Friday, May 26, 2006

All Caps

Political Flash films on the Internet often use the figure of hyperbole to make rhetorical points in the service of less popular positions.

The American Civil Liberties Union uses digital media to describe several possible dystopian scenarios in the post-PATRIOT national security environment. A pizza order gone bad is dramatized in Surveillance Campaign, in which Big Brother's minimum wage little sister is able to pry into the health, credit, political, and sexual history of an unfortunate caller. Film noir style narration characterizes The Spies Have It, in which the ACLU's X-files-type protagonist also discovers that take-out food can constitute a crime, especially if the meal in question includes falafel.

This trope of hyperbole is also at work in the cartoon for the South Carolina Equality Coalition, in which a same-sex animated couple endures falling bricks, rocket propulsion, and travel beyond the grave, all in the name of access to conventional wedded bliss. Will Flash animation continue to combine the tropes of Tex Avery cartoons with other traditional forms of political argumentation?

Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home