Anthropomorphisms

My Grandmother had in her old house some very heavy furniture, most of them in dark wood. The bunk beds my cousin and I slept in during the summers were wooden and so were the table, chairs and display cabinet in her living room. When we were forced to have an afternoon siesta between 2 pm and 5 pm (this is called "time of communal quietness" in Greece) we were both unable to sleep. My older cousin did, but myself and my younger cousin used to play a game where we had to find faces hidden in the grain of the wood of our bunk beds. When we had identified most of the faces to be found on the beds, we started to venture to the living room. This was not allowed; we were meant to be sleeping. We only went one at a time, tiptoeing, and we used a chalk to circle the faces. We only had white chalk, so my cousin circled the faces in the wood grain and I circled them with a zigzag line to tell them apart. The last person to do that had to count the findings and to then wipe everything clean before my Grandmother woke up. We got away with this for two summers.

Seeing human features in things is apparently part of human nature. We tend to see eyes, mouths, noses and even bodies, in scribbles, in clouds, everyday objects, tree trunks, wood and so on. It is most probably part of the face identification ability we have that I heard on the science programme (see post Regarding Ducks). Some of these "faces" we see around even look like they have expressions on, like angry frowns or open mouths as if in fear. Maybe springing from this, we have given almost everything that exists a human kind of nature, especially through myths, storytelling and of course through art. Animals can talk and have human attributes in the Fables of Aesop for example. We put eyes and a smile to the sun and moon in our drawings as kids, even clouds and the sea can have a face and get angry and cartoon animals can walk upright, wear clothes and talk. The Gods, planets and even something as abstract as time, fate and death were given a human form in ancient Greek mythology, which is what I am familiar with, but most probably something similar appears in most mythologies of the world. Which brings me to think that we might be attributing human form and nature to all these things in an attempt to make them more like us and thus be able to understand them easier. And to be able to use them in a way that makes them more familiar to other people and in turn makes our message more conveyable to them. 

Kawanabe Kyosai , Frogs triumphing over a snake and lizards

The reason I started to think about all this, is that my daughter has a favourite programme on TV, which is called The Adventures of Abney and Teal. The two main characters are Abney, who I think is an animal, he is blue and looks a little bit like a piglet and Teal who is a little girl. There are also Bop, who lives only in the lake and I think is based on several different animals, Neep who looks a bit like a turnip and the Poc Pocs, who are seven wooden creatures, a little bit like birds, but they cannot fly.

 Joel Stewart, The Adventures of Abney and Teal 

I think Aretousa thinks they are all real. I was almost sure of it, but now that she received a present of two of the characters as dolls, I am certain that she thinks they are real. She feeds them, talks to them and she tried to draw a Poc Poc. This is probably something that happens to every kid with different cartoons; they get really into a character and then they get sheets, stationary, pyjamas and so on with those characters on. I saw that all around me before but I never thought that the young ones really thought these characters were real. I just thought they liked them. If you think about it I shouldn't have be surprised. She sees them moving on the screen, talking and everything, then she sees a version of them in real life in the form of a doll. If she saw someone in a costume of one of the characters, that would cement it completely. That is probably what  happens in Disneyland.

I am really not sure why this bothers me. Is it that these characters are not real? Is it that she could instead be learning or thinking that something is real when it actually is? Like watching programmes of real animals in the wild. Or is it that this is real for her, part of her world and I am not part of it and that is what bothers me?

I have a feeling that if I showed her some footage of snakes or spiders in the wild and then gave her a realistic plastic toy of a snake she would still really get involved (I actually try this out). She does get involved and she really likes them, but I don't think she thinks the plastic snake is real. So we come back to looking for things that have a human form or nature to them. They might not look like humans, but if they talk, move or behave like humans they automatically become more accessible. So the world-old habit of ours to attribute human form and characteristics to animals and things and to use them as tools for our narrations and messages has moved a step further with animation.  I never thought of that before in this context. It feels almost like a magic trick. Or even a weapon in the wrong hands. A very young child would believe anything was real if it was presented in an anthropomorphic way.  

Of course, nothing beats the real living thing. She still likes the two real rabbits we keep the best. That makes me a bit relieved.

                                                                           ~

For the record, in my opinion, The Adventures of Abney and Teal is the most imaginative, creative and unique cartoon I have seen for years on TV. It has a mixture of great, quirky characters, use of real puppets, computer animation and painted cut outs. The narrative is unusual, the music very memorable and the whole thing is a pleasure to watch. This is an artist using television in a great way. (Maybe the answer to my question in  the post With a little help from the chefs). It makes me want to create a cartoon too.

You can have an insight into the making of the programme on the creator's blog below:
http://joel-stewart.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/making-abney-teal.html

and if you have never seen the programme you can visit the link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/cbeebies/episode/b01p01p9/The_Adventures_of_Abney_and_Teal_Series_2_Frogs/