Reading and Understanding 'Culture Industry Reconsidered'

I decided to dedicate a post on breaking down the points drawn by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer on the culture industry based on my understanding.

Bibliography: Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1967) 'The Culture Industry Reconsidered', New German Critique, No. 6 (Autumn 1975) pp. 12-19.

Ideology

"In a supposedly Chaotic world it (the culture industry) provides human beings with something like standards of orientation."

Human beings as 'Commodities' 

Masses are debased as objects in the culture industry. It fabricates"inevitable"conditions which stimulate demand for the product of the culture industry. The culture industry is evidently capitalist since machinery are its primary subject while masses are just commodities.

'Efficacy'

The culture industry predicts the nature of consumption by looking back at the "old and familiar" products which have successfully satiates the desire of the masses. Then, similar new products will be manufactured meanwhile realisation of values will be driven by propaganda campaigns. This is why Public Relations (PR) is closely related to the culture industry. 

'Standardisation'

The product of culture industry comes with a standard which Adorno describes as "order in abstracto". It stifles creativity with or without the conscious will of those in control therefore endangering originality. Adorno also points out about the "rationalisation of office work" where working in an office set up is the norm for any form of work even if the company does not produce any tangible commodities. 

Culture and the Culture Industry

Culture, in true sense, has mutual respect to the human beings as it "simultaneously raised protest against" their petrified relations. However, the product of the culture industry disregard human through and through by labeling them as "commodities". As a result, the culture industry is freed from their duty to sell cultural commodities without any critical agreement with the consumers because they can self-advertise with the increasing rate of consumption catalysed by the rise of consumerism. It is more functional than works of art because it does not obey or rather indifferent to "laws of form demanded by aesthetic autonomy." Unfortunately, this makes the product of the culture industry to have no aura or rather it "conserves the decaying aura as a foggy mist."

Social

Roles

"The culture industry is important as a moment of spirit which dominates today."

The culture industry seems to be a perfect system that the masses seems to be indifferent towards it. Only some distinguished elites are capable of questioning the culture industry.

Consequences

"The power of the culture industry's ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness."

People tend to ignore the agenda behind the culture industry as they have been manifested by the concept. This is also the case for many "servile"intellectuals which leads to their "ironic tolerations"towards the culture industry as they respect its power, but have some reservations regarding its purpose at the same time.

Through the eye opening publications regarding this matter over time, the masses begin to reflect on the culture industry. Their responses are mainly positive; the culture industry is "harmless"and "democratic". Adorno disagrees with this attitude which he claimed as "shamelessly conformists"; conformity without any instructions.



"The consciousness of the consumers themselves is split between the prescribed fun which is supplied to them by the culture industry and a not particularly well-hidden doubt about its blessings."

The "blessings" sarcastically mentioned earlier is connected to the stimulated demand of the product of the culture industry. According to him, this is the reason why the culture industry has successfully controls the mass. It is a "deception which is nonetheless transparent to them" which leads to the instinctive perception that life would be meaningless without satisfaction.



"What its defenders imagine is preserved by the culture industry is in fact destroyed by it."

The genuine culture and traditions are altered, and the new fabrication of it are turned into homogeneity. I think this is highly relevant to the animation industry which is dominated by Disney since many Disney's animated feature films back in the Golden Age of Animation which are adaptations from fairy tales and folklore. The films altered some parts of the original story, mostly endings, to maintain a grasp of the idea of the good life which characterises the product of culture industry.

Culture Industry Delivers Art

"If the response of the culture industry's representatives is that it does not deliver art at all, this itself the ideology with which they evade responsibility for that from which the business lives. No misdeed is ever righted by explaining it as such."

As a matter of fact, Adorno believes that the product of culture industry is art through and through. It is just a form of art which deviates from the rules of the genuine work of art and its lack of presence of aura.

Loopholes

"Only their deep unconscious mistrusts, the last residue of the difference between art and the empirical reality in the spiritual make up of the masses explains why they have not, to a person, long since perceived and accepted the world as it is constructed for them by the culture industry."

Formulaic

The formulaic nature of the culture industry is similar to the concept of storytelling in most cases. This makes it highly predictable as it follows a certain order such that it started with an inciting incident followed by conflicts, climax then resolution of conflict. It is an art of storytelling in disguise; manipulative but futile.

Deceiving human beings by making them believe that their real trouble can be solved by fictitious solution made believable can be a downside to the culture industry. Sooner or later, the masses might be able to make sense of the unreliability of the culture industry through their own experience depending on their ability to overpower conformity with their own consciousness.

Abstract

The culture industry delivers confusingly relative order since it is oblivious to the fact that order "is not good in itself. It would be so only as a good order." Efficacy is what keeps the vicious cycle of the retrogressive development of consciousness in masses going; it drifts human beings away from their consciousness and causes dependency on the product of the culture industry.

Politics

"Dependence" and "servitude" are the vanishing points of the culture industry, and this makes the culture industry to be "obviously not harmless" in political sense. The "anti-enlightenment"nature of it is "fettering consciousness" that blinds the whole society -not only the masses, but also politicians- with sameness. Thus, this will pose a negative implication to objective decision making by the politicians as they tend to think that the same problem can be resolved with the same solution.

Conclusion

Adorno puts the blame on the culture industry for the regression of the people in this era because it restricts the capacity of growth of human consciousness.

Study Task 3: Planning & Structuring an Essay

What is the relationship between Animation and The Culture Industry?

Academic Sources:

- Adorno, T. and Hoerkheimer, M. (1967) 'The Culture Industry Reconsidered', New German Critique, No. 6 (Autumn 1975) pp.12-19.

- Storey, J. (2008) 'Cultural Theory and Popular Culture', 5th ed, London: Pearson. pp. 62-70.

- Zipes, J. (2013) 'Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and The Culture Industry', Routledge.

- Fiske, J. (1989) 'Understanding Popular Culture', Boston: Unwin Hyman.

- Hauser, T. (2008) 'The Art of WALL-E'. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

- Benjamin, W. (1968) 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. In 'Illuminations'. Fontana Press.

- Adorno, T. and Hoerkheimer, M. (1972) 'The Dialectic of Enlightenment'.

Animation:

- WALL-E

 Main Points:

THESIS -

CONCEPT - Summary of Theodor Adorno's theory of the culture industry in general

CONTEXT - Cross reference to other sources to check on its reliability

CONTEXT - Pixar's role as one of the biggest animation studio in the world and its significance to the culture industry

ANIMATION - Analysis on WALL-E

CONCLUSION -

 

Consumerism: Persuasion, Society, Brand and Culture

The lecture highlights some points from Century of Self by Adam Curtis and No Logo - Brands Globalisation Resistance) by Naomi Klein. It gives a cynical outlook that the future is bleak so long as consumerism persists.

Sigmund Freud

• Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. He theorises that humans are not driven by rational mind, but by primal sexual urges that desire to live up to out instincts to satiate social needs.
• Therefore creating the idea of tension between civilisation and innate human desire. For instance, the establisment of rules in the civilised world represses our natural urges hence giving rise to the incompatibility. 
• Freud strongly evidenced this argument to the World War 1 where the friction between natural urges and civilisation causes social eruption and human destruction.

 

Edward Bernays

 

•  Founder of PR (Public Relation). PR is derived from his interest in propaganda and his job in the press agency.
• PR is based on the idea of human desire as articulated by Freud.
• PR's virtue seems utilitarian in the sense that it satiates the public desire however there are hidden agenda behind it in most cases; If the desire has been met, human instincts can be manipulated.

• Bernays is also well-known for the mind behind the political protest 'Torches of Freedom' (1929 Easter Parade) where female celebrities dressed to impersonate suffragettes, then lighting up cigarettes and smoking it in the public. This protest is to validate that female is allowed to smoke too, breaking the patriachal boundary using society's role models to stimulate female's desire to smoke. Following the protest, Bernays concludes that desire can make people do things against their best interest. 

• He introduces celebrity endorsement during Coolidge presidential campaign which links glamour of the celebrity to the campaign. Therefore, transposes human desire to the commodity promoted.

