Books : Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros. Animation
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by: Kevin S. Sandler
List Price: $21.95Amazon.com's Price: $19.75 You Save: $2.20 (10%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.433
EAN: 9780813525389
ISBN: 0813525381
Label: Rutgers University Press
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 284
Publication Date: July 01, 1998
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Sales Rank: 894475
Studio: Rutgers University Press
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Despite the success of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and their Looney cohorts, Warner Bros. animation worked in the shadow of Disney for many years. The past ten years have seen a resurgence in Warner Bros. animation as they produce new Bugs Bunny cartoons and theatrical features like 'Space Jam' as well as television shows like 'Tiny Toon Adventures' and 'Animaniacs'. While Disney's animation plays it safe and mirrors traditional cinema stories, Warner Bros. is known for a more original and even anarchistic style of narration, a willingness to take risks in story construction, a fearlessness in crossing gender lines with its characters and a freedom in breaking boundaries. This collection of essays looks at the history of Warner Bros. animation, compares and contrasts the two studios, charts the rise and fall of creativity and daring at Warner's, and analyzes the ways in which the studio was for a time transgressive in its treatment of class, race and gender. It reveals how safety and commercialization have, in the end, triumphed at Warner Bros. just as they much earlier conquered Disney. The book also discusses fan parodies of Warner Bros. animation on the Internet today, the Bugs Bunny cross-dressing cartoons, cartoons that were censored by the studio, and the merchandising and licensing strategies of the Warner Bros. studio stores. Contributors are Donald Crafton, Ben Fraser, Michael Frierson, Norman M. Klein, Terry Lindwall, Bill Mikulak, Barry Putterman, Kevin S. Sandler, Hank Sartin, Linda Simensky, Kirsten Moana Thompson, Gene Walz and Timothy R. White.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Makes the less scholarly among us feel like a "maroon"
Animation fans be warned--this is anything but light reading.
While I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person, I must admit I had considerable trouble slogging through the dense, polysyllabic prose. Once I did so, however, I found the book did contain some interesting observations:
In one installment, one of the book's many co-contributors examines the deconstruction--and reassertion--of gender roles. No news to those of us who are transgendered--the book points ... Read More
Rating:  - A Great Book That Covers Topics Others Wouldn't Think Of
This is a great book for anyone who likes warner brothers animation. This book covers many interesting topics that you normally wouldn't think of. Some on the topics cover Gender Evasion of bugs bunny, African-American:Images and portrayal, temporary Disneyfication of Warner cartoons and fans verses Warner Brothers and even talks about the fans erotic fantasys (some people actually think of that ?)on the internet. It's a really interesting book and I really recomend it. It's not boring like ... Read More
Rating:  - Serious, but still fun
Over the last few years, academics have discovered the joy of writing about pop culture phenomena. Some (like the contributors to the book Enterprise Zones, a collection of papers on Star Trek) get lost in a fog of postmodernist critical/cultural theory, churning out abstruse and obtuse collections of quotations from French philosophers, ignoring as much as possible the text under study.
Thankfully, the contributors to this book don't do that. They're writing some serious history and commentary, ... Read More
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