A phrase from an old Disney cartoon song came to mind as we were talking about the pretty face in the previous post. I don't know anything about the real Hunter Park, the unusually handsome young man who was arrested over threats to "shoot every black person I see" at the University of Missouri. I don't even know whether he is the author of the threat. But we got to talking about the psychology of unusually good-looking people who squander their beauty endowment. No sooner do we see the face than we must despise it. What goes on in the mind of a person with such a nice endowment? Does the beauty itself deceive him into thinking that the world owes him a living?
I went looking for the old song, and here it is, in a tremendously enjoyable cartoon of "The Grasshopper and the Ants."
If you watch the whole thing — which you will not regret — you'll probably want to talk about politics. What's left-wing and right-wing here? But maybe you'll be like me if: 1. You observe, early on, that the grasshopper is working, as a musician, and then feel richly rewarded at a later plot point, and 2. You're quite touched by the charity of the ants, and 3. You're cracked up by how happy the insects are when they're happy, and 4. You love the brilliance of the depiction of the seasons changing and think the image of ants' home in the snow looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting.
Hey! I just realized this post gets one of my favorite tags: Insect Politics!
November 13, 2015
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23 comments:
There's an episode of 30 Rock that deals with how good looking people are treated differently.
So Beauty Privilege has to be confessed. It is like stealing judgement from the judges. And it is pathological since you don't get over it.
"There's an episode of 30 Rock that deals with how good looking people are treated differently."
There's a "Seinfeld" too.
So if there is an effect on the mind of the individual, do you think it's a reaction to what his life has actually been like or do you think the individual is more responsible for allowing himself to look in a mirror and get an inflated idea of how easy his life ought to be?
By the way, I think the fascinated with the Kardashians is related to this. They seem to be rich because of their looks. (In fact, they are working very hard at what they are doing, but the fantasy is planted in people's head that if you are beautiful, the world will owe you a living.)
Beauty begets Cruelty.
I am Laslo.
I don't think that the grasshopper in the cartoon could be said to be working as a musician, since he doesn't pass the hat as a busker would; in the days of the Great Depression in which the film was made music was still viewed mostly as a leisure activity, to be engaged in after the daily work was finished.
Did you notice how the grasshopper kept spitting tobacco? It's a defense mechanism that all boys used to know about, probably few do, these days:
http://www.youaskandy.com/questions-answers/29-ask-andy-1960/13972-what-makes-a-grasshopper-spit-tobacco-juice.html
I disagree that the grasshopper was "working" as a musician in the early part of the video. What he was was a distraction from the tasks necessary to prepare for winter. Once winter hits then there is plenty of time to relax and have fun and yes, then he is working.
The message of the cartoon is more aligned with "a time to reap and a time to sow" than "fun is bad and you should work all of the time."
I used to chew tobacco, not Skoal dip but the leafy Beechnut variety (a habit I picked up working an outdoor job after college) but the first Mrs. Wilbur put a quick stop to it some years later.
How would boys today know about grasshoppers or praying mantises or red haws or anything like that? I never see any kids outside, just goofing, like we did growing up.
I remember seeing this cartoon from when I was very young. I must have seen thousands of cartoons, but this one made a lasting impression. It preaches a worthwhile moral and has a happy ending even for the sinner..........Times have changed. Nowadays the worker ants would be downtrodden proles, the Queen Bee Ant would be some kind of fascist dictator, and the grasshopper would be the liberating hero who comes to free the masses. I wonder if such a cartoon would make the same lasting impression.
Beautiful people should be taxed to compensate the rest of us who are not so lucky. Ditto people who are tall. Indeed one of the best predictors of financial success in life is being of a certain height.
"Privileges" abound if you know what to look for.
Without the whole "the world owes me a living" how would the Democratic Party and the Left make a living?
The world owes me a living". Thats the mantra of the left. Free stuff! You owe me. Get the rich fat cats to pay.
I always have found it amazing how quickly Disney achieved such a high level of quality in cartoon animation.