 

 

Fordism (based on Ford's mass manufacturing of cars)

 

• Large scale of production line leads to the exponentially increasing production rate.
• Encourages consumerism in the United States mainly due to the increasing productivity which increases the profits, and increasing the wages which results on the increase in disposable income therefore allowing people to go beyond fulfilling their needs. This results on the pervailing desire to consume until now.
• Consumerism creates the problem of the crisis of overproduction. This redundancy precipitate individual brand and the idea that people are driven by social pressure to consume a specific brand, also known as following the trend.
• Trend drives the emphasis of consumption to gradually becomes more to the virtue of the product. A strategy to 'meet the desire of human' by associating societal hierarchy with the consumption of certain brands.
• As a result, the need culture becomes the desire culture.

Walter Lippmann 

• 'Manufacturing consent' - A new elite is needed to manage the bewildered herd.
•  Lippman is a PR consultant which can be considered as 'superelites'. The lecturer mentioned that Lippman is one of the people who surpassed the intelligence of politicians in terms of solving political problems. Therefore, he is hired by politicians to maintain their political influence through proposing political strategy and political campaign. 

However, the dawn of the superelites happens on the Great Depression. The market becomes saturated and crashed, and there are no market left to take control. The capitalist's reckless way of controlling people leads to social bankruptcy. 

World's Fair - a propaganda by capitalists

• Franklin D. Roosevelt increased taxes to drive people away from destitute but comes at the cost of capitalism. This situation causes discontent among those who own big businesses, which leads to the capitalist to make political statements on who should take charge of the society.
• Celebrating the utopian vision of the capitalist, this event if entirely funded by big businesses in their attempt to market the idea of the American future dominated by business and that business are meeting the needs of people in the future.

Conclusion

• Consumerism is an ideological project. It is designed to perpetuate certain way of thinking that we consume to assert individuality.
• We believe that through consumption our desires can be met.
• The legacy of Bernay's PR can be felt in all aspects of modern society.
• The conflict between alternative models of social organisation still persists.
• To what extent are our lives 'free' under the Western Consumerism System?

 

Study Task 2: Reading and Understanding A Text

I have chosen to explore the question "What is the relationship between Animation and the Culture Industry?" for my Context of Practice project. To find out more about the Culture Industry, I decided to read a section on Marxisms in the fifth edition of "Cultural Theory and Popular Culture" by John Storey from page 62 to 70.

Storey did a critical analysis on the Frankfurt School's view on the culture industry. The use of language is kept formal with relevant terminologies used to describe the subject of the discussion. Hence, demonstrating the quality of an academic writing. Storey begins with presenting The Frankfurt School's view on the culture industry in an unbiased way, then he presents his view on the arguments made by the Frankfurt School and supports his arguments with facts and figures from other resources.

Five key points:

1.  The popular culture is uniform and obvious while 'authentic' culture is abstract.

2.  The culture industry distracted human from having their own unique opinions on politics as it enforces them with superficial thoughts.

3.  The 'authentic' culture has revolutionary potential, but it is compromised due to commercialisation of avant garde art.

4.   Ignorance towards the mechanical nature of popular culture establish a standard which dictates the public hence maintains the dominance of social authority.

5.  The active consumption of the mass culture allows the public to have free interpretation on the mass culture so it is not oppressive afterall.

Five key quotes

1.  "Constant reproduction"

2.  "The culture industry has worked to depoliticise the working class - limiting its horizon to political and economic goals that could be realised within the oppressive and exploitative framework of capitalist society."

3.  "What was separate became assimilated since any critical dimension which might have pertained to Matisse's painting was eclipsed by its new and unsolicited function"

4. "The function of the culture industry is therefore, ultimately, to organise leisure time in the same way as industrialisation has organised work time."

5. "Changes in the technological reproduction of culture are changing the function of culture in society"

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The Frankfurt School attacks the mass culture because it jeopardises tradition and promotes public ingnorance towards political issues, hence enabling political agencies to dictate society. The school asserted that popular culture is typical and obvious as compared to the rather abstract 'authentic' culture. "Constant reproduction" (Storey[2008]62) is the main issue in the mass culture as it deters people from having their own unique political stand point by limiting their view to just on "political and economic goals that could be realised within the oppressive and exploitative framework of capitalist society." (Storey[2008]63) Furthermore, they highlighted that many artworks are being reused by big companies for advertisements and undermined their original meaning as people starts to associate these artworks with certain products advertised by the company which caused "what was separate became assimilated". (Storey[2008]65) Hence, what was complex is made simple, and simple becomes the new standard of popular culture. The culture industry is fixated on simplicity which can be clearly seen from the mechanical nature of popular music. Producers cannot be bothered to come up with novel ideas, and tweak the production that has been successful to make a new one. On the same note, Adorno argues that the function of culture industry is "to organise leisure time in the same way as industrialisation organised work time" (Storey[2008]65) which maintains the dominance of social authority. However, the author dismiss Adorno's argument for being outdated, and he points out that Adorno's account on the impact of the culture industry on people is cynical by proving that the "changes in the technological reproduction of culture are changing the function of culture in society". (Storey[2008]68) The author shows more inclination towards Benjamin's view which explains that the public are active consumers of the mass culture, and they effectively utilise their freedom of interpretation to discern the products of the culture industry.

A 20,000 Year Non-Linear History of the Image

The aim of this lecture is to study a wide contextual range of image making process and artists who creatively uses different styles which can be applied to the design development of our ideas so that our artwork reflects the power of visual communication.

Spiritual superiority

Our ancestors used paintings as a medium to connect with the Gods, which makes their painting magical and possess shamanic power to be feared. Shamans also did some mark making activities while unconscious as if they are possessed by spirits from another realms. Such rituals are still apparent in modern paintings despite the ongoing cultural appropriation.

Rothko is one of the artists who applies shamanic power into his artworks as they are capable to influence people to be emotional. For instance, visitors cried as they view Rothko's artworks at the Rothko Chapel opened in 1971. The backstory of his artwork is reflected on the artwork itself, showing a great power of visual communication. His artworks evolves from a rather flat and monochrome paintings to more and more black and painted with wax towards the end of his life, so that any light cannot be reflected. It is a statement of his exasperation to life which implies how will he end his life by committing suicide.  

People at the Rothko Chapel, Texas

Another use of image to show spiritual superiority is seen at Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi which is visited by people from different parts of the world on their pilgrimage to seek higher religious state. The walls of this basilica are painted with religious paintings which signifies the sacredness of the place.

Interior of Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi

Mona Lisa is a really famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci which has a mysterious power of visual communication because there are no theories to explain its fame. It tells us what avant garde art is all about; bogus religiosity. We should not embrace bogus religiosity, instead, we have to be suspicious about it. 

Mona Lisa at The Louvre, Paris

Art, especially images, has high degree of influence and persuasive power

1. Mona Lisa

Many people took pictures of Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris shows evidence that human's cultural anxiety keeps the avant garde art business alive. However, what will happen if people can reproduce images of original artworks?

The control of Mona Lisa, which is previously at the hand of the elite, is now in the hand of everyone. It means that people can domesticate the painting by making prints and merchandise of it. Many artists use this opportunity to tweak the painting and change its meaning. Marcel Duchamp created L.H.O.O.Q in 1919, inspired by Dadaism, he ridiculed Mona Lisa by drawing on a Mona Lisa postcard by adding mustache and goatee on her face and writing L.H.O.O.Q which translates to 'Hot Ass' in French if pronounced quickly. He uses Mona Lisa as a statement to attack the social elitist. It continues as Banksy, a British graffiti artist, created Mona Lisa Mujahideen in 2013, on a brick wall in London. He did this to challenge the elitist purpose of traditional art by taking avant garde art out of the exclusive context to represent the view of the black underclass. Ironically, most of his works are drilled out from the walls and sold in high prices in galleries which defeats his original purpose of creating the artworks.

Marcel Duchamp (1919) L.H.O.O.Q 

Banksy (2013) Mona Lisa Mujahideen

2. Cultural imperialism: Does the West enforce ideas to the East?

Popular culture of the West dominates the media in the modern era, such that it enforces the free mind of the West to the Eastern World. Many Western artists in the modern era plays a big role in influencing the Eastern's diverse cultures and traditions which results on homogeneity. Jackson Pollock is a well-known modern painter based on the United States who unconsciously practices primal ritual. He is funded by the US government to paint because he is a model for western avant garde artist. On the other hand, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are two famous personalities of the popular culture who signifies the free mind of the Western World. Their artwork are printed and publicised all over the world.

Jackson Pollock (1950) Hans Namuth

Andy Warhol (1977-78) Oxidation Painting or Piss Painting

Roy Lichtenstein (1965) Red Painting

However, there are some countries which are trying to deter the cultural imperialism of the West. Most of them are the communists such as Soviet Union. The repressed mind of the Soviet Union, led by Stalin, cuts bound on visual communication to just avant garde painting of propaganda posters to establish his superiority as a leader. It is also known as socialist realism, and characterised by the red flag or colour which is adopted during the Russian revolution to signify martyrs to revolution.

Roses for Stalin (1949) Vladimirski

Image-making immortalises cultural icon

In 1960, Alberto Korda took a photograph of Che Guevara, a Marxist revolutionary, titled Guerrillero Heroico to preserve history of the struggle against the Western Imperialism. He has become a cultural icon that symbolises revolution. However, these photos of Che Guevara has become so commonly used in the present that it loses its value.

Alberto Korda (1960) Guerrillero Heroico

An artist can have the different approach to create similar artworks. Shepard Fairey created a commission for Barrack Obama's election campaign, and he produced similar artwork after a few years with the same template but change Barrack Obama into a person wearing Guy Fawkes mask. The Hope poster has become iconic to Barrack Obama, therefore Fairey uses this to raise his political support on faceless anarchy.

Shepard Fairey (2008) HOPE

Shepard Fairey (2011) HOPE

The newspaper is also a platform for artists to express their views on political issues. They draw political cartoons in response of those issues to fight against the 'fake' publicity campaign and cultural bombardment by the media.

Steve Bell (2015) on David Cameron

Image making have the capacity to change the course of history and to indoctrinate culture

Prints and billboards contains messages which holds power to enforce ideologies on people. For example, L'Atelier Populaire protests against the exclusivity of education post World War, and influences people to think that education only grooms people for a job. This results on the occupy university strikes by students to reoccupy and to fuel revolution by displaying and circulate prints and flyers at the print studio of an art university in Paris.

 (1968) L'Atelier Populaire

Images are nothing without context

Ut took a picture of a kids running away from the Napalm bombing sites which is published in an American newspaper in 1972. This picture helped end the Vietnam War despite the speculations made by the publishers before they published it. Without context, it will raise controversy due to nudity. The context empowers images so that it influences people to voice out their opinion and solve political issues.

The Terror of War (1972) Nick Ut

Visual lie has become perceived truth

1. Art can manipulate and remake history

The 1821 is actually a period of massive unrest where peasants are rioting because the government expropriated farms and lands. However, The Haywain portrays a peaceful countryside in Great Britain which conceals the truth of the ongoing havoc during the time when it is painted. This painting set an image of what we perceive as 'English-ness' greenery and pleasant land which is actually fictional. The painting is actually commissioned, so it is drawn based on the request of the client.

John Constable (1821) The Haywain

2. Self-aggrandising

Another famous commission painting is Mr and Mrs Smith which heavily influences the portrayal of aristocrats in the TV Series Downton Abbey. This painting does not just moves us in an aesthetic way, but also shows wealth and power of the people who requested the painting. Paintings are certainly about aesthetics, but they establish superiority of certain group of people too.

Thomas Gainsborough (1750) Mr and Mrs Andrew

3. Editorial  Pictures

Advertisements tend to display perfect life, and suggests that our lives are incomplete if we do not use their products. It ignites our desire to consume as the advertisement promises that we can do better by buying their products. 

Another technique used to promote certain brands is to sensationalise their advertisement. For instance, Dolce and Gabbana uses a professionally composed photograph of gang rapes to promote high fashion which raises controversy revolving around the objectification of woman and patriarchal structure, therefore making it effective to draw people's attention to their campaign.

However, people mistook genuine campaigns as notorious because they often misread as sensationalism. The United Colours of Benetton editorial pictures by Oliviero Toscani is an example of such misconception. It is meant to raise awareness of the public by giving an honest view of the unpleasant things that are happening in the world but many mistook it as a cynical exploitation of tragedy to promote the brand.

Image making is all about life, death and frailty of existence

Images are used to immortalise the tragedy of an individual to the tragedy of humanity. The last moment of David Kirby, an AIDS patient, is captured and publicised to represent the sufferings of all the AIDS patients on Earth.  

Death of David Kirby

Victorians took photos of the dead, believing that the ones captured cheated death as they are immortalised as images and they will live forever more. This give rises to an idea that a dynamic of life captured as an image is death. Roland See Barthes wrote a book titled Camera Lucida which explores this idea of pictures and death.

A Victorian Post Mortem Photograph

Robert Haeberle took a picture at an instant before the innocent villagers in the photograph were shot dead by the US militants. It suggests us the frailty of life as many innocent lives are killed during the war. Moreover, it also tells the audience about the choice made by Haeberle to let the militants take the innocent lives to do greater good for humanity. He uses this photo as a form of activism to deliver the message across wide range of audience, so that the war can be stopped. 

My Lai Massacre (1969) Robert Haeberle

Study Task 1: Moving Images and Questions

Animation is never just a moving picture, it has underlying story and purpose which is presented in many different manners. As a result, it give rises to genres that help us to distinguish one to another and make critical analysis on them. Duck Amuck and Corn, Chicken and Government - Fresh Laid Plans are two animations made in 1950s presented in the same manner of theatrical 2D cartoon animation but delivers completely different political message to the audience.

Duck Amuck is a comedic deconstructive animation of Daffy Duck and a mischievous animator which turned out to be his rival, Bugs Bunny. Chuck Jones uses paradigm to tell humour in Duck Amuck by creating an episode where Bugs Bunny the animator is messing around with Daffy Duck who is easily annoyed. Behind the signature light-hearted humour, this animation has a political agenda to expose the exploitation of film actors behind the scenes of the Hollywood film industry which is evident through the deliberate change of setting and the dialogues between Daffy and the animator. For instance, Daffy is restricted from self-expression because he must get into his character, whereas the animator controls Daffy at his own will.

Meanwhile, Corn, Chickens and Government - Fresh Laid Plans is a more serious political cartoon
to deliver a propaganda message by the CIA to get support from the Americans by explaining the significance of their role. The cartoon tells a hypothetical scenario where the civilians are devastated by the problems arising from the egocentric policies made by the government. The use of metaphor is apparent in this cartoon to distinguish the different roles of the characters such that the owl represent the parliament and the chickens represents the civilians. The cartoon is concluded by a propaganda message which refers to a quote by Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time." In other words, CIA, acts as the 'eyes' of all of the people, to help the government unveils activities that have the potential to disrupt or those that disrupts security of the civilians.

Both cartoons use straightforward explanation to the general public so that the general public can appreciate the messages of the cartoons as people at that time are generally not well-educated because of the World War. It can be assumed that the writers are aware of the importance to get the message across to people with different educational level since they decided to use a simple dialogue, without the use of sophisticated vocabulary. Despite being simple and straightforward, Duck Amuck and Corn, Chickens and Government are not suitable for children because of the degree of complexity of their contents.

From these two examples, it can be concluded that theatrical 2D cartoon animation plays a big role in amplifying social and political issues back in 1950s because such animation has gained considerable prestige as folk entertainment in America. Such prestige grants animation power to influence the mindset of the people.

Duck Amuck (1953) Dir. Chuck Jones

Corn, Chicken and Government - Fresh Laid Plans (1950) Dir. George Gordon

Unpredictable Villains

Visual literacy is associating visual elements to interpret certain meanings, which we unconsciously pick up and use on day to day basis. Two of the most used elements of visual literacy in animation are colours and forms.  Both of them are used to represent the role of character so that we can easily distinguish the protagonists and the antagonists in many Disney's classical cartoon animations. For example, we will immediately know that Ursula from Little Mermaid and Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians are villains from their purplish skin tone and menacing facial features because that is how we stereotype villains. 

Ursula from The Little Mermaid (1990) Walt Disney Feature Animation, United States.

Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians (1961) Walt Disney Feature Animation, United States.

However, producers have recently used an unconventional approach to portray their villains in the recent Disney Animation feature films. Instead of using the classic depiction of villains as mentioned above, they choose to blend the villain in with the rest of the character and expose them at some point of the story. Some examples are King Candy from Wreck It Ralph and Prince Hans from Frozen. This plot twisting technique does not involve the principles of visual literacy yet it worked really well and brought out the realistic side of the story.

King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph (1931) by Walt Disney Animation Studios, United States.

Prince Hans from Frozen (2013) by Walt Disney Animation Studios, United States.