This paper could
alternately be called medieval puns, or how many ways can you replace the word
night with knight.
.
. .
In
the episode of Spongebob Squarepants,
1999 -, entitled "Dear Vikings," Mr. Krabs has introduced new Viking size drinks to the Krusty Krab. If
you buy a Viking size, you get to wear the cardboard Viking helmet Mr. Krabs
found in his attic. This prompts Spongebob to ask “What’s a Viking?” Krabs send
Spongebob to know-it-all Squidward, who summarily dismisses Spongebob with his fake
description:
“The Vikings were a race of
scholars and scientists who lived even before Mr. Krabs was born. They are believed
to have discovered ketchup, and enjoy dressing up their pets as chunks of
masonry on the weekends. Their favourite movies are in black and white, and
grown Vikings are known to collect socks, which they display and trade at
monthly conventions called Sockengarten.” When Spongebob still has questions
Squidward prompts him to write to the Vikings. When they get his letter, the
Vikings descend on the Krusty Krab to enlighten Spongebob.
This episode uses the language of education to entertain. It is complete
with violence, slapstick and bathroom humour, but it also uses the ubiquitous
semiotic system for Vikings, cartoon or otherwise, including dragon ship,
beards, axes, rough clothing and the horned Wagnerian helmet.[i]
But most interestingly, having the description of Vikings come from supposed
Vikings themselves, especially when compared to Squidward’s clearly made-up
description, makes the depiction seem authoritative.
Cartoons may be
(mostly) intended for children, but they are created by adults.[ii] When analyzing the text the analyzer must ask
is this cartoon intended to entertain or to educate, or what balance is it
striking between the two? What is it adults wish to impart to children?
Education doesn’t just mean imparting values and teaching lessons, it can also
mean adults sharing with children their conception of childhood, or at least
child appropriate entertainment.
For example, take the animated
cartoon Animaniacs, 1993-1998. This
is clearly meant to entertain children, but it is also a tribute to earlier
Warner Bros. cartoons - an embodiment of the wish of adults for children to
have the same experience and relationship with cartoons that they had. You can
market Animaniacs to adults and
children because nostalgia is one of its key elements and because slapstick has
universal appeal. When marketing an adult friendly version of childhood, it
helps to pull forward tales that caught adult imagination when they were
children. This is part of the appeal of the romantic and legendary
interpretation of the Middle Ages into the twenty first century.
Adults will
recognize the ‘Middle Ages’ at a glance. And through repetition of imagery,
actions and characters, as well as through parental recognition, children come
to that same recognition. Serialized animated cartoons shown on American
television share certain signifiers of the European Middle Ages with other
mediums. Each individual text uses the signifiers for different purposes,
depending on the relationship between the institution producing it, the text
and the audience.[iii]
However, the signifiers that are used on American television seem to be a
rather homogenous whole.[iv] Part
of the richness of the cartoons that depict the Middle Ages, or that use these
signifiers, is that without having to spend time on explanation, an animator
can manipulate one symbol, like a castle, or action, like having characters
joust, and in that one element imply a wealth of cultural precedent. The
medieval history implicated in the cartoons Americans watch is so different from
scholars understanding of the Middle Ages because the history of the
interpretation of the Middle Ages is more important than medieval history
itself. To create a world that is rich for children, either rich with education
or with entertainment, producers of animated cartoons readily mix literature,
fantasy and medieval history, drawing upon and manipulating a folk
understanding of a mythical world called ‘the European Middle Ages.’
Reception of an animated Middle Ages
Over the last
sixty years North American society has realized, after much debate, it is hard
to define how much cartoons influence the thoughts and behaviour of children. A
question like ‘how much do television cartoons shape children’s conception of
the medieval?’ must ultimately be open-ended. In the media, the image from
television cartoons competes and is complemented with that from video games,
live action television, film and books.
