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Cal Pryluck writes:
"There are people who argue along the above lines.  One the other hand,
(academics always have several hands) an argument could me made that
photographic images are transparent, unless specific measures are
taken to foreground the technique in contrast to the subject."
 
As (I think) Cal suggests, we need to distinguish among different types of
self-reference, rather than argue that all self-reference somehow has a
similar set of effects.  Part of the question is due to genre.  There's a
real difference in the multiple refentiality of, say, the HOT SHOTS films and
Bergman's PASSION OF ANNA (where the actors are interviewed about their
roles), and that in turn is different from the self-refentiality of 8 1/2
--and so on.
 
In regard to cartoons, self-referentialy has been a factor since (as I
mentioned before) the days of Winsor McKay, but again there are degrees of
difference.  In regard to DUCK AMUCK, specifically, Dana Polan once argued
the following (in JUMPCUT # 17):
"DUCK AMUCK closes in on itself, fiction leads to and springs from fiction,
the text becomes a loop which effaces social analysis.  This is the project
of all non-political art, realist or modernist."
 
That judgment is still largely correct, I think, but there's also the point
that certain modes and genres (animation among them) allow a higher toleration
of reflexivity than others.  But further distinctions need to be made.
 
Cartoons are perhaps more reflexive than ever (if that is possible), at least
since ROGER RABBIT.  TINY TOONS and ANIMANIACS are constant sources of
cross-referencing.  Is their method different from that of BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD?
Where do we place an independent work like Sally Cruikshank's QUASI films?
I honestly don't know, but it might be worthy of investigation.
 
--Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN