Animation,Branding and Authorship in the Construction of the ‘Anti-Disney’ Ethos: Hayao Miyazaki’s Works and Persona through Disney Film Criticism

Abstract

Walt Disney (1901–1966) is one of the most important figures in the history of cinema, but he may also be one of the most criticized. Adjectives referring to Disney in their different forms (‘Japanese Disney’, ‘Asian Disney’, ‘Disney from the Orient’, etc.), have also been applied to the analysis of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki (1941–). Disney’s legacy has been reviewed and examined through different theoretical lenses derived from cultural studies and film criticism. In contrast, scholarship and cultural criticism have decoded Miyazaki’s works in terms of auteurism. These approaches also emphasize similarities based on high quality of production and individual signatures while differentiating between ideological and cultural readings of each author’s legacy. In this construction of what has been referred to as ‘anti-Disney’, the most common strategies of classical auteurism act together, including the mythical construction of the creator’s persona through cultural criticism and other film paratexts. In order to better understand the role of authorship in animation, a distinction between brand, style and creator’s persona is suggested.

Keywords

animation authorship anti-Disney author ethos branding Disney film criticism Hayao Miyazaki paratexts Studio Ghibli

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Akimoto

(2014) Howl’s Moving Castle in the War on Terror: A transformative analysis of the Iraq War and Japan’s response. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies 2(14).

Anderson

(2005) Ken Anderson by Paul F Anderson. In: Ghez

(ed.) Walt’s People – Volume 1: Talking Disney with the Artists Who Knew Him. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 102–122.

Anime News Network (2016) Studio Ghibli co-produced film The Red Turtle to screen at Cannes. News Archive. Available at: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-04-15/studio-ghibli-co-produced-film-the-red-turtle-to-screen-at-cannes/.101089 (accessed 15 April 2016).

Artz

(2004) The righteousness of self-centred royals: The world according to Disney animation. Critical Arts 1(18): 116–146.

Bell

Haas

Sells

(1995) From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Bernstein

(2008) The producer as auteur. Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 180–189.

Bigelow

(2009) Technologies of perception: Miyazaki in theory and practice. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 1(4): 55–75.

Bordwell

(1988) The classical Hollywood Style, 1917–60. In: Bordwell

. (eds) The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960. New York: Routledge, 1–87.

Brooks

(2005) A god among animators. The Guardian.com. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/sep/14/japan.awardsandprizes (accessed 30 June 2016).

10.

Bryman

(1999) The Disneyization of society. Sociological Review 1(47): 25–47.

11.

Brzeski

(2015) Hayao Miyazaki slams Japanese Prime Minister, reveals new animation project. Hollywood Reporter. Available at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hayao-miyazaki-slams-prime-minister-808266. (accessed 15 June 2016).

12.

Carringer

(2001) Collaboration and concepts of authorship. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America: 370–379.

13.

Caughie

(2008) Authors and auteurs: The uses of theory. In: Donald

Renov

(eds) Handbook of Film Studies. London: Sage, 408–423.

14.

Cavallaro

(2006) The animé art of Hayao Miyazaki. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

15.

De la Merced

(2012) With Lucasfilm deal, Disney spends big to land a lucrative franchise. DealB%k. Available at: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/with-lucasfilm-deal-disney-spends-big-to-land-a-lucrative-franchise/ (accessed 30 May 2016).

16.

Denison

(2010) Anime tourism: Discursive construction and reception of the Studio Ghibli Art Museum. Japan Forum 22.

17.

Dorfman

. (1975) How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. New York: International General.

18.

Ellis

(2010) The art of anime: Freeze-frames and moving pictures in Miyazaki Hayao’s Kiki’s Delivery Service. Journal of Japanese & Korean Cinema 1(2): 21–34.

19.

England

Descartes

Collier-Meek

(2011) Gender role portrayal and the Disney princesses. Sex Roles 64: 555–567.

20.

Giroux

Pollock

(2011) Is Disney good for your kids? How corporate media shape youth identity in the Digital Age. In: Steinberg

(ed.) KINDERCULTURE: The Corporate Construction of Childhood. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

21.

Grant

(2000) www.auteur.com? Screen 1(41): 101–108.

22.

Hawkes

(2015) Hayao Miyazaki: Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons were ‘a mistake’. The Telegraph. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11417395/Hayao-Miyazaki-Charlie-Hebdo-Mohammed-cartoons-were-a-mistake.html (accessed 15 June 2016).

23.