But the ability
of television to impact or mirror societal values, to sell products or to
educate has already been thoroughly discussed elsewhere. Producers aiming
television at a younger viewing audience learned quickly that cartoons were an
efficient means of accessing that audience, as live action series aimed at
children did poorly in re-runs and were often ultimately less cost effective.[v]
Cartoons consistently brought in ratings for the big network. The network
competition for the Saturday Morning Cartoon viewers, not to mention the
cultural weight of the phrase Saturday morning cartoons even in an age of
ubiquitous access to any kind of television, sheds light on the power of the
cartoon with young viewers.[vi] For
the television generation animation became “the
visual language by which it was assumed children were addressed. The television
generation only essentially understood ‘animation’ as ‘the cartoon’ as it had
been produced for children and for the children’s demographic.”[vii] Even
in the last few decades, with the proliferation of cartoons decidedly not aimed
at children, those programs are still more popular amongst younger audiences
than live action programs also aimed at adults. Successful adult cartoons create
meaning by perverting what we would expect to see in a cartoon aimed at
children and playing on the public’s understanding of the cartoon genre.[viii]
That kind of humour is mirrored in Spongebob Squarepants when they pervert
an adult medium for communicating with children, education, and use it for
entertainment.
So while we
can’t determine the exact nature of the impact of cartoons, we can agree that
it is part of what forms children’s understandings of the world they live in.
It was the importance of cartoons in my life, and even in my choice to study
the Middle Ages, that led me to this topic. And I will say that before I
started university, my understanding of the Middle Ages looked mostly like
these cartoons.
Methodology
What constitutes
the corpus of cartoons depicting the European Middle Ages? The Middle Ages
itself is a time period spanning a thousand years and an entire continent. In
addition, theatrical cartoons of the 1930s and 40s became a staple of
television programming from the beginning.[ix] In
1949 the very first made for television cartoon was Crusader Rabbit.[x]
Since these very first cartoons, medieval
or medieval-esque themes have captured the imaginations of children, animators
and cartoon producers. So we are looking at a large corpus of cartoons from at
least the last seventy years. In the last few decades, the proliferation of
channels and ways to watch serialized television cartoons has resulted in an
even greater body of work.
So do we count
every instance of when someone is referred to as a King, a Prince or a Princess
as a medievalism?
In my sample I
have included any cartoon which portrays a world that is both feudal and
chivalric. Lynn T. Ramey and Tison Pugh in their introduction to Race Class, and Gender in ‘Medieval’ Cinema
note that early texts “that labelled the European Middle ages as Feudal,
Christian, and chivalric” have been discredited in favour of histories that are
more specific to geographic localities and time periods.[xi] Producers
and directors of newer media are not unaware of this, but the short hand that
has been developed is based on that earlier interpretation, one still taught in
many elementary schools as a basis upon which students or teachers can build on
if they so choose. So anything that is openly feudal or chivalric, with a
system of knights, compounds our understanding or at least portrayal of the
Middle Ages.
And, as Chuckie says in Rugrats, 1991-2004, episode Faire Play,
set at a Medieval Faire, “if they got castles and horsies and knights then they
probably got dragons too.” We see the Middle Ages through the lens of all the
intervening centuries, and all the literature, art and folk tales that have
cropped up in the mean time. The semiotic system that includes the knight must
include the dragon, even though the savvy kid is likely to know that that is
fantasy or literature. Unless it was obviously referencing the Asian tradition,
like American Dragon: Jake Long,
2005-2007, if the cartoon includes a dragon I include it in the list of
‘medieval’ cartoons. To create this list I started with the 2009 edition of The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons,
by Jeff Lunberg, which details all the animated cartoons shown on American
television stations, including imports from other countries. I looked for
cartoons that had a medievalesque setting. Next I went through and tried to
pinpoint ones that may have had a ‘medieval’ episode. The sample was limited to
depictions of the European Middle Ages. This then raised the question of what
to do with depictions of the Middle Eastern Middle Ages because of the obvious
overlap with the European Middle Ages. While I could still be swayed either way,
I decided not to include those depictions. So while I would include the episode
of Disney’s Aladdin, 1994-1995, Dune
Quixote, when Aladdin has been convinced that he is a knight that has to slay a
dragon, I would not include the whole series.
