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Despicable Others: Animated Othering as Equipment for Living in the Era of Trump

2017; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 46; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17475759.2017.1372302

1747-5767

Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager, Roberto Avant‐Mier,

Subtitles and Audiovisual Media

This essay comparatively examines U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Mexican interculturality in the Despicable Me movie franchise. We argue that cultural transformations of the main protagonists – Russian Gru and Mexican El Macho – are politically significant cases of U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Mexican interculturality, reflected and constructed by popular culture in general, and by animated cartoons in particular. Conceptualizing and analyzing animation as "equipment for living," we demonstrate how these cases serve as epistemological and pedagogical tools of confirming U.S.-dominant ideology, and discursively and visually constructing (Russian and Mexican) Others the way that they are currently understood and treated in (the non-fictional) U.S. society.