Pixar's America

This book examines the popular and critically acclaimed films of Pixar Animation Studios in their cultural and historical context. Whether interventionist sheriff dolls liberating oppressed toys ( Toy Story ) or exceptionally talented rodents hoping to fulfill their dreams ( Ratatouille ), these cinematic texts draw on popular myths and symbols of American culture. As Pixar films refashion traditional American figures, motifs and narratives for contemporary audiences, this book looks at their politics - from the frontier myth in light of traditional gender roles ( WALL-E ) to the notion of voluntary associations and neoliberalism ( The Incredibles) . Through close readings, this volume considers the aesthetics of digital animation, including voice-acting and the simulation of camera work, as further mediations of the traditional themes and motifs of American culture in novel form. Dietmar Meinel explores the ways in which Pixar films come to reanimate and remediate prominent myths and symbols of American culture in all their cinematic, ideological and narrative complexity.

Critically situates the Pixar films released between 1995 and 2010 in their cultural and historic context Demonstrates the various ways in which Pixar critically engages with 21st century discourses such as class, gender, race, sexuality and able-bodiedness Provides close readings of many Pixar films such as Ratatouille, Up and WALL-E

Autorentext
Dietmar Meinel is a research and teaching assistant at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, in the Department of Anglophone Studies. He has published essays with the European Journal of American Culture , NECSUS European Journal for Media Studies , and the Animation Studies Journal as well as in the essay collection Rereading the Machine in the Garden (2014). Meinel has co-edited the volume Black, White, and In-Between (2008) to which he also contributed the essay White Western: Whiteness and Race Politics from John Wayne to Clint Eastwood.

Inhalt
Introduction: Exceptional Animations; The Rise to Popularity: The Pixar Studios and Digital Animation.- Chapter 1; Transnational Aesthetics? The Animation and Mediation of American Culture.- Chapter 2 You Better Play Nice: Digital Enchantment and the Performance of Toyness in Toy Story (1995) Fearful Sheriff Dolls and Oblivious Space Ranger Action Figures Stupid, Little, Insignificant Toys.- Chapter 3; An Animated Toast to the Ephemeral: The Multicultural Logic of Late Capitalism in Toy Story 2 (1999).- Chapter 4; Chapter 9; Driving In Circles: The American Puritan Jeremiad in Cars (2006) Narratives of Individual and National Decline.- Chapter 10; Animating a Yet Unimagined America? The Mediation of American Exceptionalism in Toy Story 3 (2010)