The result for
depictions of the universal Middle Ages is a semiotic system that represents a
general ‘medieval’ period, with kings, knights, serfs, damsels, princesses,
castles, chivalry, etc., etc., incorporating specific legendary and literary
characters, and a separate semiotic system for ‘Vikings’ (never Norse), with
few instances of appearances by legendary figures.
Here is an
instance of the problem with the definition of animated ‘medieval’ cartoons. A
few cartoons that are trying to actually show children what the European Middle
Ages were really like include educational shows like Time Warp Trio, 2005-2006, TheTime Squad, 2001-2003, Histeria, 1998-2000,
or Horrible Histories, 2001-2002. But
again, historical education is very rarely the goal of the animated cartoon.
Often, they manipulate the images in different ways to create different effects
or rich settings, replete with their own built in cultural weight. Take the
example of “Knighty Knight Bugs,” the 1955 Warner Bros. cartoon.
Bugs must go to the castle of the
Black Knight to bring back the singing sword for the King and the Knights of
the Round Table. The cartoon’s use of knights, kings, dragons, shields,
castles, armour and a sword reinvents a medieval tale using signifiers that are
already familiar to its audience. It is also referring to a story that its
audience would understand as medieval, that of King Arthur and the Round Table.
Even if the audience wasn’t aware that the origins of the tale are medieval,
most audience would recognize the setting of those stories as ‘medieval.’ In fact the tradition surrounding the
interpretation of King Arthur and his Knights informs much of the semiotic
system. But then what about Disney’sAdventures of the Gummi Bears, 1985-1991?
It also uses knights, kings,
dragons, shields, castles, armour and a squire, classic signifiers of the
medieval, to create an entirely fantasy world where teddy bear like creatures
use their ingenuity, teamwork and magic to help good humans and battle bad ones.
The imagery and language used in the two different cartoons is extremely
similar. The cartoon’s indebtedness to the media’s interpretations of the
Middle Ages is clear. It is hard to count the Bugs Bunny cartoon and not count the
Gummi Bears just because it doesn’t purport to represent a real Middle Ages, or
a tale from the Middle Ages, because the Bugs Bunny one doesn’t really either. The
signifiers are saying these events, while we have made them up, could have been
long ago and far away in a world not entirely unlike our own. Ok, so we’ll
count Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi
Bears, but what about He-Man: Mastersof the Universe, 1983-1985, and She-Ra:Princess of Power, 1985?
At first my instinct told me yes,
as did the internet, who when you ask it what are the best medieval cartoons,
gives you the top ten medieval/fantasy cartoons. And yet, the grotesque
villains, the space age technology, the brightly coloured fantasy worlds, the
eighties hair cuts and sexualized cartoon characters suggest nothing
particularly medieval. But if we compare He-Man
to “Knighty Knight Bugs” there are surprising similarities.
Michael N. Salda, author of the
article “Northern Lite: A Brief History of Animated Vikings,” notes that the
singing sword in the Bugs Bunny cartoon is derivative of Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, about a displaced Nordic prince who arrives at
King Arthur’s court and the sword that is only awakened by its true master.[xii] In this case Bugs Bunny is the sword’s
master. He-Man is indebted to the
same tradition that Prince Valiant and MerryMelodies are drawing on when he draws power from his sword to become He-Man. He-Man’s sword is given to him by
the mysterious sorceress of Castle Grayskull, calling up images of the Lady of
the Lake and a sword symbolizing someone’s
right to rule. He-Man also uses a
version of castles, kings, armour and sorcerers. Most medievalists would agree
that He-Man makes frequent and
regular use of medievalisms, but does it count as a ‘medieval’ cartoon? This is
the heart of a debate on neo-medievalisms that is unlikely to be resolved here.
