-Contributed by Connor S.

Osmosis Jones is a story about a widower who is the midst of a personal dilemma, represented by the animated story in his body. Each character in the story is a different part of Frank’s subconscious:

• Osmosis Jones is the representation of Frank’s desire to get better for the sake of his daughter, Shane.  Osmosis Jones is Frank’s love for his daughter, who is willing to do anything in order to make his daughter feel better.
• Drix is an external motivator, appearing to represent the guilt he feels at disappointing his daughter. This is why Drix and Osmosis form such a potent team and why Drix was willing to work with Osmosis in the first place. Shane recognizes that her father loves her, just that he doesn’t know how to show it.
• Thrax is the fact that his daughter will stop loving him if he keeps his current laconic habits. To Frank, this equates to death. If he loses his daughter’s love he will lose all traces of the person he was and be forever changed. Due to the fact that the subconscious dilemma is occurring in his body, this turns into actual death for him. Both Thrax and Drix are invaders in Frank’s body and both appear at around the same time. They represent both options that are open to Frank concerning his daughter. He can either change and regain her love, or he can stay the same and lose her love forever.
• Mayor Phlegmming is the laconic habits of Frank, keeping him in the current mood. He doesn’t want the lifestyle and mood to change and is corrupt enough to try to keep anything from happening. For Frank, it is easy to keep going in the same rut he’s been in without trying to change. He knows that if Frank changes he will be out of a job and will have to work hard to make up for what he’s done, as shown in the ending by him performing public service for the betterment of Frank. The political campaign is a joke about JFK, showing the Mayor’s fear of being replaced. It is a small joke about how the Mayor is willing to do anything to keep his power, even ignoring other personalities that were previously considered important.
• Leah is his grief over his wife’s death. Her bond with Osmosis Jones shows Frank dealing with his grief in an effort to love his daughter.
• The news broadcasters are what dilutes this for Frank. They are purposefully imperfect as they keep all raw thought from flooding Frank’s mind. Why else would a news station be making broadcasts on what is happening in the police department and pointing out such insignificant citizens such as Osmosis Jones.
• The people of Frank are Frank himself. He is watching the news and only gets the general base emotions. He panics, follows the Mayor’s thoughts, whoever the Mayor is. The office of Mayor is closer to who Frank is than the people of Frank. Frank follows the Mayor’s mentality rather than the other way around.

Symbolism and Sequence of Events:

• Eating the soiled egg, disappointing his daughter / Allowing Thrax into his system.
• Chicken wing festival over school hike, disappointing his daughter, losing daughter’s love / Mayor Phlegmming trying to maintain the status quo and keep his office.
• Science fair flashback shows his grief for his wife’s death and pukes over Mrs. Boyd, his daughter’s teacher / Osmosis Jones falling from grace and making mistakes over and over again that keep him and Frank from moving on.
• Asking Mrs. Boyd, Shane’s teacher, to lift restraining order / Confronting inner demons for daughter’s sake. This is actually initially successful, but outside forces keep it from happening. It’s kind of difficult to say “outside forces” when Frank’s pimple pops all over Mrs. Boyd’s lips, but the outside force that prevents him is actually Mrs. Boyd herself.
• Decision to go to the chicken wing festival instead of school hike / Thrax killing Frank.
• Daughter crying over her father, last chance to change and become a better father / Osmosis Jones returning to Frank a hero.

I can’t really say much more about this Metaphilm article than is already expressed in the following excerpt:

In the film Fight Club, the real name of the protagonist (Ed Norton’s character) is never revealed. Many believe the reason behind this anonymity is to give “Jack” more of an everyman quality. Do not be deceived. “Jack” is really Calvin from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. It’s true. Norton portrays the grown-up version of Calvin, while Brad Pitt plays his imaginary pal, Hobbes, reincarnated as Tyler Durden.

Click below to read about the other eerie parallels between Calvin & Hobbes and Fight Club, including Susie Derkins, Moe, and G.R.O.S.S.

The Return of Hobbes
> Catena Ex Situ

[Editor's Note: I found this Ex Situ via the indispensable The Disney Blog.]

Mr. Michial Farmer at Ladder on Wheels has written an excellent two-parter about themes of darkness and anxiety in Disney and Pixar movies (including Up). It’s practically a survey of disturbing things in Disney and Pixar movies. The first part is all about how dark the early Disney features were, and how they lost some of that darkness after (roughly) World War II:

…All of the early Disney features—for our purposes, let’s define “early” as prewar, which would allow us to work with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi—are shiny and beautifully drawn, but all of their prettiness only serves to hide the deep, existential dread at their cores.

While Mr. Farmer has a good point, I do think he neglects some of the darker imagery of The Rescuers, The Black Cauldron, The Lion King, or even Lilo & Stitch. Though the darkness in these films isn’t quite as fundamental or thematic as most of the pre-WWII examples he gives.

His second part is all about how Pixar’s stories are successful partly because they have embraced those  mature themes which have been largely absent from the post-war Disney films. Here’s part of his discussion of Finding Nemo:

Finding Nemo, on the other hand, begins with a reference to and amplification of the central terror in Bambi. Here Marlin’s wife dies a terrible death just as they’re planning their life together, and the Barrucuda who eats her also goes ahead and takes out all but one of her eggs. Marlin—understandably, although the film doesn’t seem to acknowledge that!—becomes a picture of anxiety, protecting his disabled son (a nod to Dumbo, though Nemo doesn’t get the brutal mocking that his elephantine counterpart does) from the world that took his wife with little to no warning.

It’s very true that Pixar does not shy away from including  more sophisticated and mature themes. It’s certainly part of the reason why Pixar movies  resonate strongly with both kids and adults. Pixar also does not make the mistake (common among the filmgoing public) of mistaking “dark/edgy” for “dark/mature.” A lot of cartoon and comic fans seem to think it validates their love of the artform if disturbing stuff is haphazardly included, whether or not it actually adds anything symbolically or thematically. Pixar probably learned its lesson after that first disastrous “edgy” draft of Toy Story.

Deep in the Big Black Heart of the Sunshine State
Part 1 >Catena Ex Situ
Part 2 >Catena Ex Situ

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[Editor's note: This incredible, epic article has been floating around the web for about a year; it's originally from one of the memers at 4chan  (though it is suspected to have actually been written by either Francis Bacon, Mary Anne Evans, or George Eliot). Recently over at deviantART, an individual known only as BellicoseBreakfast took it upon itself to edit and proof the article for improved readability and coherence, and post it on the deviantART forum. For this, we are most grateful. Rather than merely link to a forum, diaphanous and mercurial as feline affection, we have taken the liberty of reposting it below in its lengthy entirety, with a merciful page break.]

Have you ever noticed that the pacing, tone and story development of Pokemon changes after Ash is hit by lightning in the early episodes, how Ash and his world were relatively normal until after the incident?

I have a theory.

The accident with the bike put Ash into a coma. Days later he was found and was hurried to the hospital and treated with heavy medications, which is why Team Rocket became less menacing. The medication took effect and stabilized his coma dreams so that instead of being terrifying, they became idyllic, allowing him to live out his Pokemon master fantasies.

After the beginning episodes, the series is the result of Ash’s subconscious mind fulfilling his desires, as well as attempting to escape reality. Should Ash realize he’s in a coma, he would wake up, but suffer brain damage, so he must take down all of his mental barriers one by one until he can come to grips with who he is and escape his coma (since his mind will not allow him to escape until he’s come to terms with himself).

Further evidence comes from the realization that even though his journeys take him vast distances, he never travels on a bike due to having developed a phobia.

The coma and fantasy explains why he doesn’t change much physically. It also explains the worldwide socialism, as he thought up a safe system of government that would run smoothly and keep the world going, allowing his adventures to work like they do. It also explains how a child can go off on his own into a world full of dangerous and untamed animals, and why town has the same police officer and every Pokemon centre has the exact same nurse. Joy and Jenny he knew from his hometown, and they act as a safety net or anchor, allowing him to feel safe no matter where he goes. Joy and Jenny represent stability. The professors represent Ash’s ideals, which is why Gary became a professor. The fantasy also explains why every time he enters a new region, virtually no one has heard of him, despite his conquests. How could Paul, the rival of the Sinnoh area, not know of someone who has placed in at least the top 16 of all three leagues and has destroyed the Orange League and Battle Frontier?

