pretty much limited to assuming it's a stereotype because you're looking for what the animals represent to people, which has already been defined by you as a stereotype.

That said, I usually dislike Nazi stories because they end up being heavily moralistic, but not all of them are, and often less so for people who were actually there than people who write about it with no experience of the individual nuances and hypocrisies and whatnot.

From:

Yeah, I suppose I am limiting myself there. I guess I look at it and think, "this is not going to end in a way that doesn't make me mad," which, you're right, I shouldn't assume. Maybe it turns out there are other cats that are not Nazis!

(no subject)

From:

royinpink.livejournal.com - Date: 2010-06-25 01:48 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From:

intertribal.livejournal.com - Date: 2010-06-25 01:51 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

It reads like you're just looking for an excuse to congratulate yourself on your moral superiority for something most people accept. I don't really think you are that self-righteous like, as a person, but that is how this post reads to me.

From:

Not how it was intended. Unless moral superiority = having an opinion.

I know that Maus uses various different methodologies (I think the whole "bunnies would be too sweet for the French, because of all the centuries of anti-semitism" thing [paraphrased] is reminiscent of what Martel is doing, but the basis of choosing vermin is totally not), but I just don't get assigning different social groups to different animal species based on your perception of that species (often how much you like/dislike the species). Animal Farm doesn't bother me because those animals are political symbols, not ethnic/religious symbols. Admittedly, I did not know that Maus was intended to be a satire of this tendency, and that sort of confuses me, because I'm not sure how that would be accomplished by replicating the tendency.

It's not something I see as a great evil in the world, or even something harmful, since animals don't read. But I don't like it, for a lot of small reasons that add up into a dislike. And mostly I dislike it because of the way it treats the non-human animal species. I feel like it takes lazy shortcuts, trading on the audience's perception of the various animals so that various characters are quickly categorized as either "good" or "evil" according to the social perception of the animal. Which may well be totally irrational, but that is, quote, how it reads to me.

From:

Well, this seemed less like an opinion and more like a kneejerk reaction. Of course what Martel was doing was stupid. Every good liberal would agree with that. But Maus? I mean, attack the graphic novel canon (I say canon here b/c this is something that's often assigned for courses and whatnot) if you want, but read it first, and back it up with a good argument. I haven't read it either, but I'm not going to agree with you just because you've tapped into the right "Racism is Bad" and "Stereotyping is Bad" beliefs.

First of all, stereotyping is a fact of life. It's how people think. It's a shortcut for the fact that groups and categories have real social meaning, and until you get rid of the real causes for that social meaning, stereotypes will continue to exist. The best you can hope for, I think, is people recognizing that stereotypes are just that and being willing to recognize individuals as such and revise their perception to fit individuals that they meet.

Admittedly, I did not know that Maus was intended to be a satire of this tendency, and that sort of confuses me, because I'm not sure how that would be accomplished by replicating the tendency.

And this is why I think your reaction was kneejerk. You assume, based not even on having read the book, that Maus is doing the same thing. A lot of times replicating something has to be done in order to point to it at all. And I think in general, raising people's ire about this sort of thing is a better sign that you're hitting on the real issue than getting the reaction "Oh yes, that's bad, we know that's bad, let's all rant about how stupid it was to do something so stereotypical nowadays and ridicule them," because I think we're not fundamentally better. We're just as subject to stereotypes. We gain more from questioning them than pointing fingers at others.

And well, I can see the "good" and "evil" animals thing for maybe, say, Disney movies, but I think that's sort of a lazy way to read/watch such things. If the author is being that lazy, okay, but they aren't necessarily, and assuming they are is just as lazy on the reader's part.

From: