BA1Banimation-narrative

After a night of writing, and hours of making sure that it works together, is laid out neatly, references appropriately, and uses correct spelling and grammar, my essay is finally complete.

My essay aimed to follow a structure of topics as follows:

Introduction

Narrative conventions and the challenging of these

Postmodernism

Comparisons to Rashomon and the use of fragmented, non-linear/chronological structure as well as multiple perspectives, aka.The “Rashomon Effect”

The Opposite opinion (arguments against what I have said)

Conclusion

It also uses a red theme (to signify Red Riding Hood/Hoodwinked) for titles and quaotations and a limited few relevant pictures:

http://akirakurosawa.info/2015/11/01/film-club-hoodwinked-2005/

http://www.cineplex.com/Movie/hoodwinked-a-family-favourites-presentation/Photos

http://collider.com/i-remember-that-this-rashomon-poster-looks-amazing/

These pictures, I feel, are most relevant to the essay’s theme and discussions, and so I selected these to be used as reference (they are sourced with the reference list in the essay itself) in the final piece.

The word count currently stands at roughly 1,550, not including a caption underneath one of the images, the titles and my reference list, I’m hoping this is okay as I’ve condensed my essay a lot, deleting words and sentences where I feel as though I waffle (which I’m certain you have probably noticed I have a tendency to do) or use unnecessary connecting words that don’t need to be there for the line to make perfect sense.

 I do not particularly want to delete anymore text, as I am happy with how my essay currently stands. Once finished converting it into the appropriate format (pdf) as well as finishing this blog, I feel as though I will be just about ready to submit!

Reference material & sources

These screenshots demonstrate my full body of reference material in the form of a separate document that I will refer to during the bulk of my essay writing. The red/blue text represent the Harvard style references and hyperlinks to be gathered and organised alphabetically for a final, organised, and neater reference list in my actual 1,500 word dissertation. Whereas the red text is solely for my own personal use, as it represents the most important and useful quotations, analyses and interpretations (by me) that I can quote from, use to get inspiration from, and of course use summarise what the reference was about to remind myself. 

This reference list will of course not be submitted, but by putting work into such a document I will be able to easily type out my essay without having to continuously search for the correct source.

All references were adapted into the correct Harvard style we here at NUA use for citation via refme.com - a Harvard generator that can correctly formats user data into the Harvard style:

Title & Essay Introduction

After gathering all of my research together and picking the most relevant and useful sources to cite, I began to type out an introduction and develop an essay title for my essay. The titles I had in mind were:

To what extent is the story structure in “Hoodwinked” postmodern?

How does the story of “Hoodwinked” reflect Kurosawa’s “Rashomon”?

In what ways does “Hoodwinked” break down the identified conventional characteristics of narrative structure and character archetypes?

How is the story structure of “Hoodwinked” different from that of other children’s animated feature films?

The final title I went with is demonstrated in the image at the top of this post...

“In what ways does the Narrative Structure of “Hoodwinked” (2006) Demonstrate Postmodern concepts and the “Rashomon Effect”?”

I feel as though this title covers everything I want to explore, rather than limiting itself to one characteristic such as post-modernism/post-structuralism and Rashomon. I wanted the introduction to briefly outline the red riding hood tale and it’s adaptations, and then finish by stating what in particular the essay will be investigating, which in my case is one particular example of an adaptation that takes into account the stories and perspectives of multiple characters, rather than just Red.

Dille, F., Platten, J.Z. and Press, S. (2008) The ultimate guide to video game writing and design. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications.

Storytelling is a natural part of our lives, and from a young age follows a very linear perspective and interpretation that consists of a format that is very straightforward and consistent - Beginning, Middle, End, which is the most basic format of every story ever told. However, this format is not usually toyed with or complicated very often in children’s media, as children’s media tends to be short and meaningful in order to engage with the typical low attention span of young children and socialise them with standards and norms of their appropriate culture.

http://elflands2ndcousin.com/2012/11/21/structure-and-perspective-in-childrens-stories-and-films/  

But structure and perspective in children’s narrative and films must also consider “The Value of Narrative Unity”, taking into account that children’s narratives must also appease their more mature family and guardians - whatever perspective the story is told from “if the relationships in the story model are understandable and relevant to both kids and grown-ups, then the story is likely to be accessible and engaging to both audiences.”

When we compare the text “Hoodwinked!” as an adaptation, to the original text of Little Red Riding Hood, there are obvious similarities. In both, Red is the personification of innocence, and the Wolf appears sneaky and devious in an attempt to trick Red. However, in “Hoodwinked”, Red is able to fend for herself and at times beats up the Wolf, and the Wolf himself turns out to actually not have been a bad guy all along.  “ The ‘moral’ of both stories could be “to never trust anyone easily”, but the two stories give that moral in different ways.” Both the stories start and finish with similar perspectives and share teachings about the dangers of strangers, but it is via the alternative methods of story structure in Hoodwinked that we get an impression of a more modernised, contemporary adaptation that takes into consideration the perspectives/testimonies of the individual rather than what we believe to be universally true...For example, “the wolf is bad”. 

- “Hoodwinked” and “Little Red Riding Hood” Comparison and Contrast Essay Ricky Cooks

“Turning away from the well-known archetypes of the Little Red Riding Hood characters, the filmmakers continued to look towards non-linear crime dramas for inspiration instead. Producer Preston Stutzman explained that "The whole film is about surprises and secret lives."[17] Not wanting Red to be "boring" or "too innocent", she was patterned on James Dean and given the desire of leaving home to find her way in the world. Todd Edwards had the idea of basing the Wolf on Chevy Chase's character in Fletch, feeling that it would be fun to apply the character’s dry, deadpan style of humor to an animated wolf, while Cory Edwards created the hyperactive character of Twitchy to serve as the Wolf’s foil. Going against types, Red’s Granny was written as a thrill-seeking action hero, while the strong Woodsman was written as being childishly incompetent.[17]”  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodwinked! - Pre-production section

“DT: Talk about how you also developed personalities for your characters.

TE: Even before the character designs, we used the Rashômon storyline as the jumping-off point. We realized that we could come up with all these double lives for the characters. Cory and I did the original pass on the script, and The Wolf and Twitchy were the most iconic characters that we created. I hope that years from now those characters can live on in their own adventures.”

Goodman, M. (2006) Dr. Toon: A Peek Under the Hood. Available at: http://Dr.Toon: A peek under the hood (no date) Available at: http://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-peek-under-hood (Accessed: 10 February 2016 (Accessed: 10 February 2016). 

Dr.Toon, Todd Edwards and Preston Stutzman

Flashbacks as a device in Narrative Cinema/Animation

MA Post-production Editing Student Hauke Sterner assesses the use of the flashback in Narrative Cinema. this interested me and was useful in my investigation into “Hoodwinked”, because not only does the film make extensive use of this narrative device, but the number of flashbacks in the film creates a structural pattern that is intricate and fragmented, but also piece together effectively in an almost ‘Memento’ esque format. Other films noted for having narratives that are back and forth in timespan due to flashbacks or other intentional non-linearity include Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, The Usual Suspects, Donnie Darko (in a very different way) and of course Rashomon.

 Here are some notes I made whilst watching and some useful quotations I’ve picked out from the video:

"The world moves fast. Daily routines drives society in a continuous flow in which time and space come together to create the reality we live in, and our perception of this world becomes a lie, which we are forced to follow without the chance to go back in time. Cinema, however, besides other mediums gives us the oppurtunity to do exactly that, and one possibility to achieve this 'non-linearity' is the flashback."

"It is evident that in cinema many processes of narration depend upon the manipulation of time" (Bordwell, "Narration in the Fiction Film" 1993, p.74)

"The implementation [of flashbacks] depends entirely upon an acute awareness of how it relates to the narrative's overall structure"

He explains the existence of subjective and objective flashbacks. Subjective flashbacks are a personal memory of a character (showing the thoughts and memory of a character), or objective (suggesting what will eventually happen and thus setting up relationships for an audience to perceive), in this case a character's memory is not entered, but the spectator is drawn into another timeline, for instance, "the past simply becomes the present".

"By suddenly presenting the past, flashbacks can abruptly offer new meanings connected to any person, place or object." (Turim 1989, p.17)

We are often accompanied "through the memory" during a flashback via an mimiced oral tradition of narration called a "voice-over"

Nowadays, many movies begin at a point of crisis, in order to get the audience hooked (such as in "Iron Man" - 2008, where the protagonist is shown abducted by terrorists) then cut immediately back to a place in time prior to that scene. "Superinposed text" often helps to distinguish the points in time for the viewer

"For oral flashbacks, it's very important to maintain a strong visual in order to keep the audience visually tied to the movie whilst listening to the flashback. Ideally, the style of the visual will intensify the experience of the flashback."

http://akirakurosawa.info/2015/11/01/film-club-hoodwinked-2005/

Animation is especially capable at this technique in narrative, purely because of the potential of the medium to create any sequence imaginable (within the budget of course). The non-linearity of Hoodwinked is a result of it’s Detective/Crime Scene format, and the manipulation of time and chronology as a result of flashbacks and their visual tie ins. The movie jumps right into a conflict, a “point of crisis” in which the climax of the Grimm Brother’s tale appears to take place in order to get the audience hooked, but then proceeds into something much more structurally inconsistent and abstract. The implementation of subjective flashbacks at first seems like a method for each individual character to save their own skin and claim their innocence in the investigation of the crime apparently committed, but with an “acute awareness of how it relates to the narrative’s overall structure” we begin to get an impression that each story is true and coincidentally all tie in with each other (like the characters in Pulp Fiction)...Leading to the discovery and eventual confrontation of the true antagonist which each story failed to recognize on their own.

