#CiC - heroes and villains

A panel called 'Heroes and Villains' promises to offer a vibrant exploration of the topics central to the symposium. Jacob Bradsher will investigate what makes a science-fiction villain, whilst Caleb Turner will ask "how do we magnify bodily attributes through caricature and why as viewers do we need this exaggeration to better realise a sense of meaning or truth, i.e. superheroes?".

Their abstracts (below) inspired the above poster which now can be found dotted across UKC.

Jacob Bradsher
Villainous caricature in Science-fiction literature, film, and art is rooted firmly in the portrayal of villains in Victorian literature.  The limitations of the human mind to conceive of truly unique villainous characteristics is obvious when these comparisons are made.  Despite the radical design of some twentieth century visions of space-villains and alien overlords, the similarities between them and the likes of Dickensian illustrations are striking.    
    I would like to investigate what makes a ‘villain.’  That is, I am going to explore the facial features, actions, modes of speech, and overall physical appearance of what has been considered villainous in Victorian literature (such as the illustrations of Phiz and Cruikshank) and how that has carried over into genres like science fiction and the portrayal of its antagonists (Star Wars, Titan A.E. etc.).
    It’s mostly a compare/contrast project, but I don’t want to simply show the similarities and differences in illustrations and character designs.  Roughly, I would be using Dickensian canon as a starting point, then I would move to the golden age of American comic books, then onto modern movies and science fiction literature to explicate the relationship between the genres and periods. 
    Basically, I would like to explore the relationship between what stereotypical villainous characteristics are immediately available to us a humans and those that we project onto perceived villains of the future.  The caricatures of Dickensian villains are easily identifiable compared to some of those featured in Sci-Fi productions, but there are also striking similarities.

Caleb Turner
    How do we view bodily depictions through caricature? The cartoonist Lenn Redman has described caricature as: “An exaggerated likeness of a person made by emphasising all of the features that make the person different from everyone else. It is not the exaggeration of one’s worst features. This is a carry over from the days, 100 years and more ago, when humour was almost always based on cruelty and when the caricaturist’s intent was to insult his subject… Many people think that a caricature is necessarily a graphic distortion of a face. Not true! The essence of a caricature is exaggeration – not distortion. Exaggeration is the overemphasis of truth. Distortion is a complete denial of the truth.
    In this light, caricature should no longer be (traditionally) viewed as simply a form of mockery through grotesquery, but more so as magnifying the truth through over-emphasising the defining physical boundaries – constituting an individual body – to their absolute limits. One type of body in particular that utilises this process to great effect is the superhero figure, being an intensely graphically illustrated physicality.
    To exaggerate a super-body is to take one’s most distinguishing features, (i.e. pointed ears, thick eyebrows, thin chin, warped smile and sharp teeth for the face of ‘The Green Goblin’; huge, thick fists attached to tree-trunk muscular arms for the hands of ‘The Incredible Hulk’) and streamline them to depict just how ‘different from everyone else’ they are. To caricaturise these individuals is to then ‘magnify’ the limits of truth associated with them even further (i.e. a display of ‘invulnerability’ in the sheer size of Superman’s solid chest, or ‘intelligence’ with Brainiac’s brain bulging outwards from the top of his head).
    What does this overemphasis of truth (rather than distortion) achieve in conveying meaning to us through the process of caricature? The superhero body is itself an expression of deliberately exaggerated characteristics, intended to evoke from only a marginal threshold of interpretation, consequently having a specific series of connotations attached to it. These constructed figures portray specific ideas, but they are designed to be among the most recognisable depictions of these ideas: they are presented as being an absolute epitome or incarnation of such concepts.
    How, then, is this ‘magnification’ of super-bodily attributes useful as a process for understanding and why as viewers do we need it to better realise a sense of meaning or truth?

Cradled in Caricature will take place on Monday 20 June, at Woolf College, University of Kent, Canterbury.
The full programme can be found here.
For inquiries or further information please contact me at cradledincaricature@gmail.com or twitter.com/cincaricature.