From a modernist perspective, I don’t think the creators set out to make
something self-referentially medieval, they just drew on adventure stories that
appeal to children. From a post-modernist perspective, is it perceived as
medieval? All three cartoons draw on a semiotic system that represents the
Middle Ages and all three cartoons are contributing to that system. He-Man contributes to our understanding
of castles, kings, kingdoms, chivalry and powerful swords, all signifiers that
have been used to mean Middle Ages for the last seventy years. So I have
included it in my lists of medieval cartoons, but to make my arguments stronger
in this paper I use examples that are more evidently and self-referentially
medieval.
The animated Middle Ages
So according to this list, what
does the European Middle Ages look like?
It’s very muddled. But all we have
to do is look at the conference program to see that the signifiers of the
medieval have become the signifiers of fantasy, not least of all thanks to the
work of J.R.R. Tolkien and the ease with which ‘questing’ lends itself to the
narrative style of role playing, table top and video games.
Cartoons do nothing
to ease the confusion. Deriving their settings from the historical, literary
and fantastic Middle Ages that have come before it, animated cartoons often
intentionally, and for different purposes, confuse history, literature and
fantasy. Take for instance the episode of TeenageMutant Ninja Turtles, 1987-1996, called “Shredder’s New Sword.”
The Turtles are in England
visiting a museum. In the museum they see paintings referring to the legend of
King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The setting of a museum,
implying historical authority, would seemingly confuse the legend with history,
but they explain in the context of the cartoon that King Arthur was just a story.
Michelangelo exclaims: “You mean none of these knight dudes were real? Total
bummer!.” Yet later, Shredder goes in search of the ‘real’ Excalibur, taking it
from the ‘real’ graves of Arthur and Gwenevere. Shredder’s use of the sword
causes the Middle Ages to be brought into the present. Leonardo says “people
seemingly from medieval times have started to appear.” The drama of finding out
that a legend is real (in the context of the internal reality of the television
show) dictates the actions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the reaction
of the audience to the legend become reality. When Arthur is brought to the
present, so is his castle and court. The Turtles meet outside of Arthur’s
castle, put on knights’ helmets and participate in a tournament with Shredder,
Rocksteady and Bebob, complete with colourful tents and jousting equipment.
Compare this image to others depicting the Middle Ages. When Leonardo calls
what we see on screen ‘medieval’ he is lending authority to this interpretation
of the Middle Ages. This authority is corroborated by the repetition of these
signifiers in other cartoons and other media. In this episode legend and
literature (King Arthur) is blending with history (the Middle Ages) in a world
that accepts fantasy (magic swords and dragons) as a given element of the
Middle Ages. It doesn’t matter that the whole setting of the show is fantasy
(Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), because in the internal reality of the show
even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles acknowledge that this kind of fantasy is
particular to the Middle Ages.
Likewise, in Peabody’s Improbable Histories’, 1959-1964, Mr.
Peabody and his pet boy Sherman
use the Wayback Machine to travel through history.
In the course of their travels they
visit Marco Polo, Richard the Lionhearted and Leif Ericson, but they also visit
King Arthur and Robin Hood. Yes, it is possible that King Arthur and Robin Hood
both had real origins, but Peabody and Sherman are definitely visiting the
legends, which is confusing when we imagine that he is only visiting historical
figures. Robin Hood is more like the Sir Walter Scott Robin Hood than any
likely candidates for the real Robin Hood. The line between literature, legend
and history is blurred.
Mr. Peabody and
Sherman are not alone. Approximately 75% of the cartoons that have a
recognizably medieval theme depict or reinvent aspects of the King Arthur or
Robin Hood legends. This includes series where the only part of the legend left
are some of the names and a ‘feudal code,’ like Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders, 1995-1996. This shows
indebtedness to, and fascination with, these particular tales increases our
sense of the Middle Ages as a legendary time. It seems also that depictions of
these tales are self perpetuating. The more times King Arthur is portrayed, the
more is implied by the reinterpretation of the legend. For instance, the series
Blazing Dragons, 1996-1998, is clever
because King Allfire and his knights of the square table are all dragons that
must defend the kingdom from evil humans. The more we understand cartoons to be
for children, the funnier it is when they are perverted for adults. Likewise,
the fact that there are hundreds of classic portrayals of King Arthur and his Knights
means that much of the humour of Blazing
Dragons comes from the perversion of those classic portrayals. And yet, by
implication, the series assumes that the signifiers are well known and
ingrained in their audience. The pervasiveness of these tales, which overlap
with literature, relates back to the idea that children are being brought to
know the tales their parents enjoyed in ways adults will think are enjoyable
for them. The first King Arthur cartoons would remind adults of the books they
had read, and direct reference to this literature is made in the opening of Crusader Rabbit and in the Bugs Bunny
cartoon “Knight Mare Hare,” 1955. Newer cartoons relate to the literature and
to the earlier cartoons.