Moving on to the characters closer to him, Ash’s traveling partners are aspects of himself that he can enjoy, but doesn’t like to associate with himself. Brock is Ash’s repressed sexuality. Ash fell into the coma a virgin and needed an outlet for his growing sexual frustrations — since he can never experience sex, Brock must never succeed. But Brock isn’t just a projection of Ash’s sexuality, he is also a projection of Ash’s fatherly instincts. Brock leaves his siblings to journey with Ash because Ash can’t cope with having that much responsibility at his age. Brock’s stay with professor Ivy was an attempt to outright suppress his sexuality. You may notice that James got much more dialogue in this part of the series, as well as getting more touchy-feely with his Pokemon and exposing most of his backstory. Ash didn’t enjoy this much, which is why Brock comes back horrified and refuses to speak about it (Ash’s subconscious was repressing him at the time, so other than a general feeling of dread, he has no idea of what happened). Further evidence of Brock being Ash’s sexuality is that he keeps returning to the series after Ash meets a new girl aspect of himself.

Misty is the first such aspect we encounter. Because she is the first and because she is merely an aspect of Ash are explanations for why Misty plays so prominently in the show but is ultimately unattainable (because he never really knew her before the coma). Since Misty is his initial love interest — if only subconsciously — he needed her to reach a certain level of womanhood. He felt that people could only have relationships after they’ve matured. In practice, though, he finds that he can’t cope with it (lacking the real-world experience) and wants the normal pushy, arrogant Misty he knew, thus not letting her keep Togepi. We can see this arc in the constant berating of his sexuality (Brock), but her eventual mellowing until she had faded into the background. Since Ash was quite attached to her, this was traumatizing and after this experience, anyone around him “threatening” to mature quickly ends up leaving for another, more naive fill-in.

Gary Oak is what Ash wants to be. He is wish fulfillment. He succeeded, and then settled down to a normal life. Ash needs someone to succeed in his world or he won’t be able to validate it and will start questioning why he is where he is. It’s a subconscious trap to keep him from becoming too aware of his situation. His mind must have figured out that awareness of the coma would snap him out of it, but it would cause brain damage, so it took something the boy already loved and built a way out for him with it. However, Ash is too complacent to make a final stand and fight his way out of it, and so cannot escape. This is why he keeps encountering Legendary Pokemon. They’re his mind’s way of showing him he can do great things if he tries, and it’s a way to encourage him to push forwards.

Team Rocket are the qualities of himself that Ash deems “negative” but is coming to terms with. Jesse and James want to appease Giovanni, Ash’s father figure, and Jessie will trick the submissive James into doing her bidding to achieve this. Meowth especially wants to appease him because he remembers the good times with Giovanni. This places Meowth in a category known as Ash’s (corrupted) innocence. This is apparent because Meowth is able to speak. In fact, the whole reason Meowth can speak is so that Ash can eventually accept the aspects of Team Rocket as parts of himself.

Ash has issues with his father, so he put him atop the evil corporation and demonized him. There may be an actual Team Rocket (in the real world) but it’s doubtful that Ash’s father is their leader. Ash likely feels that the split between his parents was partly his fault, but also partly blames his father. The split caused his mother to move out of the city, down to Pallet Town and is one reason why Ash initially embarks upon the journey: to escape the turmoil at home. But the whole organization, including Butch and Cassidy, is symbolic of his inability to escape his father’s machinations.

James is implied homosexuality (which does not necessarily make Ash homosexual) and gullibility, and Jesse is vanity and manipulation. Since Meowth has the potential for rehabilitation, and doesn’t want to be evil, this once again fits in with the conflicting personalities and demonized-self theory. Team Rocket cross-dresses because Ash is exploring his sexuality (a different facet than what Brock represents) and this was a method that allowed his gay/vain side to experiment freely. When he found that it wasn’t something for him, his “free” side stopped playing with it.

Max came with May. He played the ego and she played the id with great aspirations in that “session”. They worked for a little while, but with Ash being a teenager, his sexuality had to come back into play. He kept reinventing himself and eventually wrote new aspects, but his mind slowly brought the old ones back as a crutch to make the transition easier.

Dawn is Ash giving himself a chance to love. Since he already established Misty as someone he’s not likely to go anywhere with, he created a new super female, one that was more like him, and less violent. You may note that while both May and Misty had no tolerance for Brock, Dawn seems to try to shrug it off.

Tracey, the Breeder, was a possible future for Ash that he discarded. This future was one that he sent off to work with the professor (Ash’s ultimate ideal of a father figure) when Tracey disrupted the dynamic Ash had with his other possibilities. With Ash’s mind fighting the coma and Ash viewing this person as a companion, Tracey was quickly replaced with a more threatening rival.

Pikachu represents Ash’s humanity, hence the episodes where they get separated and Ash wants desperately to find him, even to the point of working with the Rockets (aspects of himself he would never normally associate with) but for some reason cannot. Team Rocket want to steal Pikachu and hand him over to Giovanni. Jesse and James will always oppose Ash because Ash is terrified of the thought of his humanity lying in the hands of his father. However, this is the same reason that he will work with those aspects of himself in order to save his humanity from just becoming flat out lost. Ash couldn’t evolve Pikachu because that would mean challenging his concept of who he was, which was something he wasn’t comfortable with while still working through his original issues.

The narrator is Ash’s higher mind, recapping and explaining the progress he’s made and the tribulations he will face, allowing itself insight into how best to awaken him.

Team Rocket’s methods gradually become more and more ludicrous because Ash is only a child dreaming these things up. That is why Team Rocket’s disguises are always believed. He knows it’s them (at least on a subconscious level), but chooses to ignore it so that he can better himself. In a sense, the Ash who wants to escape is sabotaging the Ash who wants to stay lost in his mind so that there can be more conflict, and hopefully an eventual escape. The escape being a consequence of coming to terms with who he is, as, mentioned previously, Team Rocket are a method for Ash to deal with grounds he’s uncomfortable with tackling on his own.

You may recall that early in the show there were animals and references to animals. For example, the fish in the aquarium of the Cerulean city gym, or that the Pokedex lists Pikachu as “rat-like”. These animals don’t matter to Ash’s psyche so they don’t come into play much. If Ash had loved puppies, everything would be about different breeds of dogs, and a dog fighting circuit, but as the series goes on, you see fewer realistic animals and more Pokemon. This could be a sign of Ash’s mind deteriorating. As he’s in the coma, he’s losing concepts of some animals and machinery and replacing them with Pokemon. It could explain things like electric Pokemon working as power generators; these are signs that his memory of the old world is slipping more and more as time goes by. The Pokemon realm will be idealized continuously the longer he has no stimulus from the real world. Ash may or may not be mentally deteriorating, but he is becoming more accustomed to his fake world’s rules. The wild Pokemon are his rationalizations for the functioning of his created fantasy. It’s the “a wizard did it” syndrome. If he doesn’t know how it works, his mind says Pokemon.

The Pokemon in Ash’s team, however, serve the purpose of displaying his issues and aspects of himself. For example, Charmander represents his sex drive (not his sexuality, like Brock). At first it’s a cute, easy thing to control, but eventually becomes a raging inferno of disobedience since Ash has no real understanding of his sexuality and thus has no way to vent or keep it in check. Bulbasaur was his unwillingness to change, reflected in when it declines to evolve and almost decided to stay behind unless he battled it. Squirtle was his willingness to follow the lead of others, as evidenced by the gang it ran with, even though he ran the gang, they were viewed as one group, and Ash’s subconscious just gave him the strongest one. Butterfree was his crushing loneliness, which he dealt with when he released it to join a flock. His bird types are his recklessness, always willing to sacrifice something at a moment’s notice for the win. When Ash is trading Pokemon, it’s an attempt to push his own problems away on someone else; however, he realizes this and usually trades back fairly quickly.

Not only are Ash’s Pokemon a manifestation of different parts of himself, the Pokemon of other trainers are as well. Koffing and Ekans were symbolic of Team Rocket’s willingness to change, hence their evolutions. Once his mind was able to overcome that roadblock and allow them to change once, it gave him the chance to truly change.

An interesting note is that Pupitar is a rationalization: a Pokemon that a rival caught before he met him. Even Ash would become suspicious if everyone he met had no carry-over from previous places he had been to.

Other trainers are more direct forms of his issues — ones that he must either come to terms with or outright suppress. Gym Leaders are more primary aspects of his personality, with each Pokemon being stronger than the last, to display a level of skill he could be capable of if only he gave into it. In effect, he is doing battle with a part of him that he would rather not have in control. Originally, Ash had the battles, which evolved into team battles and contests. The explanation for this is that his issues became more and more complicated, and the means of dealing with them needed to become more complex. The fact that he uses issues that he has already dominated to win these are signs that he’s growing stronger.

