Animation at the Heart of America

Funny country, America. A City Set Upon a Hill. The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. The Golden Door. The Leader of the Free World. The Last Best Hope of Man.

And then there’s Mickey Mouse. But Walt Disney is only the beginning. The cartoon pantheon also contains Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker), Warner Bros. (Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck), William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (Tom ‘n’ Jerry, the Flintstones), Jay Ward and Bill Scott (Rocky and Bullwinkle), Charles M. Schulz (the Peanuts gang) and many another. No nation on Earth, with the exception of iconophile India, which had a long head start, has generated so many imaginary beings.

Maybe it is because of a certain dissonance between the official and the cartoon versions of America that animated films have never been candidates for serious artistic recognition. Whatever the explanation, and without daring to cast an Oscar vote, we applaud the first-ever nomination of an animated film, “Beauty and the Beast,” for best picture. Funnily enough, this art form has a lot to say about who we are.