It took Hollywood decades to fashion the unique "look" of the American cinematic product, which today is unchallenged. But Disney got very near his own gold standard in animation in a very few years.
think the image of ants' home in the snow looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting.
Art, in other words.
Not phart, like so much much that has been foisted on us as art in the 20th century. Warhohl's gun the other day being one example.
I would credit the commenter who came up with this if I could remember who it was. I love the word and the idea and have adopted it into my vocabulary.
I strongly disagree with Ann's comment about the "charity" of the ants. I saw no charity at all. I saw, very clearly, that the ants were exchanging value for value. Voluntarily exchanging value for value I might add.
They gave the grasshopper food and in exchange he gave them music. Those with no agenda will recognize the free market at work in the morning.
That is NOT charity. Charity would be if the ants fed the grasshopper and he gave noting in return.
I might also note that the grasshopper worked for his food. Not much, just walking to the tree and pulling a leaf, etc. Still, it was work. The problem is that he only "produced" what he consumed with nothing extra put away for the winter.
Excellent cartoon. I think this should probably be required viewing in all elementary and high schools as well as freshman orientation at the uni.
Hard to believe it was made in 1934.
The grasshopper seemed something of a hillbilly. Does being posted here make him an Althouse hillbilly?
John Henry
I remember that cartoon from childhood.
Perhaps someone who wants to do really crazy things and have some people still like him is not squandering but utilizing his beauty endowment. "Oh, I am so good-looking that I might make wild threats and never be totally despised." People were even going on about how handsome the Boston bomber was.
By the standards of sane people, that is squandering, but from a skewed perspective, that might seem like proper utilization.
"I disagree that the grasshopper was "working" as a musician in the early part of the video. What he was was a distraction from the tasks necessary to prepare for winter. Once winter hits then there is plenty of time to relax and have fun and yes, then he is working."
I don't agree that enjoying work makes it not work (or that it's not work if you're not making money). His work isn't appreciated at the point when there is more important work to be done, but when the ants are stuck inside, enjoying their food, they are ready to see the value that his music provides.
And there's still no money exchanged. The ants feed him out of charity. The queen is much more focus on who deserves what, but she recognizes the value of the music when it is played for the ants when the ants have no important ant-work to do.
"The message of the cartoon is more aligned with "a time to reap and a time to sow" than "fun is bad and you should work all of the time.""
I think it was deliberately layered with complexity so that many different messages could be seen.
The fact is that if the grasshopper didn't practice his skills on the violin, he would not have been in a position to entertain the ants when they needed it in the winter. And if the ants hadn't stored food for the winter, they all would have died. It's more division of labor, which is not always appreciated, but was fully appreciated in the end.
The original Aesop's fable does not have this complexity and points directly at the single moral:
"The Ants and the Grasshopper THE ANTS were spending a fine winter’s day drying grain collected in the summertime. A Grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired of him, “Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?” He replied, “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” They then said in derision: “If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless to bed in the winter.”"
That's simple. Notice the ants don't show charity and the grasshopper has no violin.
I'm saying charity because the queen's demand that he play comes only after the worker ants have fed him purely out of pity and kindness.
Kincaid paintings are reminiscent of the screen door paintings of Al Oktavec, Baltimore, seen here: https://www.google.com/search?q=baltimore+screen+door+paintings&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CB0QsARqFQoTCMLZh-WQjskCFUPHYwod_9EBCw&biw=1024&bih=645#tbm=isch&q=Oktavec+baltimore+screen+door+paintings
And there is an episode of Seinfeld where he uses a beautiful blonde to enable various misbehaviors like speeding, without consequence.
Aesop's fable has an unhappy ending for the grasshopper, who presumably starves because the ants refuse to feed him. Disney couldn't see an audience enjoying a cartoon in which the grasshopper dies at the end.
What a wimp.
Wow. So you like the Ashton Kutcher type, do you? Your idea of handsome is not mine.
I found myself mesmerized by the falling snow, where you can actually see individual flakes falling progressively and somewhat continuously as the cartoon progresses. It doesn't look choppy at all. In the days of hand-drawn, cel-by-cel animation, how much time and effort was necessary to achieve that?
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