This type of narrative structure is recognized as NONLINEAR NARRATIVE, DISJOINTED NARRATIVE, OR DISRUPTED NARRATIVE, and is used to mimic the nature of human memory and recollection of memory.

https://eis-blog.soe.ucsc.edu/2009/08/nonlinear-storytelling-in-games-deconstructing-the-varieties-of-nonlinear-experiences/

Presumptions must be made about the backstory, a “history of conflict” for each individual character, which the audience assumes for each character as Red Riding Hood is a tale we all know. We EXPECT Red to be innocent, passive and helpless in the face of danger, we EXPECT the wolf to be a sadistic, chaotic antagonist who wants nothing more than to eat Red and her Grand Mother, we EXPECT the woodcutter to be the hero that saves the day, but none of this comes to be, and the main villain turns out to be the one nobody in the film expected.

Encyclopia Britannica define Post-modernism in its most briefest as:

Postmodernism, also spelled post-modernism,  in Western philosophy, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.

Inspired by the historical research of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, some postmodernists defend the comparatively nuanced view that what counts as knowledge in a given era is always influenced, in complex and subtle ways, by considerations of power. There are others, however, who are willing to go even further than Marx. Foucalt strongly believed that “disciplinary power” was shaped through invisibility, and that universal truth was more than often the ideas of a ruling class disseminated via a process of discourse through the masses to set social standards and taboos that are said to be absolutes, and are as a result maintained through law and order. 

^ Michel Foucalt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault

Post-modernism emphasises liberty from these rules and chains, and strongly encourages to think outside the box to some extent, to use one’s imagination to open their mind to the possibilities of the alternatives, particularly in the arts, and not be bound by the normalities and social expectations laid out in the so called “universally valid” logic and and truth Marx would argue we are tricked into believing.  “There is such a thing as human nature; it consists of faculties, aptitudes, or dispositions that are in some sense present in human beings at birth rather than learned or instilled through social forces.”

http://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy

So How does this all relate?

defying convention is one of the primary aspects of post-modernism, and in doing this we must recognize the conventions of, in our case, narrative structures we consider to be universally accepted and consistently repeated. I spoke of these in an earlier post, but Andy Wyatt’s “The Complete Digital Animation Course” also describes the consistencies of story research and structure in the post-production sections, recognizing the seven most basic meta-narratives as:

Overcoming the Monster

Rags to Riches

The Quest

Voyage & Return

Comedy

Tragedy

Rebirth

“As a race, humans have been telling stories for thousands of years. It has been suggested by scholars that there is only a very limited number of possible stories - Why We Tell Stories (Continuum, 2004), Christopher Booker theorizes that whatever the story, it can always be stripped down to one of these seven basic structures.”

Wyatt, A. (2010) The complete digital animation course: Principles, practices, and techniques: A practical guide for aspiring Animators. United States: Barron’s Educational Series.

Although “Hoodwinked!” demonstrates characteristics of several of these typical story structures like all do, we can recognize that the film does in fact make use of post-modernist concepts in order to structure it’s narrative, these include flashbacks that combine to create a narrative structured that is dis-organised and fragmented, whilst encouraging the considerations of more than one single interpretation of ongoing events. 

“In its simplest terms, a story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. At its most complex, a story can have complicated plots and narratives, sub-plots, metaphorical meanings, symbolic references and narrative twists to keep an audience on their toes”

- The main twist in “Hoodwinked” (2006 SPOILERS) being that the Granny turns out to be living an extreme lifestyle, a lie and a secret kept from her Grand-daughter Red for many years:

^ Red’s Grandmother skydives from a helicopter: http://pixgood.com/hoodwinked-granny.html

Martin Goodman of the Animation World Network argues that “In a medium as wonderfully variegated as animation, one hates to deal in generalities.” Therefore to some extent, Animation as a medium is much more capable of pushing the boundaries of fragmented Narrative Structure because of its capability of portraying any situation imaginable by the limitless potential of the software and other methods (like simple pencil and paper) used to create it!

^ At one scene in the film, an avalanche nearly falls onto Red and her Goat friend as they make their way towards Granny’s house to deliver the basket of Goodies. This actually turns out to have been caused by Granny herself using explosives on a snowy mountain face to try and elude some agents of the main story’s antagonist (unknown at this point) and make her way back home in time for Red’s arrival.

Quoatations:

“Postmodernism does not predate animation. It dates back only as far as the late 1970s, the conceptual masterwork of philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. There is considerable academic dickering on what constitutes the postmodern, as it can apply to artistic, cultural, or economic definitions. Definitions of Postmodernism convey more sense if it is seen as a movement with somewhat defined tenets.”

Goodman, M. (2013) Dr. Toon: The animation Critic’s art - defining our terms. Available at: http://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-animation-critic-s-art-defining-our-terms (Accessed: 9 February 2016).In Cartoons, People, Television, 2D

“Animated film serves as a site for exploring certain aspects of postmodernism, particularly the realms of double-coding, intertextuality, and carnival comedy. It’s use of pastiche and parody, of extended quotation, and of multiple perspectives – of heteroglossia within one small discourse – situate it as a prime property for post modern analysis.”

-  Salmon, C. (2007) Animation essays. Available at: http://animationessays.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/20-th-century-visual-culture-modernism.html (Accessed: 9 February 2016).

“Metanarrative - Lawrence Kuznar describes metanarratives as grand narratives such as the Enlightenment, Marxism or the American dream. Postmodernists see metanarratives as unfairly totalizing or naturalizing in their generalizations about the state of humanity and historical process (2008:83)”

Postmodernism and Its Critics

Daniel Salberg and Robert Stewart and Karla Wesley and Shannon Weiss

As for criticisms in the post-modern:

“Pauline Rosenau (1993) Rosenau identifies seven contradictions in Postmodernism:

Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.

While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.

The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.

Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.

By adamantly rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgment.

Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.

Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.”

As I had stated before, Hoodwinked does follow standards and typical narrative plots of conventional story structures such as “Overcoming the Monster”, and Postmodernism critcizes the inconsistencies of modernism, yet refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself, therefore Postmodernism as a concept is flawed because it challenges convention and consistency yet dislikes the inconsistency of modernism.

The way in which Hoodwinked relates events to each other in a non chronological timeline through the flashbacks is interesting however, as it is uncommon in children’s media. The flashbacks split the narrative into segments that are essentially personal interpretations/testimonies, and there are consistencies between each of the stories, such as the avalanche and the parachuting of Granny, which without the combination of each of the stories seemed odd and confusing. This is a post-modernist method of storytelling, DESPITE the film showing inherent structuralist characteristics of the seven basic story structure like Overcoming the Monster and The Quest. 

The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature, Vol 16, No 2 (2012)

This study onto children’s responses to the film demonstrates some of the claims I have made in detail, as the film offers new “perspectives” that children with  “adequate learning approaches which cater for our new digital hypermedia world” can relate and find entertainment in. You would assume that children would find fragmented post-modernist/post-structuralist narratives and characters with various perspectives confusing. We all know the Grimm Brothers version of the Red Riding Hood tale, but the Hoodwinked Tale in short goes something like this, which you would think would seem slightly more confusing/far-fetched for children in it’s complex deconstruction/revision of the original:

“In the plot of Hoodwinked, the Police have been called upon to investigate what had happened at Granny’s house. The candy recipes were stolen and many shops are out of business. Apparently, Red and Granny get attacked by the Wolf. The police interview Red, Wolf, Woodcutter and Granny and each one of them tells his/her version of the story. Eventually, the Rabbit turns out to be the one stealing the recipes and he gets arrested along with his team.  Hoodwinked deconstructs the story in multiple ways by changing theencoded power relations, portraying intelligent, strong, assertive female characters, as the heroines, Red and her Grandma, are in a position of powerful active agents. Red is daring, adventurous, intelligent, assertive and ambitious. She is an audacious delivery girl who delivers cookies through the forest on her own. Overall Red is brave; she knows Karate and can defend herself when the wolf approaches her in the woods. Grandma is not like other traditional grandmas; she is a Superheroine. She has a tattoo on her neck and likes to live life to the extreme. She does extreme sports, bakes the best cakes and is able to depend on herself; she is the one who saves Red when the Rabbit captures her. The Woodcutter is not the saviour and only happens to be there when the Wolf attacks Grandma. Grandma trains three months for a snow sports competition; she wins a medal for the battle of the iron cage gladiators. The reason she does not tell Red about her activities is because she does not want her family to worry.”

When asked how much they liked the Grimm brothers story, these children from “an American school in Beirut where students learn English, Arabic and French” “did not like Grimm’s classical story a lot”.

