Between Disney (representing western animation as a whole) and Miyazaki (possibly more unfairly than disney repping all western animation, he will represent japanese anime as a whole)
One of the idea's discussed in the lecture which most struck me was the stark difference between the idealogical views expressed both overtly and covertly through Disney and Miyazaki animations.
I have always had works by these two very different groups of artists on separate sides of my mind and perception simply because of their difference in tone, style, content and the feeling they gave me in my tummy, but for some reason it never occurred to me just how intrinsic their cultural differences affected their individual idealogical directions.
Disney definitely has a stronger sense of safe and comfortable, middle American suburb enclosed societies with a good dose of fear of the wild and otherly, occasionally going so far as to possibly suggest those we don't know, aren't familiar with or don't understand are most likely to be evil and try to hurt us, while Miyazaki's work seems to retain a childlike wonder and curiosity which might have something to do with their appeal to me, I strongly believe that it is that particular way to look at the world, through a child's eyes if you will which leaves you with this overwhelming sense of limitless possibility and a mind full of wonderful places that are just waiting to exist just for you to visit them.
Of course there can arise a justified concern for the wellfare of children's impresionable stupid little minds but really I think from an art stand point it is more an argument of what is affective in pulling on the audiences imagination and capturing their hearts. - I take this very abstract and reviewing point of view because I feel that trying to contemplate the affects of disney animation on the youth of today would end up leading to a deep introspective personal psychology session and no one wants that. But I will postulate that maybe we should in fact have some sort of board or organisation at a national level (at first possibly later an international) whose job it would be to design the ideology behind childrens cartoons, letting the artists and the animators still control narrative and character but not nessisarily letting them influence the whole world...
I mean what if we could through Disney have programmed everyone my age to be a better stronger member of society who thinks of the whole before themselves, who value caring and love over hate and who don't procrastinate. I mean while were brainwashing a nation lets do it for the better right. Or at least something funny like getting us all to snap and meet at the north pole when we hear a certain sound forming a giant smiley face of frozen corpses visible from outer-space but I violently digress.
I will not respond to or try to argue against or for the following counter arguement but I feel its nessissary to perhaps provide further the possibility that Miyazaki is a bad example of anime culture to be comparing within this context.
I guess it is not western ideology in particular but more of a universal theme. In my opinion Hayao Miyazaki's work appeal to a much wider audience, and that is because he purposely meant it to be viewed by many and is keeping himself not too tied up with those genres that earn a particular kind or set of audience. Some define anime as animation made for the consumption of a Japanese audience and with regard to their culture but what if your audience is not primarilyJapanese, but also other audiences in the western hemisphere, will this be considered true-blue anime or a disney film-like venture. When I saw Miyazaki's film Spirited Away, it felt a bit like what would i usually feel when watching a disney film. I can only speculate that maybe he was influenced by westernanimation or I guess it is just his style. When it involves a universal theme, like nature, love, friendship or family, it does not really matter much of what ideology it belongs
this might be an unfair argument as alot of Disney's work dates back further than Miyazaki's and therefore more of it comes from a time when gender discrimination was more common place.
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