Ash releases his Pokemon because his mind is forcing him to let go of them. The second he raises an overpowered team, a tournament comes up, and after fighting his way through it he has to go to a new land for new challenges. But with an overpowered team, there won’t be any challenges, and no way to motivate him further, so the part of Ash that wants to stay in the coma and keep journeying releases his solved issues so that he can continue and overcome the unresolved ones. This is essentially his mind forcing him to deal with his issues.

Ash’s rivals and the Elite Four are ultimately the strongest part of this cycle. Having Pokemon that are essentially godlike, they represent both what can be attained and what is unattainable. Ash’s rivals are all possible future he envisions for himself (note that they are all older than him). This originated with Oak, someone Ash knew from real life and built up into a sort of god within his mind, but Oak progressed and changed to suit Ash’s vision of himself and his ultimate desire, eventually settling down into a professor role after beating the Elite Four. With Gary Oak in retirement, his mind needed a new rival for him, thus the births of Richie (the good aspect of his rivalry) and Paul.

Paul is his mind’s last ditch efforts to snap him out of this, to force Ash to actually come to terms that this perfect world is not the best option or path to waking up. Paul is Ash’s shadow, one that wants to push on even harder and harder, and the part of him that will stop at nothing to escape this coma world.

Mewtwo is a new form of treatment, done with electric impulses and a machine to knock Ash out of it, taking down every last one of his mental guards (the original Pokemon in the movie). In Ash’s mind, Mewtwo and his clones were (in the real world) the treatment for the mental safeguards that were protecting Ash and keeping him comatose: the Pokemon of his world. The clones were counters to the issues that Ash had thought solved, and so each appeared to Ash as the exact copy of his defense. The clones didn’t play by the rules of Ash’s world, they didn’t use any special Pokemon attacks or moves — they just beat down their counterpart through brute strength. The treatment was working.

There were side effects. The electric jolts were beginning to affect Ash’s nervous system, and if the treatment continued, he would be paralyzed. His mind manifested this in the dreamworld by petrifying him. Were it not for the end of the treatment by Ash’s mother (who knew her son wouldn’t want to live in a world he couldn’t explore), Ash would have remained as stone forever. After this, Ash needed to recover from the damage caused by the electric therapy. In order to reduce the danger Ash’s consciousness felt from it, his subconscious began downplaying the effects of electricity in his world, which is why Pikachu’s electric attacks — once noted for their strength by Team Rocket — no longer have any effect on Ash, other than comic relief.

As we can see, Ash may well have been trapped forever in this world. But like every dream, like everything, there is a beginning and an end. What would happen if Ash never recovered? In his hospital room, we see Delia, obviously distraught, talking to a doctor with a grim look on his face. He’s saying that their insurance is up, and the boy has had no change in brain activity for seven years. That the shock of taking him off life support has a very small chance of awakening him.

She tearfully agrees.

Back in Ash’s world, he has finally defeated the Elite Four, and one by one, the people around him start disappearing. Eventually, everything is black. Pikachu comes dashing towards him, glowing brighter and brighter in the darkness. Eventually he reaches Ash and the two embrace one last time.

Back in the hospital room, his life signs fading, Ash mutters his final words.

I…want to be…the very…best…

He will die, never having known his dream, except as naught but a dream. When he came back to reality, he knew it all for the lie it was, knew it as his imagination. Knowing that his efforts, ambitions and friends were nothing, he will let go.

As he utters his final phrase, he barely opens his eyes and sees the silhouette of his mother, her face hidden by her hands wiping away tears. They make eye contact, and one final realization fills him before he loses all strength.

He sees that his mother was holding out hope that he’d recover all that time. He sees her and finds that her hope had been broken as she’d come to the realization that she’d outlived her only child. He dies knowing that he is loved, but that it means the one person closest and most real to him is utterly crushed.

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Nota bene: We apologize for the lack of updates lately. We are a bit short-staffed as a couple weeks ago one of our editors left for a weekend trip to visit her relatives in Innsmouth, Massachusetts, but she hasn’t returned yet. If you read this, please call or e-mail us: we are worried about you.

