Fox Gets Tons Of Attention For Banksy Simpsons Video... Then Pulls It Off YouTube
from the you're-doing-it-wrong... dept
Late Sunday night, the talk of the internet was the extremely "dark" open sequence for The Simpsons, which was apparently done by famed artist Banksy, and which made a statement about Asian animation and manufacturing sweat shops producing both Simpsons animations and merchandise. According to various reports, there was a lot of back and forth from News Corp. about getting this approved, and even animators for the show initially refused to animate the opening. However, it eventually went out, and was an instant sensation. And, of course, once it's an instant sensation, lots of folks went online to see it, and Banksy apparently uploaded the video to his own channel on YouTube (where I saw it). However, as Benny6Toes alerts us, the video has now been taken down from YouTube, apparently due to a copyright claim from 20th Century Fox:
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Filed Under: banksy, copyright, fox, simpsons, takedown
Companies: 20th century fox, news corp.
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Think of the Canadians!!!
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Re: Think of the Canadians!!!
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I thought it was pretty cool
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Cutting off a source of publicity and promotion because you are a psycho control freak, not so much.
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Make a real statement
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Re: Make a real statement
As far as the sweat shop aspect, I think its a play on Asia as a whole, not really South Korea, where the animation studio is. Although I'm sure the wages are lower, I find it difficult to believe that skilled labor such as animators would have to settle for sweatshop conditions. The sequence was pretty dark for a Simpsons intro, I'll give you that. But as some kind of brutally true commentary on conditions for Simpsons producers, I don't think so. Comedy producers often take shots at their distribution companies; look at David Letterman and CBS. He said the same crap about NBC when he was with them.
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The most skilled, and best paid, animators are used to make what are called key cels. Key cels are the most detailed in a sequence, with the ones in between key cels not needing the same detail because they are only visible for a fraction of a second. Particularly when motion is involved the in between cels are of lesser quality. In many cases the in between cels only contain the portion of the frame that is changing, not the entire scene. This is why as a collector you want to buy the key cels.
The people that make the non-key cels really don't get paid much. But in some of the third world places the work actually takes place it is still better then starving.
I'm not sure if things are similar in the computer animation world, but would not be surprised if it is similar. Much like the "chinese gold farmer" working conditions.
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For example, if the factory arrives and offers income above the norm for the surrounding community buut requires that families send their children to the factory for 15 hrs/day, 7 days/wk, is that ok even if conditions are good?
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The situation exists every single time a country starts to industrialize, and it's primarily because of an overwhelming supply of labour compared to a small number of jobs.
Things tend to improve when the labour force starts to better match the available jobs.
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BTW, the only point I was making (badly perhaps) was that "sweatshop" is being used in a generalized manner to indicate any large-scale third-world manufacturing effort and some are probably (as the person I was replying to says) a positive impact, while some or many are not.
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and then the jobs are outsourced
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this is because there are no labor and environmental standards in these places. greedy corporations are only partly to blame. corrupt local governments are also to blame. forcing all companies to meet minimum standards for wages, working conditions, and environmental protections similar to those of the US (or even better, europe) into place will improve the lives of the people in these countries and could also help to revive some of dying manufacturing sectors in the US.
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Yes, damn those greedy corporations! Always offering people better jobs than the ones they had before!
We should especially put pressure on them to ban child labor in those countries, so kids can go back to the time-honored, traditional jobs of poor children in third-world countries, such as child prostitution!
forcing all companies to meet minimum standards for wages, working conditions, and environmental protections similar to those of the US (or even better, europe) into place will improve the lives of the people in these countries
And also increase the price of the goods they produce, thereby decreasing the demand for those goods and hurting their economy.
could also help to revive some of dying manufacturing sectors in the US
Oh I see. It's a "they took er jerbs!" moment. Carry on, then.
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Sure, all those poor people will just send their kids away to school instead of working. Food is overrated anyway, and I'm sure those kids will have time to catch up on their eating after they graduate and start making money!
You basically just said:
"I love the alternatives: bread or starvation. Has it occurred to you that those children could eat, I don't know, cake?"
And yes, you can use the internets to find data showing that banning child labor ends up increasing child prostitution in poor countries. (But that all happens after you pat yourself on the back for saving the children, so out of sight, out of mind, right?)
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We should especially put pressure on them to ban child labor in those countries, so kids can go back to the time-honored, traditional jobs of poor children in third-world countries, such as child prostitution!
if given a choice between dying at the age of 7 in a brothel and dying at the age of 7 in sweatshop, clearly dying in a sweatshop is obviously better. how could i have not seen that?
clearly corporations are always great and should never be questioned. you have clearly changed my life for the better.
And also increase the price of the goods they produce, thereby decreasing the demand for those goods and hurting their economy.
how insensitive of me. affordable retail goods always trump the value of human life. yay corporations!
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It's the old "bait and yank" tactic.
However, "Simpsons" are re-cycling material; a good portion of one show in the late 90's already showed where the work is actually done. Perhaps all that's new and disturbing is that a whole 'nother generation of Americans are even more clueless about the real source of material goods: Asia's limitless labor under what Americans would (rightly) consider slave conditions.
By the way, as I recall, the Asian animators of the 40's-60's were in Hollywood itself.
@ interval: "I find it difficult to believe that skilled labor such as animators would have to settle for sweatshop conditions" -- There you go. Just don't believe it, and you avoid pesky moral questions. I've quit excusing evident lapses of morality that accrue to the benefit of The Rich.
It may be that The Simpsons are threatening to go elsewhere (numerous possible places in Asia or India), or rubbing in that they're exploiting labor. As I keep saying, once you get past the barrier of getting millions for nothing, there's no bottom.
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They could make a similar animation
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Simpson, Simpson ...
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