Animating Culture: Hollywood Cartoons from the Sound Era

Eric Smoodin

The second book that I am reviewing is Animating Culture: Hollywood Cartoons from the Sound Era. This book does not have anything to do with comedy directly but it does talk a lot about the film bill at the time. The book was written by film studies professor Eric Smoodin. The reason i chose to look at this book is because i wanted to know what the animators could get away with in there animations, what they where allowed to show and how far they could push something to make it funny. The book talks about why the film bill was made and how people where worried about the effect cartoons would have on people. The book say the main concern people had at the time was that films where only watched by 'mature' people and cartoons where watched by both 'mature and immature'. The film bill was not made for cartoons but cartoons and animations had to stick to those rules too. One of the rules talks about sexuality which was a major concern for educators and religious groups and the rules where very strict on them where as now we an get away with almost anything. The book also talks about 'Betty Boop', and Tex Averys, 'Red Hot Riding Hood' and the way they got around the bill.

The book teaches a lot about why the cartoons in this era where made in the way they where and why this was the comedy at the time. This book talks a lot about what the bill was and how and who broke the rules to allow us, the future animators, to show almost anything we want.