Semiotics (Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids/Fat Albert)
The original 1980’s comedy cartoon Fat Albert and The Cosby Kidshas a very strong importance to cultural history. The 2004 remake Fat Albertdoes its part to keep us with the social culture of its time. The roles and the characters stay the same with the edition of a female lead in the 2004 remake. Also, the same issue about weight and obesity are still being stressed. Its different to see how during two different generations and genres.
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Syntagmatic: The idea of Fat Albert being a hero in the black community hasn’t changed. In both he remains the one who can put everything back together and save the day. The new version has made it where the majority of the characters are slower functioning. This is because they are TV characters who have never been in the real world before. So they all are experiencing thing for the first time, where the other characters have to do more of the teaching. Another important anchorage point was that the original Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was made to be educational to kids in lower income families. They did this with episodes’ discouraging kids to not use dope and other drugs. To practice not using violence to prove your point. Awhile getting lessons out throughs songs and slight jokes.
Another anchorage point is that the remake has a female lead along with fat albert. This was very much needed. The 80’s already had few comedy educational cartoons With A girl as the lead. The remake made sure to add one who could push through boundaries. By add this female character the audience grew from little boys watch on the couch on Saturday mornings to a much different setting. Now boys and girls have a character who they can relate to.
You made some good points, especially how the movie drew in more female viewers than the T.V. show did. I would expand on this and the educational part of the series and back it up with some more data and information. It might be difficult but I think it would be beneficial for you to find some numbers involving the gender of viewers. Also you might want to see if you could find some information as to why in 2004 the makers of the movie decided that having the movie be live action would be more impactful than a rebooted cartoon.
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ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to your information, I think it is well thought out and brought together. In terms of an argument, maybe you could try and find some information about how this movie effected African American children. Did the movie have the same effect as the show? Or was the show more effective or vice versa? It think stuff like that would be important in coming up with an argument with this topic.
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