Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!columbia!topaz!wix%bergil.DEC From: wix%bergil.DEC@decwrl.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Cold blooded cuteness Message-ID: <2810@topaz.ARPA> Date: Fri, 19-Jul-85 11:23:29 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.2810 Posted: Fri Jul 19 11:23:29 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 15:18:42 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 104 From: wix%bergil.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (Jack Wickwire) From: Leigh Ann Hussey Subject: Cuteness, Ewoks, and other "abominations"... What is wrong with "cute" these days? I'm sorry, but I LIKED the Ewoks! > I have spared myself the dubious delights of the Smurfs, > along with most of the other rubbish that advertisers think will > appeal to kids (and God help us, sometimes they're right). My feelings when I saw them were at best mixed. For though aliens can be expected to come in whatever shape one can imagine the ursine/anthropo- morphic features of the Ewoks said 'Marketing Strategy' loud and clear. After the flood of Star Wars toys from the first two movies, a perhaps overly cynical side of me was disappointed that they should use something that was so heavily evocative of children's toys. > But the cuteness of anything, even if it does > resemble a walking teddy-bear, is decidedly limited when it wakes > you up, as it did Leia, with a sharp spear at a sensitive spot. While using a spear to wake someone does cut the cloying sensation they first give, but the audience reaction during the times that I watched the movie was at how cute they were with their cute spears. It is true that cute can be deceiving, that is why people feed the cute bears in a National Park and get mauled, they are demonstrating that they have let the physical appearance of the bears deceive them. They are expecting pork-pie hats, collars, and neckties. Instead of having their appearance be ambivalent and their attitude have to be proven, they copped out and made them cute and friendly. The Ewoks would have had to push a burning busload of blind orphans off a cliff into shark infested waters before they could be seen as anything but giant Teddy Bears. Instead of presenting me with an ingeniously created arboreal civilization of aliens on an distant planet I saw the contents of a child's toy chest. > So I think labeling the Ewoks "cute" is one > of the oversimplifications that abound when people discuss Star > Wars -- or when certain self-appointed network critics discuss > anything having to do with SF. > > Guessing further, I'd say that the most vocal SF followers these > days want to project an image of "maturity", of following a > literary form of serious intent. Anybody who feels like that is > bound to feel that "cuteness" is souring his cause. Again, I > think this is one for the self-appointed critics, and not to be > taken too seriously by most of us. It will have its day and be > forgotten. My complaint is directed at a tossed off alien design with built-in kid appeal. I am not being self-conscious about the books I read or the movies I watch. I agree that in the case described the critics reaction would be sour, but I am arguing that the Ewoks design was unnecessarily glib and facile for a tribe of aliens. For instance E. T. broke most of those rules I referred to below yet he was able to be described as cute and got a sympathetic audience response. > This dislike of "cuteness" (a subjective >term, at best) is evidence. I strongly disagree that cuteness is a subjective term at best. I will quote from _Animation_ by Preston Blair Published by Foster Art Service Inc. pg. 11. The Cute Character - Cuteness is based on the basic proportions of a baby + and expressions of shyness or coyness.... No neck - head joins on to body directly... Head large in relation to the body... High forehead is very important... Eyes spaced low on head & usually large and wide apart... Nose and mouth are always small... Arms are short and never skinny and taper down to the hand and tiny fingers... Tummy bulges - looks well-fed... Fat legs - short and tapering down into small feet for type. The stereotypes used by animators are distilled down from what the culture generally perceives as representing a certain set of characteristics. Just as you can tell what a cartoon character will be like from their appearance before they even act so the costume designers made the Ewoks as close to cute aliens as they could. Do you think that during the hours of arguing over costume designs to make this character look sinister and that look heroic that the mass appeal of cute Ewoks was never mentioned? I can only guess, that's true, but I guess that the Ewoks were designed to be cute for commercial reasons to sell the movie and the toys. >And c'mon, you Hoka and Fuzzy fans! Why take offense? I like them >too, and that's why I liked the Ewoks. There is nothing about them >to be ashamed of. My memories of the Hokas are of a broad satire of getting your heroes heroes from books with out applying any judgment to what you are reading. Fuzzys, per se, never did much for me though I enjoyed the books. I am not ashamed of the Ewoks I just think the costume design was purposefully designed to be cute and it distracted me during the film. Well I have harped on this at length so I'll quit here. .wIx. Posted: Fri 19-Jul-1985 11:10 Eastern Standard Time, Tewksbury, Mass. To: RHEA::DECWRL::"sf-lovers@rutgers.arpa"