Also, young boys and girls tended to choose a favourite character that was the same gender as them.  “Perhaps the [original Grimm Brothers] text is offering a dominant reading or it encourages this male-female dualism.”

On the other hand, when asked to respond to “Hoodwinked!”  Both boys and girls highlighted the lesson of not talking to strangers but girls seem to highlight more that a girl should obey her parents and listen to the different perspectives. 

“Moreover, not all children understood the feminist encoded messages in the movie Hoodwinked. For example, not all girls thought that Red 2 is ‘braver’ than Red 1, even though she plays karate and is able to defend herself against the Wolf. Red 2 is shown as scared in a number of instances but she gets over her fear and defends herself. For girls Red 2 is as good as Red 1, a lot cleverer and no necessarily that much braver than Red 1, whereas for boys Red 2 is a lot braver than Red 1, slightly more ‘good’ and a little cleverer than Red 1. On the one hand, girls do not perceive Red 2 as that much braver (60%) than Red 1 (43%) whereas all boys do. On the other hand, to boys Red 2 is not that much cleverer (60%) than Red 1 (28%) whereas all girls think so. Moreover, not many boys and girls describe Red 2 as beautiful and the same for Red 1. Only 12% of girls think Red 1 is beautiful but none of the boys think so. This could be interpreted in a positive way which is that they are not focusing on beauty which is one of the stereotypical attributes of the classical female heroines.” - Indeed the film does demonstrate some feminist aspects, not so related to Narrative Structure, but an interesting nation nevertheless, as Red fights the wolf as well as Boingo the Rabbit with her Karate, and the Grandmother turns out to be a daredevil. Red 1 (the original Grimm brother character) and Red 2 (Hoodwinked) do demonstrate differences in feminist attitudes however, as Red 2 is much more able on her own and a karate champion.

Finally, and possibly one of the most interesting remarks from the study

“By offering multiple subject positions, this text allows both girls and boys to learn to position themselves from a different perspective, but when probed they take sides. None of the boys believed the wolf’s story but the girls who are female seem to trust the males’ perspective more, which to a certain extent shows domination of male authority and power.  The stereotype of bad wolf is carried to Wolf 2. Even though the wolf is not bad in the revision, he is still perceived as so by many girls and boys.” - at a young age, socialisation  and enculturation is taking place and is at it’s most noticeable, what we can see here is potentially already arising examples of male authority and the stereotypical tendency for young girls to be more understanding of people/character’s situations and personal interpretations. 

The stereotypical approach of the Wolf being bad is not so easy a concept to erase from children’s minds to evoke an understanding of post-modernist ideology, so perhaps these alternative methods of storytelling and character introduced to some children through the animated medium like in Hoodwinked can appear confusing, unusual and/or an outright deceptive lie.

-  Dr Luma Balaa is an assistant Professor of English Studies in the Department of Humanities at the Lebanese University of Beirut. She obtained her doctorate in English Studies from Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland where her doctoral dissertation was on Children,Gender  and Fairytales: A Case Study of Children’s Response to Snow White. Her research interests include fairytales, Anglophone Lebanese Australian writers, women’s writings, and representations of women in Cinema.

Children’s Responses to Hoodwinked, the movie

https://sebheid.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/rashomon-and-the-postmodern-condition/

“They call it the “Rashomon effect” in Hollywood, when a story is told in an unreliable way several times, and only with the last story “the truth” is revealed. Rashomon is even harsher though, because Kurosawa intentionally refuses to show the truth. The last story is the most believable, and unlike the previous three which seem to be wildly different from each other it seems to tie the stories together by indicating which bits of the story might have been lies and which true, but even the last story is as well marked as not really reliable since the farmer who told it, has at least edited out his theft of the dagger, but who knows maybe even more.”

http://www.asharperfocus.com/Rashomon.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042876/

Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was a Japanese film maker, acclaimed in his career as one of the greatest of all time, with masterpieces such as “Seven Samurai” (1954) and “Rashomon” (1950) gaining critical success and spanning international recognition. Rashomon tells the story of a heinous rime and its aftermath, but is told through different narratives, different interpretations of events told by several different points of view:  “We might only have narratives but the fact that we have several versions of the same story allows us to do some speculative triangulations of the motives and attitudes of the characters.”

This method of storytelling is an unusual yet effective one, demonstrating a structural narrative that applies the characteristics of the post-modern condition and post-modern cinema. Postmodernism is a critique and departure from modernism, encompassing skeptical interpretations and thought-processes that argue that the complexities of life over universal truths and “absolutes”. Postmodernists beieve finding one answer is pointless, and only by looking at the bigger picture and the more subjective diversities of life can we truly gain an understanding of the world. Akira Kurosawa clearly understood these processes, and his art form clearly illustrates and even formed key characteristics of the post-modern in the arts: 

Rejection of Cultural Value - Encourages questioning cultural value, such as believing one art of form or way of thinking is intrinsically superior to another

Cultural Appropriation - Exhibiting certain elements of another culture in one’s own, it has often been used to ironic, satirical or racist effect, but cultural appropriation relates to multi-culturalism in all of its forms, the culinary and musical arts are typical examples

Style over Substance - This concerns the post-modern tendency to value the style and appearance of certain aspects of the world over the meaning and substance behind it, as postmodernists are not in favour of universal truths, there tends to be a higher regard for looks than function

Bricolage - The construction or creation of work from a diverse range of recycled materials, both literally and metaphorically, creating something new from whatever is available - called “makeshift handiwork”

http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/ETHICS_TEXT/Chapter_10_Postmodernism_Pragmatism/Postmodernism.htm

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/11/this-obsession-with-cultural-appropriation-is-leading-us-down-a-very-dark-path/

http://www.pinch-magazine.com/2011/11/postmodernist-architecture/

Baldick, Chris (2008). The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. p. 42. ISBN 9780199208272. Retrieved 29 August 2015. 

Berger, A.A. (2007) Media and society: A critical perspective. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Xr9J9sSCEpMC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=rashomon+postmodern&source=bl&ots=vcjIKRikXa&sig=Ms6Siw50M8LozHv3hIe-6aEZCz4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiX58y6sOjKAhVCNxQKHahpApgQ6AEINTAD#v=onepage&q=rashomon%20postmodern&f=false (Accessed: 9 February 2016).

Other characteristics, particular in what I am concerned with, cinema and animation, include:

Genre Blending

Lack of Depth

Lack of Chronology

Irony

Playfulness/Eccentricity

Satire

‘Black’ Humour/Irreverence

Fragmented Storytelling

Acceptance and Encouragement of Choice over Linearity

Free Will in terms of broader socially constructed concepts and tradition, including gender, sexuality, having children, marriage and religion

http://ideasfilm.org/postmodern-cinema/

These “significant changes in human sensibility and subjectivity and aesthetically led to the emergence of a new artistic style”  Postmoernism is a theory that makes use of so-called “complex devices that can actually create new textual configurations and modifications to pre-existing canons.” What this all means is that this new, but criticised method of thinking tends to disregard one singular way of thinking and encourages the complexities of, for instance, narrative storytelling as a more diverse concept beyond, say, BEGINNING, MIDDLE & END. In the same way that post-modernism as a theory denies “absolutes” in real life, can any one interpretation of the same event be truly considered more ‘real’ than another?

Kurosawa may have also used specific patterns of shots and scene layouts to directly, and visually convey the differences in each of the character’s recounts of the crime committed in “Rashomon”:

“One critic (Gerald Mast in his A Short History of the Movies) suggests that Kurosawa has adapted his camera work to the different narratives. He tells the bandit’s story with furious tracking and panning shots, an extremely mobile camera that matches the bandit’s impetuous, irrational nature. He builds the wife’s story from cross-cut close-ups, exploring the characters’ states of mind. For the husband’s story, he uses a high camera, relatively fixed, with long takes, to get an effect of seriousness, stateliness, solemnity. In the woodcutter’s version he keeps the camera at a goodly distance from the characters, thereby showing them as smaller than in the other versions. In effect, Kurosawa, like the the witnesses and the participants creates his own versions of the three stories.” 

Film Reviewer for “the Guardian” Peter Bradshaw took this approach on the method of storytelling used and to date repeated via the ‘Rashomon Effect’ to date:

“One character is told that lying is natural for all of us, and it is in the discrepancies that the essence of our humanity resides. Kurosawa invests the unknowability of the event with horror, suggesting that the three of them somehow chanced upon, or created, a black hole in human thought and communication, whose confusion and violence can never be clearly explained or remembered, as in the Marabar caves in A Passage to India with their endless echoing "Bo-oum".”

Bradshaw, P. (2016) Rashômon: Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 masterwork is a chilling, utterly memorable dissection of the nature of human communication, writes Peter Bradshaw. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jun/17/rashomon-kurosawa-film-review (Accessed: 9 February 2016).

Each of the “successive testimonials” recounting the story of the heinous event share similarities* but never truly reach a conclusion, the film ends  where director Kurosawa “intentionally refuses to show the truth”, creating what Bradshaw refers to as the “endless echoing of the Bo-oum”, a consistent back and forth of potential lies and truth that never truly reach an answer despite the stories growing more believable as each are told. The critical analysis of human communication delved into by Rashomon concerns an “irreducible plurality of meanings” that “brings into question the possibility of absolute truth”.

Fu, C.W.-h. and Heine, S. (1995) Japan in traditional and Postmodern perspectives: Revolutionary war soldier .. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1YyjMkRCnmkC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=rashomon+postmodern&source=bl&ots=xFiKZTEMAh&sig=hvK66Z5kuxO0Br8El72wB4qu1tI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiX58y6sOjKAhVCNxQKHahpApgQ6AEIMTAC#v=onepage&q=rashomon%20postmodern&f=false (Accessed: 9 February 2016).

* The one truth shared and agreed upon, the death

But How does this all relate to the Narrative Structure of 2006′s “Hoodwinked!”?

http://mesmericmedia.com/single-hoodwinked.html

The unique point I noticed after watching Hoodwinked is that the detective, Flippers, encourages the person watching the film to recognize that there are more than one side to every story. A majority of stories tend to focus on the fact that the hero’s tale and objective is the absolute truth, and that the antagonist’s ideals are flawed because they deny, challenge and/or directly stand in the way of the hero. But Flippers finds the real villain, someone none of the main characters expected, by taking into account each character’s own personal recount.

^ https://fortheloveofyaf.wordpress.com/tag/hoodwinked/ - Flippers, also the narrator of the film at the beginning (exposition) and the end (conclusion)

“Let’s just say if a tree falls in the forest you’ll get three stories, yours, mine and the tree”

Flippers using this remark to remind the characters in the movie as well as the audience that even in an exaggerated situation such as this, to discover the true facts of an often mysterious situation we must first take into account each of the affected’s stories. This is a very contemporary way of looking at it, as throughout history we have seen examples where one person’s word has been taken as fact over another’s without hearing them all out, evaluating their statements, taking into consideration the age and emotional stability of each of the tellers and weighing up a verdict. 

However, as illustrated by this episode of the Simpsons, some stories are regarded as more believable and widely accepted because of the nature, history and appearance of the person giving the testimony and the accused. 

The original accident is that Bart was run over by Mr Burns. Bart enters the stand, a young boy injured and appearing innocent, so his exaggerated version of the story which emphasises himself as an innocent young boy and Burns as a despicable man with evil intent on running him down, results in wide “awws” of affection and sorrow in the audience all round. 

Whereas Burn’s equally exaggerated tale emphasises himself as an affectionate and kind philanthropist who tries to help “that incorrigible Simpson boy” after he apparently purposely rode into Burn’s car.  This version of the original accident causes almost no response, with silence in the audience and distrustful looks all round. 

The main difference between Hoodwinked and Rashomon, to conclude, is that Rashomon takes the individual tales from each of the testimonies but does not conclude or give a satisfying answer as to what really happened. Hoodwinked on the other hand presents one situation during the exposition that we know to be true because it happened right before our eyes (the incident with the Wolf dressed as Granny), but notes that each of their stories insist their innocence, only to find that the true villain all along was one that none of them would have thought, the Bunny “Boingo”. Boingo is, as a result, confronted and defeated, making for a happy ending that the younger audience of the film can perhaps find more fulfilment in.

^ Boingo, appearing in one the character’s flashbacks/recounts, before we knew he had any significance, let alone being the main antagonist: http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Boingo_(Hoodwinked)

Edwards, C. (2006) Hoodwinked! Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443536/

One of the first computer animated feature films to be produced and released without the aid of a distributor, I studied into Cory Edward's 2005 film "Hoodwinked". The film is of great interest to me as it relates to the studies and proposals for a potential examination that I want to write. Despite receiving largely mixed reviews and less than average overall reception, the film was a commercial success and makes extensive use of disruptive, non-linear narrative structure as well as broad postmodernist concepts. The animated feature takes heavy focus on the lack of universal truths, 'subjective' flashbacks and personal interpretations of events from individual characters, which are unusual methods of storytelling amongst children's media. Thus I decided to watch the film over and gather some useful notes for what could potentially be the ground for a more extensive critical analysis in the form of an essay.

http://akirakurosawa.info/2015/11/01/film-club-hoodwinked-2005/

The Akira Kurowasa Film Club and others have identified Hoodwinked "as a healthy mixture of Kurosawa’s film classic [Rashomon] and the equally classic Little Red Riding Hood story." with "A bit of the Usual Suspects is thrown in as well" - The film offers an inventive combination of perspectives and interpretations of events from each character after the climax of the Little Red Riding Hood story takes place, the true villain of the story is slowly revealed after each character gives their tale.

One reviewer, however, argues that this subjective method of storytelling could be just a joke and not much else: "Perhaps I’m being a little unfair on the film makers, but I did interpret the wavering perspective of various versions as being more to do with narrative clumsiness than a genuine desire to explore subjectivity."

“Red Riding Hood, you probably know the story, but there’s more to every tale than meets the eye...You can’t judge a book by it’s cover, but if you want to know the truth, you’ve got to flip through its pages” - First lines of dialogue from the narrator in “Hoodwinked”

In the first sequence of the movie, it opens with the climatic event of the classic Red Riding Hood story, where Red enters in on her grandma’s house and the Wolf disguised as her grandma deceives Red, only it progresses into something much less conventional, as Red notices the Wolf, fights him, and a crime scene is set up in it’s wake. Amongst the battle, Red’s grandma bursts out of a cudboard door tied up and an axe man comes crashing through the window flailing wildly with his axe to no real effect.

Flippers, a detective frog, decides to get each of the character’s personal recount of events leading up to the incident we just witnessed. “We have four suspects, and that means four stories”, as each character insist they are innocent of any crime.

http://www.trespassmag.com/my-what-big-teeth-you-have-interpretations-of-little-red-riding-hood-in-films/

Red’s Story

Red explains that she was delivering her grandma’s recipes for her sweet treats to her house on the top of the dangerous mountain. This was because a so called “goody” thief was on the loose and terrorizing bakers, stealing their recipes. On her journey she encounters the Wolf, whom she is immediately suspicious of, and he tries to take her basket, but she manages to escape and finds her way to her grandma’s house with the help of an eccentric singing goat, when she gets there the Wolf is already there because he took a short-cut, and thus the exposition’s events occur.

http://hoodwinked.wikia.com/wiki/File:Hoodwinked_wolf.jpg

The Wolf’s Story

The wolf insists his innocence and that he is actually a reporter. What he considers the “real story” is that he was working on the case of the goody thief, trying to gather information to write a story on the thief causing havok amongst the townsfolk. When he notices innocent little Red cycling her way to her Grandma’s house during his investigations, he suspects her and ponders any relation she might have to the thief, as many goodies apparently pass through her hands. He crosses paths with Red after finding her route to her Grandma’s house, wanting to question her, what he scares her off. He makes his way to Red’s Grandma’s house and disguises as her Grandmother in an attempt to gather vital information, and the story goes from there. 

http://milliesmoviestowatch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/hoodwinked.html

The Axe-Man’s Story

The Axe-man is questioned as to what he has to do with all this, as he entered the scene for no apparent reason. He insists he is an actor and was practising for a part where he was to play a woodcutter. He auditioned for the part but failed, so went back to his day job as a “schnitzel truck” driver (similar to an ice-cream truck) which the kids love, but finds his produce stolen by the goody thief (notice the shocked expression above). He then gets a call telling him that he will get the part of the woodcutter if he can “go out and find that tree-chopping side [of himself]” to train for it, which he does, to a very large extent. But when chopping one sizeable tree on a hill, he finds it nearly fall on him and then roll down the hill to nearly run him down, rushing down the hill (rolling on the fallen tree) he finds himself crash through the window of a house at the bottom still holding his axe. The story goes from there.

http://www.filmclub.org/film/2836/hoodwinked/All/page/10

Granny’s Story

In Grandma’s Story, further truth is revealed, as she exposes a secret she had been keeping from her Grand-daughter Red for years - She is actually living an extreme lifestyle with an enthusiasm for extreme sports, she also has 3 letter “Gs” tattooed on her neck. She was actually headed to an extreme snow sports competition to participate prior to the events at the start of the film. At the competition, some participating rivals of hers are revealed to be agents of the “goody bandit”/thief and plan to take her and Red out. But Granny starts an avalanche with some explosives to slow the enemies from reaching Red as she races home on a parachute. However, when reaching the house she gets coincidentally caught up in a ceiling fan (which ties her up in the parachute) and thrown into the cudboard. When the events at the beginning of the film ensure, she manages to bust her way out of the cudboard.

The true antagonist turns out to be a character that appears in each of their stories, one which the characters take no notice of as they believe him to have no significance beyond being a side character - Boingo the Bunny. 

Boingo reveals his plans to steal all of the wood’s recipes so that he can set up his own goody business/empire and be “top of the woods” in the market with no competition (as he also intends to blow them up). His treats, he reveals, also contain an ingredient he calls “Boingonium”, an addictive addition that will hook all his consumers to buy more and more. In the end, the heroes defeat Boingo, and he is imprisoned, then the characters are recruited by the detective Flippers into an agency that makes sure people always get their “happily ever after”.