Contributed by E. Lewis

To sum up the plot of The Secret of NIMH, Mrs. Johnathan Brisby (we never learn her first name) is desperately trying to save her young son, Timothy, from death. Timothy, a sickly boy, had come down with pneumonia right before the plow comes. To be spared from the evil plow, the family must move but because Timmy’s so sick, he cannot leave the house–hence a plot.

In just that small summary, can you see a gapingly humongous plot hole? Just think, the plow comes year after year, it is nothing new, and yet year after year, all the animals get into an uproar. Now you’d think, if you have to move to a safe location each year because the plow is coming, you’d just relocate to the safe place. Wouldn’t that be so much simpler then packing up everything, getting into a tizzy and rushing about the place praying the plow doesn’t get you? They frankly deserve to die if they are that stupid. I know, I know, if common sense were being used, we wouldn’t have a movie.

To the animals the plow is a sort of Armageddon, an end-all dooms day where everything is destroyed and to save your life, you must heed the warnings and promptly leave. Those who linger will be destroyed. Period. Actually, Armageddon isn’t quite right, the plow is more of a hurricane. Meteorologists track the impending hurricane and warn the designated strike zone to leave the area. People go about boarding up their houses and they take their most precious belongings and family and get out. That is, they do if they’re smart. There are always some who make the news because they’ve seen hurricanes before and nothing’s made them leave and some little silly winds and rain sure ain’t gonna do it. And they sit in their houses until the wind blows the roof off and the rain drowns them all. The plow is that hurricane, there are specific seasons where hurricanes are prevalent and likewise, there are seasons in which the plow becomes active. The smart animals get out before they are destroyed, the stupid ones hang about until the last minute thinking maybe it won’t hit this year. If you are stupid enough to stick around year after year, don’t complain when everything is taken away. Hence you see I have no compassion for the Brisby family. With that many children, you’d think they wouldn’t live right in the path of the plow.

• Another cartoon in which characters have been seen to die is Gargoyles, although I only remember it happening once onscreen. In the episode “City of Stone”, Demona has turned everyone in the city into a stone statue. She then goes on a rampage, blasting the statues apart with vicious glee. It was one of the most disturbing images I’d ever seen in supposedly children’s television.
  - Contributed by Kender D.
• The image of her viciously blasting the stone humans wasn’t nearly as disturbing as the way she blasted them. She shattered many of the ones she blasted, but one in particular caught my attention. She blasted the arm off a young woman! She didn’t take the time to shatter her, she just blasted the arm off! “So, Ms. Johnson, how did you lose your arm?” “A humanoid lizard with a hatred of humanity blew it off.” When she turns back to flesh, to her only a moment has passed, yet her arm is gone, leaving a bleeding stump.
  - Contributed by BlueNight
• In reply to the whole “City of Stone” death business, Greg Weisman made it pretty clear that a major wound like losing an arm in statue form, would simply mean that the person simply never transmutes back into flesh.  Also, there was a significant character death at the end of “Avalon Pt. 3″: the Magus. After the fight with the Wyrd sisters, it’s pretty obvious that his little nap isn’t temporary. “Future Tense” also had a lot of fun killing off all the major characters. Broadway’s death, especially, was very well done.
  - Contributed by Jing-Jen Sun
• OK, God forbid that Disney should actually make a teen-oriented show. Gargoyles was great and it handled its death sequences very well. Demona is a psycho killer. She doesn’t care about the lives of humans, so she shot some when they were statues. Big deal. Didn’t see anyone complaining that a whole clan of Gargoyles was killed in the beginning of the show. (oh, and the woman would have awaken to find she had no arms, but wouldn’t have any bleeding stumps, it would just be a stump.) Hey, stuff like that happens. Teens understand this and don’t appreciate all the sugar coating that goes on on teen-oriented shows. The Magus’s death was handled very well. It was tragic, but not pointless. And the deaths in “Future Tense” were all just a dream, made to put a little shock into Goliaths system.
  - Contributed by Brooke H.

