If there was any film I watched repetitively in my childhood, here were the ones:
Star Wars
Sandlot
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
I kid you not, These VCRs must’ve been destroyed from just these cassettes. It is so interesting, but I don’t know why I clung to Who Framed Roger Rabbit so much. Star Wars makes sense, because it is pure space adventure and they made good LEGO toys, and I loved playing baseball, and I love dangerous neighbor dogs. But why Roger Rabbit?
If you haven’t seen this movie, go see it, because I’m about to talk a lot about it. It’s a movie that already starts with a great premise: “What if cartoons lived amongst us?” It came out in 1988, and it’s the only media to feature not only Daffy and Donald Duck together, but also Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse together as well. There’s no explanation, and instead we are flung onto a set with Roger Rabbit and Baby Hermann filming some hilariously overdone slapstick that I must’ve cried laughing to for hours on end. And then a flawless transition to “real life” as the director comes in and criticizes “birds” over Roger's head instead of his need for “stars”. Baby Hermann sounds like a smoking fifty year old man, and it zooms out to Eddie Valiant, the protagonist, and alcoholic.
It’s 1947, and change is on the horizon. The Red Car is becoming obsolete, and cartoons are big business. Betty Boop is all but working in low end jobs trying to make ends meet as “work’s been kind of slow since cartoons went to color.” It’s one of the most imaginative and amazing stories I’ve ever seen, because it seamlessly collides so many aspects of cartoon culture and the changing times in history. Even the end of the plot, where Toon Town was about to be destroyed by a “freeway”, is so possible, and in fact now that we have them, it is easy to assume for a child that there was once a cartoon existence.
So many memories are from this movie, and now one of my favorite lines ever in movie history is embedded in a simple hiding scene:
Valiant - That Angelo guy would rat on you for a nickel!
Rabbit - Not Angelo, he’d never turn me in…
Valiant - Why!? ‘Cause you made him laugh?
Rabbit - That’s right! A laugh can be a very important thing, why sometimes in life, it’s the only weapon we have.
Now I’m not going to go on a super serious or dark rant like I usually do, but I really must talk about this. Think about what it means for a cartoon to say this: Roger Rabbit is an invincible being (except for dip), and once drawn, is free to pursue his utmost desire from now to eternity on this earth. No need to eat, no need to sleep, and no constrains of death. For Rabbit to say this line gives so much power and humility to his character, I don’t even know if the people making this movie understand its importance. I think to them this is what cartoon characters would think, but it makes you wonder about everyone’s lives. Maybe that’s why I’m almost always up for a laugh.
But like everything in life, there are good toons and there are bad toons, and the end scene is just that. The movie starts with, “wow cartoons in real life” to being “oh God, cartoons in real life.” As soon as danger erupts, people would annihilate cartoons, no doubt about it. Can you imagine what an invincible threat would mean to everyone?
I think the name of “Who FRAMED Roger Rabbit” is interesting, because I want to think that this has a double meaning. Granted this presents a super hard-boiled plot of a literal mystery story, but I also think the word “framed” is a reference to all existence. I mean who drew Roger? Who thought him up and created him? “My whole purpose in life is to make people laugh.” It’s kind of sad, but interesting and possibly rewarding at the same time. What if you knew that was your purpose? And think about how much easier or more difficult life would be with such a simply told purpose like that. Who framed Roger Rabbit’s existence, and who framed mine? What is my purpose? I think everyone asks these questions, and we’re not even a cartoon characters.
Eddie Valiant lost his brother from a piano from fifteen stories. Those two were always cracking jokes and standing up for the justice of toons. But now his brother is gone, and all Valiant has is a decadent past and a Jack Daniels. You think he wanted this? In all likelihood, he wanted to be born a cartoon with his brother. Maybe then they could live forever, and maybe then he wouldn't have needed to watch him die so horrifically and suffer "burning red eyes." I think he saw the profound innocence of a laugh, and of the life of a cartoon who feels so light and free from the world we have to watch each day as the sun rises and sets.
In all seriousness though, this movie shaped my life. Jessica Rabbit dated the funny guy, Daffy and Donald hated each other, and Bugs Bunny would inadvertently kill you with his sarcasm if given the chance.
I hope these darn kids and their Hannah Montana’s and Justin Bieber’s and their real Suite Lives with Zach and Cody’s and their Raven’s understand the imaginative possibilities of cartoons. Unfortunately now, the only amazing cartoon show I can think of is Adventure Time, because it does just what cartoons are supposed to do: fling everyone into a fun, unreal world, so they can either appreciate, or not understand the world as it is today. This is the weapon, and this is why it’s important. Let them experience wonder and utopia, and then they will understand why atrocities on earth are named as such. And that’s why placing cartoons in real life is one of the greatest stories ever told.
A laugh indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment