Brad Bird

This essay positions Brad Bird’s animated film The Iron Giant as an overlooked adaptation of the Frankenstein story, with reference to its multiple intertexts in both Shelley’s novel and the tradition of film adaptations. The Iron Giant tells the tale of an artificial being that, unlike Frankenstein’s monster, receives the “proper” nurturing and moral education from a surrogate parent; accordingly, Bird’s giant learns to reject the destructive impulses that turn Frankenstein into a tragedy. Although Bird’s rereading of this foundational text obviously includes children among its audience, it is not simplistically optimistic, and its real innovation lies in the absence of the giant’s creator
from the plot: we see a being truly abandoned by its maker, yet one whose capacities for self-determination and regenerative “self-creation” win out over alienation.

Animated texts within American cinema carry practitioners’ contributions to serious discussions of animation which have not been systematically decoded or discussed. This paper analyses twentieth-century shorts to identify longstanding issues and concepts, then presents a case study of Ratatouille (dir. Brad Bird, 2007), a film that, by hailing cuisine as a fellow art, encodes a complex exposition on contemporary animation within mainstream American film. The film points to the neglect or inconsistency of criticism, the film industry and art, and argues that animated cinema is as rich and as worthy of recognition as the art of cuisine. The discussion strongly indicates the importance of textual and contextual analysis of mainstream animated texts as a basis for further scholarship.

The article discusses and reviews the film 'Ratatouille', an animation film with expressive characters. The representations of a variety of family structures and the necessity for adolescents to learn to negotiate a workplace where one is not loved or esteemed is highlighted.

Der Beitrag setzt sich mit dem Film Tomorrowland bzw.  A World Beyond  auseinander und hebt dessen  Bildungspotenzial speziell für mediendidaktische Zusammenhänge hervor. Zunächst wird auf den Filminhalt eingegangen (1.), dann auf dessen Bildungspotenzial, das sich in mediendidaktischen Zusammenhängen mit unterschiedlichen Akzentuierungen fruchtbar machen lässt (2.). Es folgen weitere Perspektiven, die konkretisieren, wie sich der Film im Bildungskontext verwenden lässt (3.).

Animated texts within American cinema carry practitioners’ contributions to serious discussions of animation which have not been systematically decoded or discussed. This paper analyses twentieth-century shorts to identify longstanding issues and concepts, then presents a case study of Ratatouille (dir. Brad Bird, 2007), a film that, by hailing cuisine as a fellow art, encodes a complex exposition on contemporary animation within mainstream American film. The film points to the neglect or inconsistency of criticism, the film industry and art, and argues that animated cinema is as rich and as worthy of recognition as the art of cuisine. The discussion strongly indicates the importance of textual and contextual analysis of mainstream animated texts as a basis for further scholarship.