We previously published A Freudian Analysis of Beavis and Butthead, but limiting one strictly to Freud nowadays is like limiting one strictly to gauche. That’s why Jeff Schwartz has written a psychoanalytic analysis of Beavis and Butthead, although he inexplicably does “not believe the psychoanalysis of fictional characters is useful.” The only rational explanation of this opinion is that his essay was written before the existence of The Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzations. Below, there is a representative excerpt of the essay:

The threat of castration, represented by Woman’s lack, is essential to subject formation, and Beavis is clearly outside of this system. Not only does his reflection tell him Bjork has a “schlong,” but when he and Butthead watch another video, which features a (supposedly) nude woman in a bathtub, Butthead expresses the hope that the woman will stand up, revealing her body to them. Beavis thinks that she will not, speculating that “she’s embarrassed because she has a stiffie.” Butthead attempts to explain that women cannot get erections, but the existence of humans without penises is unimaginable to Beavis.

On the Couch with Beavis and Butthead >Catena Ex Situ

We know that most of you out there in academia are currently thinking:

Traumatizing anime? Isn’t that some sort of redundant tautology?

While it’s true that for every single Kiki’s Delivery Service there are about seventeen Sister Lovecraft’s Ninja Maid Story Neko Octopus Ninja Room, one must realize that “traumatizing” is truly a relative term. Only the crème de la crème of subjectively disturbing, stomach-turning sequences have descriptions like this:

 Aforementioned naked chick proceeds to get the hell out by tearing off the head of any guard unfortunate enough to be in her way. One has his legs ripped off; another is lobotomized by a ballpoint pen. All of this is done by a pair of horrifying invisible nightmare arms sprouting from her back.

After determining that guards’ blood is in fact a kind of magenta neon paint, Lucy finishes by beheading a clumsy secretary and using her corpse as an improvised meat-shield before going on her merry naked way.

Now what self-respecting 16-year-old male wouldn’t think that was The Awesomest Thing Ever? Answer: none. But we digress.

The 5 Most Traumatizing Anime Sequences in Recent History: A Scholar’s Guide >Catena Ex Situ

• A discovery while viewing Underdog- It’s rather baffling to observe that Underdog, his alter-ego Shoeshine Boy, Sweet Polly Purebred, Riff Raff & Tap Tap the Chisler (an evil Underdog look-alike) are the only anthropomorphic dogs in an otherwise all-human city. And no one bats an eye over this!
  -Contributed by Brendan S.
• There was one major exception to the “nobody dies” rule in G.I. Joe. I refer to, of course, the memorably haunting two-part “alternate universe” episode. A group of Joes went through a dimensional portal to a world where Cobra had taken over. This episode contained several shocking scenes (like a Cobra Commander statue replacing the Statue of Liberty), but none more so than scenes of the Joes coming across their own skeletons, or rather those of their counterparts from that dimension. In that universe, the entire Joe team had been killed, and we saw the remains to prove it. One other note: being an 80′s cartoon, that episode’s obvious underlying message was, “this is what will happen if the Commies ever take over the U.S.” A similar theme, with aliens replacing terrorists, was later taken up in Exo-Squad (easily the most disturbing “children’s” cartoon I’ve ever encountered.)
  -Contributed by Christopher H.
• One thing that always bothered me was that back when Scooby‘s villains were just people in scary costumes: why did they have super strength? I mean, you would see them pick up insanely heavy objects like sofas or filing cabinets and throw them like they were pillows, or they would smash through wood or metal doors, or even walls with their bare hands. They should have been very seriously injured, but they just kept on going like it was nothing.
  -Contributed by Tim M.
• The only problem I have here is the origin of Sancho Panda. I understand he’s a parody of Sancho Panza from Don Quixote but Pandas have never been found in Spain where the show takes place. Plus, I’m not too sure of this, but Coyotes aren’t exactly numerous in Spain either.
  -Contributed by Dante W.

Back in March of 2000, The Humanist magazine published an article by Lucia K. B. Hall entitled “Toy Stories for Humanists?” This interesting article presents thematic elements in both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 from a humanistic perspective. The author is convinced that each movie contains “a carefully thought-out and detailed humanist message.” Here’s an excerpt:

Seen as such an allegory, Toy Story becomes a carefully wrought description of two opposing world views: naturalism and supernaturalism. Woody and the other toys in the playroom represent the naturalistic world view. They are mechanisms–material objects that have a material source, a real-world history and origin (Mattel or Playskool or such), and no function other than to be just what they are. Woody embodies basic American Pragmatism. He’s a toy, a mechanism, a material being; he knows it and is content with it.

The article itself is hosted at The Free Library, and is linked below.

>Catena Ex Situ