One of the pleasures of scholarship is that a research question frequently leads one down unexpected paths. For instance, my master’s thesis began as a study of contemporary realist cinema as a response to the “groundlessness” of postmodernism and digital culture. However, as I pressed on, I soon realized that all of the films in my sample shared not only a similar visual aesthetic but also a curious, disjunctive use of sound. Suddenly, midway through, my thesis took an about-face as I scrambled to incorporate film sound theory (a body of literature that at the time was entirely foreign to me) into the project. It was a happy accident, I suppose, for sound has become central to my work ever since.
My most recent project came about by happenstance as well. With a toddler at home, my television is frequently tuned to children’s programming. One of my daughter’s favorites shows is Max & Ruby, a Nickelodeon program about a pair of talking bunny siblings. I often was struck by the voice of the Ruby character, for it had such an unusual quality to it—a peculiar cadence and odd inflection. Give it a listen:
I found myself anticipating the show, waiting to hear that strange voice. Even stranger was the fact that Ruby’s voice was inconsistent: sometimes it exercised its peculiar sway over me, while other times it seemed, well, simply normal.
Samantha Morton, in the flesh
So I did some research. For the first two seasons, Ruby was voiced by Samantha Morton; in those subsequent, another actor provided the voice. As it turns out, it was Morton’s vocal performance that so intrigues me. Many might recognize Morton from her two Oscar nominations for Sweet & Lowdown (Woody Allen, 1999) and In America (Sheridan, 2002), though she is perhaps best known for her role as the psychic “precog” in Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002). How did Morton’s voice escape my recognition, especially given how much I adore her work in live-action films Jesus’ Son (Johnson, 1999) and Morvern Callar (Ramsay, 2002)? I began to think about the place of the voice in animated texts: why hire “name” talent for children’s shows? How much does the voice call to mind or index the body from which it emanates?
These questions culminated in my most recent project, a study of the labor disputes between the voice cast of the The Simpsons and Fox. Unlike Morton, the cast of The Simpsons could not be replaced easily: 23 years of audiences hearing familiar voices makes their speakers less expendable, it would seem. Rather, Fox threatened to cancel the show entirely if the actors did not agree to a sizable cut in pay.
I’m not going to recount here the multiple feuds between the actors and Fox that have happened throughout the years, but suffice it to say that the phenomenal success of the show resulted in a number of contentious standoffs over salaries. What’s most intriguing to me, though, is that with the exception of a single episode in season two, the show has never linked the voice cast with their roles (i.e., Actor X voiced Character Y). One might argue that this is due to the fact that the primary cast voices multiple characters—Dan Castellaneta performs the roles of Homer, Grampa, and Krusty to name but a few—, and this would be partly correct. Something more calculated is at work, though. As the show premiered and, indeed, deep into its run, Fox declined to provide headshot photos of the actors, claiming that they didn’t want the real performers to destroy the illusion of the animated characters. It has been rumored, in fact, that for a number of years, Fox refused to allow the cast members to perform the Simpsons voices during public appearances.
Florence Lawrence, the “Biograph Girl”
This situation mirrors in some ways that of Florence Lawrence, also known as “The Biograph Girl.” Lawrence is often considered to be the first movie star, rising to fame in early 1900s while working for D. W. Griffith. At the time, studios intentionally withheld the names of their actors in an effort to stave off any accumulation of name recognition which could be used in turn to negotiate higher wages. However, Lawrence was lured away from Biograph Pictures by Carl Laemmle of IMP, who publicized the move by revealing Lawrence’s name, an act often thought to be the birth of the star system. With Lawrence, her name was withheld; with the voice actors of The Simpsons, their name is given but, for the longest time, their physical, bodily presence was hidden.
In the essay I’m currently revising, I argue that audiences’ increasing awareness of the corporeality of The Simpsons’ cast, signaled most notably by their appearance on Inside the Actors Studio in 2003, resulting in the accumulation of leverage for their contract negotiations. In other words, The Simpsons makes material the immaterial voice and the labor involved in its production. Furthermore, animation theory tends to regard the practice as entirely illusionistic, creating worlds and characters out of whole cloth. This ignores, however, the common practice of voice acting. Thus, the voice, sourced in a real human being, is the invisible “real” of animation. By becoming visible, by tying the famous voices of Marge, Homer, and Bart to their physical sources, the cast of The Simpsons makes us aware of the labor that is so often overlooked.
The Animated Feature as Star Vehicle
This, I think, points to a key difference between television and feature film animation. More often than not, animated features foreground the “a-list” talent that provides their voices (e.g., Jack Black in Kung Fu Panda [Osborne & Stevenson, 2008]). Catalleneta, et al, were largely anonymous prior to their involvement with The Simpsons. Again, in this case, the long duree of television provides an occasion wherein the invisible voice and the corporeal source become linked, producing a rather unique instance of stardom.
I’ll continue to blog updates about this project as I continue on with my research.