“Let’s just say if a tree falls in the forrest you’ll get three stories, yours, mine, and the tree” - Flippers at the end of the tale

“I always did like happy endings” - Final quote of dialogue from Red

I will discuss this more closely later on, but the significance of this movie to Narrative Structure is that it does something very different to most kid’s movies, as it fragments the narrative in a fairly post-modernist style and gives different variations of not only the original Red Riding Hood folk tale, but also the circumstances we witness in the exposition. This variety of interpretations coming from different characters helps piece together the investigation as well as move the story along. Unlike “Rashomon” (1950) however, we are left with a happy ending with a clear resolution and answer to the original question - who is the antagonist? Who is the criminal? Rashomon, does quite the opposite, as Akira Kurosawa purposely chose to keep the answer from the viewer and provoke thoughts and discussion surrounding the spoken interpretations 

- This circumstance of having several unreliable stories recollected has actually been labelled in Hollywood as the “Rashomon Effect”- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon_effect

After a discussion with Robert Ramsden about my initial ideas for my essay it was apparent that it would be difficult to relate the topic to the lectures and the theme we are attempting to discuss and analyse within the animated medium - Narrative. The idea I wanted to pursue was on anthropomorphism, investigating how the Wolf in Red Riding Hood and its many adaptations often personifies the danger of strangers and the evils in life of which we must be aware and seek to avoid.

Robert agreed that a story such as Red Riding Hood is very well known and analysed and evaluated to its very core, meaning finding an original interpretation and more interesting response to the lectures would be difficult. Additionally, linking the anthropomorphic character to NARRATIVE would be difficult, as the character is certainly a part of the narrative, but investigating the Wolf as an embodiment of certain ideals and obstacles in life would be hard to relate to Narrative.

As a result, I have decided to go down a different route, one related to Narrative “Structure” rather than anthropomorphism, as I find this more interesting and a more capable topic for extended discussion. I most closely wanted to evaluate how the story of Red Riding Hood and perhaps other fairy tales have made more modern use of more fragmented Narrative Structures  and non-chronological circumstances, particularly in the field of animation of course, which grants more possibilities for how such a structure of storytelling could be achieved. 

http://sigitaspobutka-themediaproject.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/pulp-fiction-1994-opening-sequence.html

http://sunnivassamdal.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/essay-pulp-fiction-and-non-linear.html

Arguably, American Director “Quentin Tarantino” popularised this form of storytelling in the modern day, his films “Reservoir Dogs” (1992) & “Pulp Fiction” (1994) break the conventions of other typical “gangster” films of its sort by using irregular clothing choices and a non-linear narratives -  which “challenges the conventional rules of a chronological construction of the plot and is presented out of chronological order.”

Infact, the structure of films Pulp Fiction and Donnie Darko are so, what we call, “disruptive”, that they have even sparked fan made flowcharts and info-graphics in order to represent each of the scenes in a sound chronological order:

http://www.slashfilm.com/infographic-pulp-fiction-chronological-order-flow-chart/

“The non-linear animator constructs the synthetic reality using a variety of techniques including unexpected transformations, parallel systems, abstraction/symbolism, and reflexive devices — the same techniques employed by non-objective animators, since, after all, the non-objective spectacle is the ultimate synthetic reality.”

Here are some other examples I’ve found from western media/animation in particular, of fictional narratives that have been known to or have used elements of fourth wall breaking. The aim for this is to potentially gather a list of source materials from which I can cite, discuss, and possibly compare and evaluate in an essay:

1. The Simpsons S07 E06: “Treehouse of Horror VI” - Homer cubed

http://www.manic-expression.com/six-the-simpsons-halloween-segments-i-lovedhated-31-days-of-halloween/

In this animated short as part of the Simpson’s Halloween specials “Treehouse of Horror”, the show parodies Twilight Zone as Homer finds himself trapped in a third dimension, depicted as a three dimensional computer generated version of himself, instead of the two dimensional character we known him as. Bill Oakley considers the scene where Homer steps into a third dimension the “money shot”:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treehouse_of_Horror_VI#/media/File:THOH6_-_3D_transition.png

The significance of this is that Homer defies the characteristics of the show and is surprised by the existence of another dimension and the objects inside, such as a small pond and several different 3D shapes like cubes. The episode is a parody and a special, granting it endless possibilities not bound by the normal show’s rules to ‘make sense’ as it is “non canon”, aka not part of the main series and so the events likely did not actually happen in the Simpsons world. 

The episode was also aired on October 29, 1995, at a time when computer generated animation was still relatively new and high cost (”Toy Story”, the world’s first feature-length computer-animated film and the first theatrical film produced by Pixar was released one month later, so perhaps the episode was also referencing this). Homer actually mentions the high cost of the type of computer generated three dimensional animation used in the episode: 

“Man, this place looks expensive! I feel like I'm wasting a fortune just standing here. Better make the most of it (Homer burps).”

- http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?episode=s07e06

http://exploregram.com/homer-in-the-real-world-from-treehouse-of-horror-vi-homer-cubed/

To make the fourth wall effect even better, Homer eventually falls into a wormhole in the third dimensional, which causes him to fall into the human world, where he seems dazed, scared and confused as civilians look at him ponderously. Perhaps this is referencing the fact that digital animation is getting ever closer to representing hyper realistic human beings, but one way or the other it makes for a hilarious gag that is iconic of the Simpsons. 

http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Treehouse_of_Horror_VI

http://www.ew.com/article/2010/06/29/toy-story-inside-buzz

2. Deadpool

http://moviepilot.com/posts/2862545

In the comic books, video game and upcoming movie, “Deadpool” is an anti-hero created by Marvel known for his wild antics and constant fourth wall breaks. Nicknamed “the man with a mouth”, Deadpool is one of very few heroes who possesses this knowledge of the viewer and often refers to them, or even attempts to change certain aspects of the fiction to better entertain them in his eyes (such as the script changing in the game in second video above). The new feature film has even gone so far as to edit publicity for the film to fit with Deadpool’s style of humour:

http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/deadpool/news/a779828/deadpool-gets-a-valentines-day-friendly-romcom-style-poster-and-ryan-reynolds-is-taking-full-advantage/

^ Film poster for Deadpool intended to look like a romance release near valentines day, far from what the actual movie is. This is done on purpose to mislead some uninformed viewers and essentially play a prank on some unsuspecting public outside of the cinema that reflects the character of Deadpool’s style of comedy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadpool

http://uproxx.com/gammasquad/deadpools-10-best-fourth-wall-breaks/

3. Kid Icarus: Uprising

http://vgtribune.com/review-kid-icarus-uprising/

Kid Icarus: Uprising is a game that breaks the fourth wall many times, infact, it tears the fourth wall to pieces and directly engages with the player about certain game mechanics, strategies and other franchises consistently. This is done so much so that nearly all of them are listed in it’s own wiki article here: http://kidicarus.wikia.com/wiki/Breaking_the_Fourth_Wall

http://hellscythe.com/foro/viewtopic.php?t=69

“Pit”, the main character, a primarily flightless angel guardian of ‘Skyworld’ and the goddess of light ‘Palutena’, references other appearances he has made in Nintendo games such as “Super Smash Bros Brawl” (which was released four years before uprising and 17 years after the most recent instalment of the series: of Myths and Monsters) as well as older games he appeared in, in which he looks very different as the games lay dormant for 21 years before another instalment/reboot in the series finally got released. 

In training videos for the game’s controls and mechanics, Pit makes references to his “stamina bar”, “dash” move, as well as “balanced gameplay” as the game prevents continuous sprinting so you can’t just run past all the enemies in a level. In further levels references are also made by Pit and other characters about:

Cliches and Familiar Stories

A Strategy Guide

The Wiki page for the Game Series

Nintendogs

Loading Bars

When to Save your Game

Icarus - Pit questions who this is and why it’s in the game title

Dr Mario

In one scene, “at the end of Chapter 9, Hades [The Game’s primary antagonist] makes his introduction by literally ripping the end credits off the screen.” 

A final way of creating a story, conflict, or circumstance in which a hero must complete a task, Toby Fox’s “Undertale” (2015) does something similarly fourth wall breaking with witty character ‘Mettaton’, when he reveals that his subtitled text speech are actually bombs as they fall off of the text box and explode:

https://quietthinker1.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/undertale-am-i-good/

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/in-which-i-play-undertale.22957/page-29

My second idea for an essay topic is to do with a TV trope that has the capability of extending narrative to a whole other dimension, bringing the media ever closer to the audience - Breaking the Fourth Wall.

TV tropes describes this phenomenon as “the fact that in any work of fiction the characters are unaware of the fact that they're fictional characters in a work, the audience observing them, and whatever medium conventions occur in between the two.Breaking the fourth wall is when a character acknowledges their fictionality, by either indirectly or directly addressing the audience. Alternatively, they may interact with their creator...”

http://wanderoveryonder.wikia.com/wiki/Fourth_wall - a cartoon character, “Wander” from animated television series “Wander Over Yonder” (2013-)  directly addresses the audience by looking at and talking to them

A popular gag among animated cartoons and video games for their witty, irreverent humour and interaction with the audience/viewer/player, the fourth wall is named after the  “traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theater, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play.” This literal wall being de-constructed in theatre has given name and life to new and exciting possibilities for fictional narratives & characters to address and relate to the person in-front of the text, image or screen, as well as in stage shows and live television programmes such as “Mrs Browns Boys” (2011-present):

Whether intentional or unintentional, the take was left in this episode purely because it’s hilarious, demonstrating the effective of such a technique in fictional entertainment. What’s impressive is that O’Carroll (Mrs Brown) stays in character besides the mishap, making for a great clip.

