Exciting to see the Animation medium finally expanding
into new (for the US) genres, even if it is prurient,
teenage CGI animation like Sausage Party.
Its predictable success will doubtless galvanize
Hollywood lovers of sequels into quickly
This animation may not be for children and
we get the porn reference,
but it can hardly be called ADULT animation.
It’s more like ADOLESCENT animation,
the stepping-stone intermediary between
animation for children and animation for adults.
It’s the medium of animation growing up
and this is a good thing.
By all means, let’s have more of this if it means
educating audiences to the fact that animation
can be used to tell all sorts of stories
and express all kinds of thoughts.
There’s a place for all genres in the animation medium,
even thoughtful, thought-provoking, funny and beautifully
designed adult films like PERSEPOLIS and L’ILLUSIONISTE.
What is, unfortunately, not new are the claims of abuse during the
production of SAUSAGE PARTY: animation workers allegedly not
being paid overtime, half the animators not being credited for their
work as punishment for protesting, incredibly sleazy and medieval
threats of “blacklisting”, all making for a hostile workplace.
Good grief, didn’t blacklisting go out with McCarthyism??
Shameful and embarassing that animation on the screen is
cutting-edge and dazzling but behind the scenes it's the Dark Ages
of sexism and bullying.
Unscrupulous producers have always known there are more
talented and highly-trained animation workers than there is work
and have for many years taken advantage of passionate people
who will often go above and beyond their contract for love of their
art and to finish a film on time.
Animators in Hollywood have a union through IATSE Local 839,
the Animation Guild, but in Canada, a country renowned for its
fairness in so many other areas and home of the world-famous,
Oscar-winning National Film Board of Canada, animation workers
do not yet have a union.
Recently, however, IATSE extended an invitation to NITROGEN
STUDIOS employees who worked on SAUSAGE PARTY to meet
with them and with legal counsel in Vancouver.
Read what SAUSAGE PARTY workers think of director Greg Tiernan’s Vancouver-based NITROGEN Studios.
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ANIMATION, SAUSAGE PARTY, ADULT ANIMATION, ANIMATOR ABUSE
