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

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• Representation
• animation
• Russian stereotypes
• Mexican stereotypes
• ideology
• interculturality

Notes

1. For detailed information about awards, nominations, reviews, and box office, please visit: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1323594/, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1690953/, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=despicableme.htm, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=despicableme2.htm.

2. G.R.U. or ГРУ: Главное Разведывательное Управлеие, and transcribed as GRU: Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye.

3. Scholars should note how the AVL’s echoes the real-life “A.P.L.” (or American Protective League), a World War I citizen’s organization in which patriotic volunteer citizens sought to identify German sympathizers and potential spies, and to counteract socialists, anarchists, and other political activists or otherwise left-leaning suspects.

4. Another thing worth noting in this introduction scene is that in addition to the suspicion of the Mexican Eduardo, among the other criminal suspects in the mall are women and Chinese shop owners.