Early Walt Disney Animation

What is Caricature?

Walt Disney changed the game of animation and cinema from the very start of his creations. Walt grasped a new concepts that character creators had never really accomplished before. Sure, creators before Walt entertained their crowd, but Walt knew that it was much more than simply entertaining...and this concept alone changed the way animation was viewed forever. Walt Disney gave his characters their own personalities that emotionally invested viewers to watch his animations. Rather than simply watching a show for an hour of enjoyment, entire families were obsessing over the characters that Walt and his team developed. Overtime, Walt Disney's empire grew. Caricature is the word that defines the lively, relatable, and lovable animations that Disney created. Creating character actions that were easily defined by the audience that involved imaginative situations based on people's real-life experiences are ways that Walt Disney emotionally attached his audience to his caricatures(Thomas, 1981)

"Although emotions are typically described as mental states, visible signs on the face and body play a critical role in their expression and communication. Facial expressions and bodily movements were first related to emotional states by Charles Darwin in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). It is in this context that influence of the earlier meaning of emotion, as movement or bodily motions, most clearly asserts itself, in the (now theorized) link to more modern perspectives" -Raymond Williams                                

Raymond Williams is a Welsh academic novelist that define the term emotion in that it can be both felt mentally and  shown physically. Most already understand this definition, but Williams has done extensive research on the different origins of the word emotion and different meanings it has had overtime. The early definitions of emotions, such as bodily motions and movement that Williams describes above are ones that relate to the way Disney draws emotion from his audience. Disney genuinely wanted his audience to be emotionally invested in his caricatures that they mentally and physically reacted to his animations.

What is more true: Caricature or Realism Caricature and realism are very much the same, in the sense that they represent what is real about a person (or thing). Oxford Dictionary defines realism as the quality or fact of representing a person, thing, or situation accurately or in a way that is true to life. Caricatures are characters that are brought to life through animation, expression, and emotion. Realism shows the quality of how caricatures are represented. While caricatures do perform very imaginative and unreal actions, (ex. talking duck or mouse) their personalities and emotions are very human-like and relatable by audiences in those situations.

Images found on Creative Commons