Hayward

(2013) Auteur/auteur theory/Politique des auteurs/Cahiers du cinéma. Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts. Routledge, 27–34.

24.

Hernández-Pérez

Ferreras Rodríguez

(2014) Serial narrative, intertextuality and the role of audiences in the creation of a franchise: An analysis of the Indiana Jones saga from a cross-media perspective. Mass Communication and Society 1(17): 26–53.

25.

T-YG

(2010) Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

26.

Iwabuchi

(1994) Complicit exoticism: Japan and its other. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 2(8): 49–82.

27.

Jolin

(2011) Miyazaki on Miyazaki: The animation genius on his movies. Empire On Line. Available at: http://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/hayao-miyazaki/ (accessed 16 June 2016).

28.

Kelts

(2006) Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the US. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

29.

Kohara

Niimi

(2013) The shot length styles of Miyazaki, Oshii, and Hosoda: A quantitative analysis. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 2(8): 163–184.

30.

Koyama-Richard

(2007) One Thousand Years of Manga. Paris: Flammarion.

31.

Lamarre

(2002) From animation to anime: Drawing movements and moving drawings. Japan Forum 2(14): 329–367.

32.

Leslie

(2002) Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde. New York: Verso.

33.

Levi

(2008) Howl’s Moving Castle. Mechademia 3: 261–263.

34.

Leyda

Eisenstein

(1986) Eisenstein on Disney. Chicago: Seagull Books, University of Chicago Press.

35.

Lim

(2013) Spirited Away: Conceptualizing a film-based case study through comparative narratives of Japanese ecological and environmental discourses. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 2(8): 149–162.

36.

Martinez

OOL

(2015) Criteria for defining animation: A revision of the definition of animation in the advent of digital moving images. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 1(10): 45–57.

37.

McCarthy

(1999) Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation: Films, Themes, Artistry. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press.

38.

Miyazaki

(2014a) Starting Point: 1979–1996. San Francisco: Viz Media.

39.

Miyazaki

(2014b) Turning Point 1997–2008. San Francisco: Viz Media.

40.

Miyazaki

Ebert

(1999) Director Miyazaki draws American attention. Rogerebert.com. Available at: http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/director-miyazaki-draws-american-attention (accessed 15 June 2016).

41.

Moist

Bartholow

(2007) When pigs fly: Anime, auteurism, and Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 1(2): 27–42.

42.

Napier

(2001) Confronting master narratives: History as vision in Miyazaki Hayao’s cinema of de-assurance. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 2(9): 467–493.

43.

Napier

(2005) Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

44.

Pallant

(2010) Disney-formalism: Rethinking ‘classic Disney’. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 5: 341–352.

45.

Poitras

(2008) Contemporary Anime in Japanese Pop Culture: Japanese Visual Culture – Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime. New York: ME Sharpe, 48–67.

46.

Ponsford

(2014) The death of Studio Ghibli was inevitable – but this might not be the end. Independent.co.uk. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-death-of-studio-ghibli-was-inevitable-but-this-might-not-be-the-end-9649853.html (accessed 15 June 2016).

47.

Ritzer

(1983) The ‘McDonaldization’ of society. Journal of American Culture 1(6): 100–107.

48.

Rohmer

Chabrol

(1979) Hitchcock, the First Forty-Four Films. New York: Frederick Ungar.

49.

Sarris

(1963) The auteur theory and the perils of Pauline. Film Quarterly 4(16): 26–33.

50.

Schickel

(1968) The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art, and Commerce of Walt Disney. New York: Simon and Schuster.

51.

Schodt

(1996) Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press.

52.

Talbot

(2005) The auteur of anime. Japan Focus: The Asia-Pacific Journal 3(4).

53.

Telotte

(2008) The stereoscopic Mickey: Space, animation, and the mouse. Journal of Popular Film and Television 3(36): 133–140.

54.

Towbin

. (2003) Images of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation in Disney feature-length animated films. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy 4(15): 19–44.

55.

The Walt Disney Company (2015) The Walt Disney Company Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings for Fiscal 2015. Available at: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/the-walt-disney-company-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-earnings-for-fiscal-2015-2/ (accessed 15 June 2016).

56.

Wasko

(2001) Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy. Cambridge: Polity Press.

57.

Wells

(2002) Animation: Genre and Authorship. London: Wallflower.

58.

Yoshida

(2011) National identity construction in Japanese and American animated film: Self and other representation in Pocahontas and Princess Mononoke. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies 5.

59.

Zipes

(1995) Breaking the Disney spell. In: Bell

. (eds) From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 21–42.