Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Harry Potter

There have been all kinds of mashups in the fan world from the Potter movies showing Potter and various of his friends and enemies falling in love or lust. Not unlike the Kirk/Spock fan mashups of an earlier era (done painstakingly with actual film or video). But this little fan cartoon of Potter and Voldemort has a weird combination of Narcissism (Harry as Voldemort as Everything and loving himself) along with an unconsciously mystical understanding of the Divine (and thus the Demonic also) in everything. Okay, enough of my ponderous thinking about this cartoon, watch and enjoy:

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Sports Are Gay

Present at the creation: head on over to the home page of one kukaipaa at youtube and you can watch the evolution of the curmudgeonly character that is realized in the odd little cartoon below: a rant about the homoeroticism in sports supposedly by an arch-conservative (except for the fact that half-way thru the character is broken to turn into a rant about the so-called religious opposition to same-sex marriage). Enjoy:

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Tom Cruise, Prop 8 and Simian Anchors

Newswitness news is a new animated news satire regular on youtube. The prop 8 stuff is about half way through, after the rather sophomoric celebrity sex humor.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Utah Chickens

Okay, but I still prefer my old copy of Les poulets n'ont pas de chaises -- Chickens don't have chairs, a great book of completely surreal French comics published by, who else, Grove Press, in 1969.

Meanwhile "buck buck b-buck, we should take our bucks elsewhere and boycott Utah and LDS owned business." There a list to a link in a post below.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Blow

This short animation is from Australian director Craig Boreham, whose longer films that deal with queer sexuality and desire have won awards at festivals around the world. He describes this animation as "dark" and I agree -- it takes all the illusory heat out of sex in public space and reveals its loneliness and desperation, the alienation from self and other. There, isn't that just what you were expecting for a Sunday morning cartoon?

Sunday Morning Cartoon: If You Were Gay

Avenue Q — the Broadway musical — has inspired a large number of animators and mash-up artists to create short films taking songs from the show and matching them to animation. One of the more popular songs to get this treatment is "If You Were Gay," a sweet song of sung by a straight character to his best friend and room mate, a closeted gay character. One of the more recent versions on YouTube features original animation:

But just as interesting are the mash ups taken from Japanese yayoi anime here, here and perhaps most brilliantly, here. There are versions edited to other films, like Austin Powers, and version edited to episodes of SpongeBob. Personally, I would love to see this mashed up with bits and pieces of old Laurel and Hardy films. Let me know if you find any that you think are particularly brilliant.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Queer Eye for the Moose Guy

I've always been a big fan of Rocky & Bullwinkle. Even more so of Dr. Peabody and his boy Sherman. When asked in those idiotic online personal questionnaires what celebrity I look like I always say Peabody's Boy Sherman, grown up. But more on that later....

So here they are, Boris and Natasha, Moose and Squirrel, in an odd tribute to reality television, such as it is.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Thank You Masked Man

I remember the first time I read this monologue in The Essential Lenny Bruce. Everyone has been memorialized George Carlin these last weeks, but he would never have existed had it not been for Bruce, who went to jail for saying things Carlin made millions with. This cartoon version of his take on The Lone Ranger is one of my favorites.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Alone

Gay science fiction animation — that brings together several things I love. This little film (cartoon sounds so dismissive really) brings E. M. Foster’s two-word message to humanity: “only connect,” to life in a sweet and sad way. I would almost say the aesthetic at work here is Japanese since the story is about the evanescence of connection, the beautiful sadness of it all. Alone won an award at the 2006 OUTer Gay and Lesbian SciFi/Fantasy Film Festival. I hope I see work as good as this next week at the NewFest LGBT film festival in NYC. I always go to the Saturday morning animation program. And if you’re in NYC, and you’re also a fan of this program, say hello when you see me.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Vick Vancouver

This is the first episode in a lovely little animated series that chronicles the adventures of a young gay man — this is already a genre of its own and amazingly enough post Stonewall the stories seem to have an archetypal feel that remains the same across generations. It may well be the Jungian archetype of the Puer, but it has heart and humor and sweetness along with a sharp eye for the world we live in.

An interesting note is how this is different from everything that has come before in that it appears on the web in weekly installments, not merely on youtube, but on its own website, vickvancouver.com — which is connected to queer community in this city on the edge of the future. (Yes this New Yorker has Vancouver envy.) The creators of this cartoon connect live events, web presence (not only their own site, but youtube and facebook groups) and community outreach. And commercialism feels relaxingly absent. What a pleasure.