Similar
signifiers, like castles at the end of winding roads, suits of armour and
dragons serve different functions in cartoons depending on the intention of the
cartoon or the relationship between the cartoon and the audience. For instance,
we can look at the way that the Scooby Doo cartoons, over the years, have used
the same symbols to accomplish different things.
The very first Scooby Doo Where are You?, 1969 – 1973, was called “What a Night
for a Knight.” When a suit of armour goes missing from the museum the gang
learns the legend of the Black Knight, who comes to life when the moon is full.
The gang has a long chase scene with a black suit of armour with the red
plumage on the top. The medieval here imparts gothic creepiness, and the
hanging of shields and banners in the ‘medieval wing’ of the museum gives the
legend a sense of history. In this first Scooby Doo series there is always some
sort of internal logic used to explain how these American kids stumble upon
this medieval imagery. The medieval imparts creepiness but also roots the
legends in believability, so we see how the gang might believe there really was
such a ghost.
I would hesitate
to read the cartoons linearly, seeing development of an increasing
sophistication in cartoon depictions of the Middle Ages over seventy years,
because arguably the Improbable Histories
are just as self-referential and self-deprecating as the last example of a Scooby Doo episode. What cartoons do do
is represent aspects of the time in which they are produced. And as time
progresses each cartoon has more animated precedents to draw upon. With the
proliferation of television, and now internet channels, what we have are
endless options to draw on, and a proliferation of ways to use the medieval
imagery.[xiii]
This was a very
general overview of a very large corpus. Much more can be done by looking
specifically at many of the texts mentioned here. Modern audiences enjoy lists,
so I hope to finish this one to the best of my ability and post it on my blog
and then more widely on the internet where it can be added to or subtracted to
as the collective will sees fit. Many things can be learned by combining these
cartoons in different ways and by making more specific comparisons. Likewise, I
have looked at cartoons shown in the United States. It could be
interesting to compare this with what has been seen in other countries, or
continents to see if there are any differences. Comparisons of the images
between the countries that are producing the cartoons could also be very
fruitful.
Animated
cartoons use assumptions about the Middle Ages, or conventions of the
interpretations of the Middle Ages to generate meaning in several different
ways. A whole other paper could be written on the way they have been used to
construct or deconstruct images of gender. That the shorthand for the Middle
Ages was developed using literature, fantasy and folk tales as well as events
and artifacts from medieval history means that the signifiers of the Middle
Ages are particularly useful in generating literature, fantasy and loveable
cartoon scenarios.
This Fall, 2012, the Cartoon
Network is producing Dragons, a
series based on the popular Dreamworks animated film How to Train your Dragon, 2010, showing the ongoing legacy of the ‘medieval’
cartoon on American channels.
What is definitely being passed on
on American children’s television is a love of the Middle Ages, and frankly the
more that it is mixed with fantasy the more this seems to be true. And I
believe, as it did in my case, cartoons are going to continue to have a role in
shaping a base or folk understanding of what the Middle Ages were.
[i] Michael
N. Salda, “Northern Lite: A Brief History of Animated Vikings”, in The Vikings on Film: Essays on Depictions of
the Nordic Middle Ages, ed. by Kevin J. Harty (Jefferson, North Carolina:
McFarland & Company, Inc., 2011) 180.