“It’s [The Fourth Wall’s] conventions involve a denial on the part of the actors of the pretence on the part of the audience that they are voyeurs or eavesdroppers on the dramatic, observing the unobservable.” -  Mangan, Michael (2013). The Drama, Theatre and Performance Companion. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 172. ISBN 978-1-137-01552-5.

This clip from Tomb Raider, a series of popular video games, addresses the concept of ‘scopophilia’ via an ending cut-scene that utilizes the efficiency of breaking the fourth wall. 

Feminist theorist Laura Mulvey (1941-) related scopophilia to the “male gaze”, arguing in her famous essay “Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema” (written 1973, published 1975) that due to men controlling the camera, and the desires of men displayed on screen with no drawbacks (men can just look and enjoy, with no consequences), female characters are able to be objectified and made out as insipid desirable toys. Interestingly, this cutscene (though I may be over-reading slightly) does the opposite and reaches out towards the viewer with no gender specification, employing the fourth wall breaking technique to humiliate and question the potentially voyeuristic gratifications of the viewer.

What I want to investigate though, is how it relates to narrative, and this is a perfect example of doing so in this famous surreal animated cartoon by Chuck Jones in early 1953 known as “Duck Amuck”, a short looney toons film in which main character “Daffy Duck” is tormented and toyed with by an initially unseen animator, using the control and influence they have over Daffy and the world around him to drive him mad. Common in Looney toons and many other western animations (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/BreakingTheFourthWall/WesternAnimation), the fourth wall is broken down and played with in an over the top pandemonium as  the controller ignores Daffy’s arguments and “over-literally interpret[s] his increasingly frantic demands.” The same concept for story telling was repeated with Bugs Bunny in 1955′s “Rabbit Rampage”.

What is most interesting is how the technique is used entirely throughout the pieces (Duck Amuck/Rabbit Rampage) to tell a story and communicate with the viewer. I believe that over use of this technique to tell a story would make it repetitive and boring, as the excitement of a story comes from wanting to know what happens next, but as a funny technique in and of itself to break down the fundamentals and conventions of narrative would certainly be an intriguing starting ground to a more detailed essay.

References:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakingTheFourthWall

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/BreakingTheFourthWall/WesternAnimation

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2j6pt1

Brown, T. (2012) Breaking the fourth wall: Direct address in the cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.

Mangan, Michael (2013). The Drama, Theatre and Performance Companion. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 172. ISBN 978-1-137-01552-5.

Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Available at: https://we.riseup.net/assets/102142/appadurai.pdf#page=381 (Accessed: 6 February 2016).Published in ‘Screen’ (Academic Journal) 1975

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Mulvey

http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/scopophilia/scopophilia.html

Big Bad Wolf (2006)  A multi-award-winning* and hilarious short film from New Zealand, released in 2006 - Relations to Narrative, Adaptations of Stories and Enculturation via Discourse

Written & Directed by RAJNEEL SINGH Produced by CRAIG PARKES Adapted from the sketch by CHRIS KERR Cinematography by MARC MATEO Art Direction by ANNAMARIE CONNORS Costumes by CHANTELLE GERRARD Edited by JASON PENGELLY & ANDY MCGRATH Produced by AWFULLY GRIMM PRODUCTIONS awfullygrimm.com Post Production by AFTERGLOW afterglow.co.nz

* "Best Director" - NEW ZEALAND BIG MOUNTAIN FILM FESTIVAL 2006, "Best Emerging Filmmaker" - MAGMA NEW ZEALAND SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2006 & "Best Short Film" - DONETSK SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2009

“Everything in that story [Red Riding Hood] is a metaphor for sex”. 

“That’s why she’s called Little Red Riding Hood. Because she has a Red Hood that her mother gave her when it was time to learn about being a woman” - The story has often had associations between the red hood and forms of sexual connotation, as the red cloak represents menstruation and womanhood

^ https://redridinghood2011.wordpress.com/about-the-book/the-wolf-in-red-riding-hood/

“it could have been that story and perhaps that’s the story behind the red cloak: red as in blood, the danger if nature, or blood as in menstrual blood. Little Red Riding Hood was not a child but menstruating.” - “Honey Reveals The Truth About Little Red Riding Hood”  MAY 1, 2011 · POSTED IN NOTES FROM ABOVE GROUND  By Honey van Blossom: http://boryanabooks.com/?p=286

Oddly enough, however, the short film actually does mention and arguably encourage the fact that “Some people read into a story too much”. The adaptation of the classic folk story by the Tarantino gangster style narrator (shown above) is exactly that, an adaptation, he realizes that his tale is loosely based on theory and speculation and he doesn’t want to be “one of those people”, by which he likely means the sort of person that make assumptions out as fact. Also, just as a speculation by me, perhaps the reason they are all dressed and act like the gangsters at the start of Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” (1992) is because of the fragmented, questionable and interesting style of storytelling that Tarantino has developed in his movies in which events take place in an often ‘un-chronological’ order - the title of the short, “Big Bad Wolves” is obviously a reference to the movie title “Reservoir Dogs” too.

After the introduction to this adaptation of the story, the Narrator tells of how the adventure and journey for Red is triggered. Red’s mother “neglects” her duties as a parent, particularly important from mother to daughter during puberty, and sends Red to see her wise Grand Mother to learn about the facts of womanhood once kept secret from her before she was old enough. “So She’s Embarrassed [The Mother talking about sex and womanhood], but if she’d just sat red down and told her the facts of life, none of this shit would have happened to her.”

The one piece of advice Red is given (which is pretty universal in most versions of the tale) is when the Mother gives Red a warning to “Stay on the path”, to avoid the dangerous animals. Oddly, she stays on the path but bumps into the wolf ON the path - who turns out to be a perverted man in this retelling, a “predator”, just like a dangerous animal.

The wolf takes a shortcut to Granny’s house (which Red probably told him about since she knows no better) and eats her before Red can get there, BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WANT HER TO LEARN ABOUT BEING A WOMAN. Is this his true intention?

Apparently, since it’s a metaphor, the outrageous idea that the wolf would be able to disguise himself as Red’s Grandmother “doesn't have to make perfect sense.” Red is the “personification of innocence”, so perhaps Red is anthropomorphic in her own way, by creating personified and archetypal characteristics of a human constructed ideal.

But the wolf manages to get her into bed naked, deceiving her into thinking it’s her Granny about to teach her some secrets (this is a story, it might sound stupid but it’s all a metaphor de-constructing and teaching the importance of morality). The man with the axe is thought to be arriving by the narrator’s colleagues as the story is told to them, but the narrator doesn’t know “if that really happened”, as some versions of the tale darken the tone by ending the story around here, strengthening the power the moral of the story might have on the reader/viewer. 

^ The axe man enters as leaves as though nothing was wrong, questioning whether or not he is even part of the story

The narrator doesn’t know if the axe man is a metaphor, let alone whether or not he even shows up, in this sense, the axe man is perhaps just a exception to the story to make it child safe and have a happy ending. This part of the tale was apparently written in by “The Brothers Grimm” in the 19th century.

My initial idea was to create an analysis of the wolf character in the classic folk tale “Little Red Riding Hood” and the metaphorical and symbolic interpretations the recurring archetype of the wolf represents in real life. The wolf is often considered a theme rather than a character in and of itself, as the antagonist they tend to trigger larger scale conflict and provide an obstacle between the hero and/or their allies and the ultimate objective of which they want to reach - in this case, this is Red’s Grandmother’s house.

^ http://hubpages.com/education/red_riding_hood

^ One argument even insists that the story is of rape, and that the wolf is a personified message for young children to heed especially; as it instructs children of the dangers of strangers: 

“ [The] 20 century brought another interpretation of this probably most interpreted fairy tale of all. Feminists see clear case of rape in The Little Red Riding Hood. It is a story about rape.The aggressive and active male is preying on passive heroine and her granny. He is in the end defeated by another aggressive and active male.”

There are many undertones in Red Riding Hood and it’s variations, the stories and the animations, as the wolf is usually considered a danger, both in classic versions of the tale and many contemporary versions: 

“Perrault, the first to publish a written version of the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood in the late 1600s, told his story as a cautionary tale warning children to not go into the woods where they would surely be devoured by wolves... The contemporary threat is not from real wolves in the wild but from those wolfish characters, who, in Angela Carter’s wonderful phrase, “are hairy on the inside.” It has been also suggested that sometimes the wolf is just a man being a man, as Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs sang “Hey there Little Red Riding Hood, you sure are looking good…”

But Canadian retelling of the tale, “Woods Wolf Girl” suggests otherwise through a dynamic retelling of the central plot points.  Hoogland, C. (2011) Woods wolf girl. Hamilton, ON: Wolsak and Wynn.

“The wolf is not only a hungry threat or a predator, he is also life-giving. The wolf shows Red where she is standing, the green world of which she is a part. “Look where you are,” he says, and “don’t be such a schoolgirl.”

“In the multi-layered characterization of the natural world, including wolves, Woods Wolf Girl attempts to return the woods and mountains to the wild. Canada’s wolves are an increasingly unique phenomenon in a world we’ve stripped of wildness.”

Google Books describes it as  “The woods and wolves are vivid and real, while Red herself is anything but a one dimensional girl-child. A meditation on innocence and its loss, and on the power of the green wilderness, Woods Wolf Girl uses striking lyric poetry to expose the heart of the original fairy tale.”

Variations of the tale differ on the perspective of the wolf, and take into account his thoughts and feelings beyond the hero’s, which is a post-modernist way of thinking that takes into account the interpretations and evokes a balanced, rational thought process before driving towards a conclusion.

References:

https://redridinghood2011.wordpress.com/about-the-book/the-wolf-in-red-riding-hood/

Hoogland, C. (2011) Woods wolf girl. Hamilton, ON: Wolsak and Wynn.

http://www.lonely-moon.net/lrrh/

Predation, Narration, and Adaptation: "Little Red Riding Hood" RevisitedMichelle Scalise SugiyamaInterdisciplinary Literary StudiesVol. 5, No. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 110-129Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41207031

Cronlund Anderson, M. and Maria F.Blayer, I. (2005) Studies on Themes and Motifs in Literature: Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Narratives in North America. Edited by Mark Cronlund Anderson and Irene Maria F.Blayer. New York, 275 Seventh Avenue, 28th Floor, NY, 10001: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.Printed in Germany. 

Marina Warner, the “British Equivalent to Jack Zipes”, has investigated historical narratives like fairy-tales and outlined the conventions set by them, demonstrating how classic tropes are still repeated today.

^ http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/ridinghood/tarrantred1.html

Wolf: The wolf has become a popular image in fairy tales thanks to this tale and The Tale of the Three Little Pigs. The wolf is a common predator in the forest and thus is a natural choice for the story unlike the witch, ogre or troll found in other tales. The wolf is often a metaphor for a sexually predatory man.

The wolf also figures prominently in other parts of British folklore, such as the traditional children's game, "What's the Time, Mr. Wolf?" Return to place in story.

The wolf itself is a succinct choice for an antagonist in a classic fairytale, combined with the colour red (first used by Perrault) to achieve suggestiveness and sexual connotations, the wolf is the anthropomorphic metaphorical manifestation of evil, deceptiveness and false intentions.  Although Perrault's version ends with the Wolf eating Riding Hood, many later versions have been changed to "happier" endings. Little Red Riding Hood has been killed, rescued or escaped in various versions. Sometimes the Grandmother survives, too. The rescuer is most often a hunter, but sometimes the girl's father or herself (Opie 1974). Perhaps the use of the wolf as the primary villain is for the reason of achieving universal understanding, as the wolf is an animal that is perhaps recognizable by cultures around the world.

“Anthropomorphism is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology.” - https://annablakeblog.com/2015/11/20/anthropomorphism-its-a-not-bad-thing/

Indeed, the way in which this relates to anthropomorphism as a concept is a very relevant study:  “It’s a knowledge acquired when we’re young, from our first fairy tales with a Big Bad Wolf, to every Looney Tunes rabbit, duck, or (Porky) pig. After that, every moment of Walt Disney, along with Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Doolittle, Animal Farm, and Kipling’s Jungle Book. It’s embedded in our minds since birth, if not sooner. It’s always been natural to use animals as parables for human life. Does that make it wrong?”  learn is to develop the knowledge and skills needed to participate in the communal, cultural practices and to become a fully functioning member of the community

Design features and styles for illustrated and animated representations of the Wolf in Red Riding Hood can be paradigmatically chosen to achieve a level of anthropomorphism and character that fits the mood of whatever kind of re-invented version of the tale you are trying to establish...

Notice how representations vary in the level of anthropomorphic elements chosen to represent the wolf, some are more humanistic, some are closer related to a real life wolf, but they all seem to maintain consistencies to some degree.

http://hdwallpaperbackgrounds.net/little-red-riding-hood-and-the-wolf-wallpapers/

http://www.wolfsongalaska.org/chorus/node/379

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood#/media/File:New-33.jpg

http://drfaustus3.deviantart.com/art/Big-Bad-Wolf-396698360

http://gorgview.com/red-riding-hood

http://athanart.deviantart.com/art/Little-Red-Riding-Hood-and-the-Wolf-404450144

Anthropomorphism:

A move towards story telling for children.

‘Animal’ / ‘Human’ behaviour.

Dealing with the bigger issues. 

Design, Gesture & Movement. 

https://caitlinbowbeer.wordpress.com/tag/little-red-riding-hood/

When looking at anthropomorphism in relation to narrative we must consider the use of the technique as a means of shaping stories and strengthening broader social constructs. Classic fairy tales and folk lore make use of the narrative technique to enculturate children right the way up to adulthood, take traditional tale “Little Red Riding Hood” for instance, particularly Charles Perrault’s version, which uses an anthropomorphic wolf to represent evil and villainy...

Perrault made the morals clear in his version of the tale, so as to communicate a message about our culture with extensive use of anthropomorphism. The wolf in this instance is the antagonist, a manifestation of principles we should seek to avoid from others and in ourselves, he is traditionally chaotic evil in alignment to the point where he merely wishes to deceive and eat the protagonist red, along with her grandmother. This has something to say about the sorts of people that would seek to victimise the innocent, and the threats of paedophilia and talking to strangers. Jack Zipes suggests that the Grimm Brothers and Perrault’s versions of the tale “transformed an oral folk tale about the social initiation of a young woman into a narrative about rape in which the heroine is obliged to bear the responsibility for sexual violation.”

“Anthropomorphism is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology.” - https://annablakeblog.com/2015/11/20/anthropomorphism-its-a-not-bad-thing/

“It’s a knowledge acquired when we’re young, from our first fairy tales with a Big Bad Wolf, to every Looney Tunes rabbit, duck, or (Porky) pig. After that, every moment of Walt Disney, along with Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Doolittle, Animal Farm, and Kipling’s Jungle Book. It’s embedded in our minds since birth, if not sooner. It’s always been natural to use animals as parables for human life. Does that make it wrong?” 

“To learn is to develop the knowledge and skills needed to participate in the communal, cultural practices and to become a fully functioning member of the community.”

Jack Zipes suggests that story telling was an activity between adults, the purpose being to discuss complex issues regarding human behaviour.

Certainly a move towards story telling for children, with a message to be given that strengthens and teaches broader social/economic principles and structures, the wolf in Perrault’s version of the tale arguably represents the ANIMALISTIC side of human nature, and relates this to crime and punishment that will always follow in it’s wake.

http://www.imgneed.com/little-red-riding-hood-wolf.html

http://www.imgneed.com/little-red-riding-hood-wolf.html

But there have been countless versions of the story to the point where the original story and structure is difficult to accurately pinpoint. The tale always has consistencies such as it’s characters and locations, but is often manipulated to give different messages and regularly encourage the reader to think beyond convention, surprising them with uncommon sequences. For instance, the portrayal of the wolf as a villainous anthropomorphic character is a common consistency, but we might be pushed to look beyond that and see him in a different light:

http://hoodwinked.wikia.com/wiki/File:Wolf_and_twitchy_hoodwinked.jpg

The wolf in “Hoodwinked!” for instance is very different in character, and is simply misunderstood as evil due to his rash nature and threatening appearance in the story, whereas in truth he gives his side of the story where he find out he was a reporter trying to get a story to write about. 

References:

http://www.mayastarling.com/little-red-riding-hood-moral-warnings-and-sexual-implications/

https://annablakeblog.com/2015/11/20/anthropomorphism-its-a-not-bad-thing/

http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-1428-6_868

Iona (1974) The classic fairy tales. Edited by Iona Opie and Peter Opie. London: Oxford University Press

In a lecture with Sarah Perry, acting tutor and performer at seminars, particularly for animators, Perry made a distinction between humans and animals, but tried to observe and discuss the ways in which we cross those boundaries and bring out the animal essence in humans and vice versa. 

http://www.watertower-music.com/film/release.php?title=jupiterascending

During the pre-production and design process of “Jupiter Ascending” (2015), Perry worked closely with actors and animators to get a feel for one particular type of character - a reptilian alien species known as the “Sargorn”:

http://www.finalreel.co.uk/jupiter-ascending-concept-art-production-design-look-book/jupiter-ascending-the-sargorn-original-animatic/

The final 3D rendering above demonstrates what they had to go off when getting a feel for the creature’s character, as they began to engage with how the human, reptilian and animalistic characteristics of it’s appearance could be evaluated and depicted through it’s violent and threatening personality:

“Finding the balance between the mouse and the human”, to get an “Essence of the creature” was funamental to Perry’s study and teaching of bringing this monster to life, to make it believable and unique. Thinking about weight and dominant pathways the creature would take led Perry and the actors to investigate how the being would move their body to fit with their appearance. This is directly linked to a practice, and continuous use of a process known as anthropomorphism in narrative study...

