Messages can be imbued into moving image media through subliminal or masked content, overt/propagandist intent, persuasive targets such as commercial and advertising media, documentary and investigative content, and through independent, more personal media. Of these potentialities I was most interested in subliminal messaging in media – it can be argued that subliminal messaging needn’t be as pernicious as a single frame displaying the intended message, but also through the power of suggestion harnessed by advertising. This concept is something I’d like to research further, particularly because subliminal messaging has been banned for decades.
Politics shape what gets put into media, critical thinking must be applied to discern whether media outlets are biased politically. Conversely, media can shape politics and shift the narrative on divisive social issues, a somewhat recent example that comes to mind is the Netflix Limited series When They See Us, which drew global attention to an almost forgotten case of miscarriage of justice in the US which saw the lives of five innocent men irreparably altered and shone a spotlight on systemic racism in the United States. Media like this, it could be argued, had an impact on the events which would follow in years to follow where Black Lives Matter protests would reverberate around the world in response to the murder of George Floyd.
I embedded the above videos because they both feature messages about war and colonialism. We were shown each of these films during the lecture, Neighbours by Norman McLaren is a stop motion from 1952 – two men seem to get high from smelling a dandelion in front of their property and then become increasingly defensive over their individual entitlement to it as a resource. The film was banned for its violence. It struck me as analogous for addiction and its effects on human behaviour, or colonialism and division of resources previously understood to be universal/free leading to war and violence. There is a scene (which may have led to the ban) where women and infants are killed as an indirect result of the violence that breaks out, most likely alluding to war and civilian casualties, possibly the intergenerational effects of war on soldiers who return home unable to adjust to normal life.
Britannia, by Joanna Quinn, featured below Neighbours centres the quintessential British Bulldog literally manually extracting resources from all over the world and using them to fashion and gorge himself. Sexual violence is portrayed explicitly against indigenous populations, the Bulldog strings people across his neck and wears them, he takes tea from Asia and wears a teapot as a crown analogously bastardising a resource from another part of the world in order to make it a part of his identity. The messaging is portrayed through metamorphosis, the messages contained within this short film could not have been portrayed as succinctly through any other medium.
Tower by Keith Maitland, an animated documentary centred around the 1966 mass shooting at the University of Texas perpetrated by Charles Whitman, where Whitman climbed to the top of the campus tower and shot indiscriminately into the crowd below, hitting 49 people and killing 17. The intention of the film was to shift the focus of the atrocity from the perpetrator to the victims, and several survivors were interviewed for the documentary. The violence of the incident could not have been depicted so respectfully through live action, the tone of the film would be changed completely if it was not animated. I understand the point that animated and documentary may strike a person as oxymoronic at first, but this particular film I think had to be animated. The sheer violence and despair of the incident being documented necessitates the separation from reality afforded only to animation.
There is an animated scene in the Netflix series Black Earth Rising which reminds me of this, where the Rwandan genocide is being depicted directly for the first time instead of simply alluded to in dialogue between characters, and the use of animation facilitated a level of honesty that would have been eclipsed totally by the violence if live action had been used instead. A point can be made through animation without alienating the viewer with explicit depictions of violence and suffering, it can also serve as a way around censorship. The heartbreaking animated sequence is attached here:
Jon Mauk (2016) “Abductees” – Animation [HQ] – A Film by Paul Vester (1995). 23 April. Available at: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_UgJFZSRec (Accessed: 25/10/2025).
Paul Vester – Abductees: ‘Liverpool Style’ animated work (no cell animation, directly onto paper, experimental and rough), student work made up of several different animation styles about alien abduction. This film is a collection of animated responses to the interviews with alleged abductees. Bizarrely think I’ve seen this before, it was running at 3am when I couldn’t sleep. My initial response was that the schizophrenic style of the film when viewed as a sum of so many different, seemingly detached styles of animation, in some cases portraying subject matter entirely separate from the interviewee testimonies, seems almost suggestive of the disorganised and distressed mental state of the individuals speaking within. I can’t say whether that was intentional on the part of Vester, but it makes for a somewhat jarring and hypnotic watch.
I intend to do further research into subliminal messaging from before and after the ban as a potential start to my research topic. I also am at the stage of considering research questions to work from.
References
Alaosnus (2012) ‘Neighbours’ (1952) Academy Award-Winning Short film by Norman McLaren. 9 February. Available at: Youtube / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-o9dYwro_Q (Accessed: 25/10/2024).
BerylProductions (2009) ‘Britannia’. 2 November. Available at: Youtube /https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daVMrUhAD3E&t=295s (Accessed: 25/10/2024).
Critics at Large (2016) A Tragedy in Time: Keith Maitland’s Tower. Available at: https://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2016/12/a-tragedy-in-time-keith-maitlands-tower.html (Accessed: 25/10/2024).
Jon Mauk (2016) “Abductees” – Animation [HQ] – A Film by Paul Vester (1995). 23 April. Available at: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_UgJFZSRec (Accessed: 25/10/2025).
Nigel Mairs (2024) ‘Social and Political Comment in Animation’ [Live Lecture].
PU002333: Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language. University of the Arts London, London College of Communication. 24 October.