[ii] David Buckingham, “Introduction: The Child and the
Screen”, in Small Screens: Television for
Children, ed. by David Buckingham (London: Leicester University Press, 2002) 6.
[iii]
Buckingham 11.
[iv] Salda 191.
[v] Paul Wells, “‘Tell me about Your Id, When You Was a
Kid, Yah!’: Animation and Children’s Television Culture” in Small Screens: Television for Children.
ed. by David Buckingham (London: Leicester University Press, 2002) 65.
[vi] Jeff Lenburg, The
Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Third Edition (New York: Checkmark Books, 2009) 11-12.
[vii] Wells
67.
[viii] Helen Nixon, “South
Park: Not in Front of the Children” in
Small Screens: Television for Children,
ed. by David Buckingham (London: Leicester University Press, 2002) 96.
[ix] Lenburg
8.
[x] Lenburg
9.
[xi] Tison Pugh and Lynn T. Ramey, “Introduction: Filming
the “Other” Middle Ages”, in Race, Class,
and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema. 1-14. Ed. by Lynn T. Ramey and Tison Pugh
(New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) 2.
[xii] Salda
180.
[xiii] Julian Sefton-Green, “Cementing the Virtual
Relationship: Children’s TV Goes Online”, in Small Screens: Television for Children, ed. by David Buckingham (London: Leicester
University Press, 2002) 185.
Bibliography
Big Cartoon Database.
www.bcdb.com
Bromley, Helen. “Pandora’s Box or the Box of Delights?
Children’s Television and
the Power of Story”. In Small Screens: Television for Children.
Ed. by David Buckingham. 208-226. London: Leicester University Press, 2002.
Buckingham, David. “Introduction: The Child and the Screen”.
In Small Screens:
Television for Children. Ed. by David Buckingham. 1-14. London: Leicester
University Press, 2002.
Buckingham, David. “Child-centred Television? Teletubbies and the Educational
Imperative.” In Small Screens: Television for Children.
Ed. by David Buckingham. 38-60. London: Leicester University Press, 2002.
Elliott, B.R.. “8. Guides to the Medieval Worlds”. In Remaking the Middle Ages. 192-
205. Jefferson, North Carolina:
McFarland & Company Inc., 2011.
Griffiths, Merris. “Pink Worlds and Blue Worlds: A Portrait
of Intimate Polarity”. In
Small Screens: Television for Children. Ed. by David Buckingham. 159-184.
London: Leicester University
Press, 2002.
Haydock, Nickolas. Movie
Medievalism: The Imaginary Middle Ages. Jefferson,
North Carolina: McFarland & Company,
Inc., 2008.
Internet Movie
Database. www.imdb.com
Lenburg, Jeff. The
Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Third Edition. New York:
Checkmark Books, 2009.
Lury, Karen. “A Time and Place for Everything: Children’s
Channels”. In Small
Screens: Television for Children. Ed. by David Buckingham. 15-37. London: Leicester
University Press, 2002.
Nixon, Helen. “South
Park: Not in Front of the
Children”. In Small Screens:
Television for Children. Ed. by David Buckingham. 96-119. London: Leicester
University Press, 2002.
Pugh, Tison and Lynn T. Ramey. “Introduction: Filming the “Other”
Middle Ages”.
In Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema. 1-14. Ed. by Lynn T. Ramey
and Tison Pugh. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Salda, Michael N. “Northern Lite: A Brief History of
Animated Vikings”. In The
Vikings on Film: Essays on
Depictions of the Nordic Middle Ages. Ed. by Kevin J. Harty. 178-192. Jefferson, North
Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2011.
Sefton-Green, Julian. “Cementing the Virtual Relationship:
Children’s TV Goes
Online”. In Small Screens: Television for Children. Ed. by David Buckingham. 185-207.
London: Leicester University
Press, 2002.
Wells, Paul. “‘Tell me about Your Id, When You Was a Kid,
Yah!’: Animation and
Children’s Television Culture”. In Small Screens: Television for Children.
Ed. by David
Buckingham. 61-95. London: Leicester University Press, 2002.