Oxford Dictionaries defines anthromporphism as:  The attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object - http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/anthropomorphism

http://www.maicar.com/GML/CENTAURS.html - “Centaurs”, human beings said to have the lower part of a horse in Greek Mythology, common in stories right into the modern day such as “Harry Potter”

http://mythortruth.com/minotaur/ - A “Minotaur”,  “ a monster that had the lower body of a human being and the head of a bull. It was believed to have been living in the Cretan labyrinth and consumed the flesh from human sacrifices until it was killed by Theseus.” Also a fairly common creature in modern games and other narratives, such as Alistar from “League of Legends”

John Tenniel’s Illustration of an anthropomorphic Rabbit from Lewis Carroll's “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” (1865), famous for it’s peculier anthropomorphic creatures and eccentric fantasy locations

http://moviepilot.com/posts/3297463 - Concept art of “Nick Wilde”, one of the main characters, voiced by Jason Bateman in Disney’s Upcoming “Zootopia”, featuring a wide array of highly anthropomorphic creatures and their stories, the film is set to be released in the coming weeks

Anthropomorphism is popularly used to attribute human qualities with animals, or animal qualities with humans, but it can also be used in the form of inanimate objects, robots, gods of certain elements or weather etc or other natural/supernatural phenomena such as concepts we recognize and have thus named and studied, and indeed, absolutely anything in existence other than a human being, as we can put human qualities into literally anything:

This is a visual pun by me, anthropomorphising molecules, demonstrating how the technique truly is limitless in it’s personified subjects

The word actually comes from “two Greek words, anthropos, meaning “man,” and morphe, meaning “form.” As we can see, the process of applying social and/or physical characteristics of a human being to anything other than a human being has been a technique used for telling stories for centuries, going right the way back to Ancient Civilizations such as the Egyptians, and is not limited to just the presentation of human elements in animals...

http://www.wondermondo.com/Countries/Af/Egypt/Giza/GreatSphinx.htm - The Great Sphinx of Giza, one of the oldest and grandest examples of anthropomorphism in a historical context

http://onsearchoflight.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/egyptian-god-and-goddess.html  - Anthropomorphic characteristics in ancient Egyptian works

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_(personification)#/media/File:Mort.jpg - A western personification of death, better known as the “Grim Reaper”, a scythe wielding iconic character capable of causing death by a single touch, often depicted in a black cloak also associated with death and fear as concepts. This is anthropomorphism as it’s very core, as the narratives formed via these constructs of life personify in essence as a character or entity reused through and through, as well as parodied and exaggerated...

“The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy”, an American animated television series created by Maxwell Atoms for Cartoon Network and aired from 2003-2008, notable for it’s witty adult humour, popular culture references and consistent fourth wall breaks

Death as a character in Family Guy. In the show he often takes his job less seriously and is just a regular guy with a responsibility and dreams, which to an extent is an even better example of anthropomorphism of the concept of death as it extends the storytelling technique to function with and relate to regular people much more closely than the early depictions of death as a speechless, frightening god of death. The grim reaper shares similarities with “Thanatos”, a daemon (demon) in ancient Greek mythology, usually just referred to, rarely seen...

http://scebiqu.deviantart.com/art/Thanatos-405929306 - Concept for “Thanatos” in “Smite”, a game by HiRez, notice the exaggeration of fantasy and mythological characteristics such as the scythe of a reaper and the wings as well as the colour scheme to represent the character as an anthropomorphic personification of a concept, rather than an animal or object.

References:

http://www.gotquestions.org/anthropomorphism.html

http://www.deathreference.com/Nu-Pu/Personifications-of-Death.html

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/personification

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/51e3f4ede4b053e5f0062efd/t/51f7e119e4b0021e844852cc/1375199513450/on-seeing-human.pdf -  Nicholas Epley, Adam Waytz, and John T. Cacioppo University of Chicago, Psychological Review, 2007

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy

http://carlysartblog.weebly.com/blog/anthropomorphism-in-ancient-egyptian-contexts

http://www.sunypress.edu/p-2448-anthropomorphism-anecdotes-and-.aspx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQARTm3PIiI

Diaz, Nancy Gray. "The radical self: metamorphosis to animal form in modern Latin American narrative." University of Missouri Press (MU) (1988).

Narrative (Metamorphosis) pt.2

“The metamorphosis of a human character to animal form occurs frequently in modem Latin American novels and stories. Often these metamorphoses are climactic events, crucial to the readers understanding of the character that undergoes transformation and to the meaning of the narrative as a whole.”

Much as this Narrative essay does, we can delve deep into an understanding of metamorphosis in stories, and the ways in which writers write their characters to shift and change their appearance and demeanour appropriately...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagual

- The Nagual, shape-shifters in Mesoamerican Folk religion. They are in fact human beings, with the capability to change into any animal form. “A Nagual is believed to use their powers for good or evil according to their personality.” This shape shifting ability in religion is perhaps used to reflect ourselves as human beings, and our tendency to change and alter our perspective of the world even as a result of the smallest influence.

http://grogsmovieblogs.com/2015/10/31/the-thing-1982-grogs-classic-movie-review/

- John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982) features a parasitic extraterrestrial lifeform that metamorphoses by assimilating anything that it touches, meaning that any one of the characters in the movie could be the alien, and the conflict begins to figure out who is human and who is not. The resulting paranoia is very interesting, and once again we perceive a moral through the use of metamorphosis in the storytelling, what is it to be human, and what makes us inhuman?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?239085-3-5-Remix-The-shapeshifter

http://dustin.wikidot.com/druid

- The Druid class in role-playing games such as “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Pathfinder” takes influence from classic fantasy storytelling and mythology, as the class often allows the player’s character to “shapeshift” or “beastform”, allowing them to take the form of any animal creature they have spent a substantial time with and studied throughout their life. The class combines the wisdom and intelligence of the host, the human, born into a life largely associated with the wilds, with the primal aspects of nature, allowing them to assimilate the abilities of various creatures in the universe to harness their different strengths - flight, speed, deadliness etc. 

Types of stories where metamorphoses occurs include:

Fairy Tales

Folk Tales

Myths

Creation Myths

Movies

Video Games

Transformation itself can be brought about by:

Shapeshifting abilities

To teach a lesson

To punish

To curse

To hide an identity

To escape someone/something

To pursue someone/something

An accident

Unusual Birth

After Death

Examples in Narrative:

Shapeshifting abilities - The Incredible Hulk (Marvel Universe) https://jkirian92.wordpress.com/tag/hulk/

Shapeshifting/Transformation as a means of pursuing someone/something - The Spirit “Koh the face stealer” from “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, Koh steals the faces of those that show emotion in it’s presence, to add to it’s ever expanding collection: http://es.avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Koh

Shapeshifting to hide an identity - “The Nutty Professor” (1996), in the film, overweight “Professor Sherman Klump” drinks a concoction that temporarily transforms him into handsome, but obnoxious, “Buddy Love”, but when he eventually transforms back after the effects wear off, he is forced to reveal his true self 

Shapeshifting as an accident - “The Animal” (2001), in the film, actor Rob Schneider plays Marvin Mage, a man who is in an accident and is brought back to life by the use of animal organs, only to find he is turning into an animal himself.

According to “TV Tropes”, there are “a wide variety of ways that this [changes in a person in a narrative via shapeshifting/transformation] can occur, but thematically it can be sorted into two broad classes:

Shapeshifting: A character can transform their own body as a special power or ability. Obviously enough, they are called shapeshifters, and often ply their powers for fun and profit (whether good or evil), or simply to trick or play practical jokes on normal folks.

Transformation: An otherwise non-shapeshifting character has a transformation cast upon them from an outside source (again, usually by magic or Applied Phlebotinum). This is typically Played for Drama; it may be part of a character's backstory, or even form the central conflict within the work. Curses are a popular source here, as it requires the character to go on a Quest to satisfy the Curse Escape Clause. A list of possible causes for transformations can be found here.”

The tendency for people to shift and transform is also consistent in Anime & Manga, as a means of creating plot via conflict resulting in changes in oneself or others:

The “Dragonball” series is famous for his extravagant transformations and fusions of characters to achieve powerful forms of themselves

“Kill la Kill” protagonist Ryuko Matoi and her main rival Satsuki Kiryuin transform using their “Kamui”, articles of clothing that grant powerful abilities, fuelled by the user’s blood

https://origininteractive.wordpress.com/tag/spirited-away/

http://evil.wikia.com/wiki/File:Spirited-away-no-face-attack.jpg

Hayao Miyazaki - Spirited Away (2001), Protagonist Chihiro’s parents are transformed into pigs by local spirits as a punishment for of their greed, and spirit friend of Chihiro’s, “No Face”, changes shape throughout the film where appropriate, often to show what he is thinking or feeling at the time. Finally, “Haku”, another friend of Chihiro’s and deutoragonist, turns out to be the god of the river, taking form of a dragon and helping Chihiro on her journey in the world she is so alien to.