Running head: HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY

How a Cartoon Made for Kids Reflects the Idiosyncrasy of the Venezuelan Society. Analyzing Uncle Rabbit Daniel Sega Valencia College

HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY How a Cartoon Made for Kids Reflects the Idiosyncrasy of the Venezuelan Society. Analyzing Uncle Rabbit In Venezuela, the most famous cartoons for kids, published in news paper annex, reveal one of the most marked characteristic of the Venezuelan personality and idiosyncrasy*: The trickster. Through this paper we will discover how this important part of the Venezuela culture is inculcated in children through comics and short stories. Well use Content Analysis, a research technique for making replicable and valid inference from text (or other meaningful matter) to the context of their use (Klaus, 2004), to extract common symbols from these stories and comics, and then observe them from the perspective of the Symbolic Interaction Theory, which states that symbols are the key to understand society because society is composed by symbols that people use to establish meaning as James M. Henlsin stresses. We will use this notion to analyze what meaning has the Venezuelan culture of the trickster archetype* trough the short stories of Uncle Rabbit. First well define the term trickster, or pcaro in Spanish. The Collins English dictionary defines it as a person who deceives, a deceiver, someone who plays tricks(Collins English Dictionary Online, 2009). You can note in this definition a negative tone. But the definition of trickster varies from culture to culture. Axel Capriles shows us this in a research made by random interviewing based in the association of words with symbols, symbolic interaction. He asked Venezuelans what was the opposite of a trickster; the responses were negative: slow-minded somebody that lacks in cleverness a douchebag. The same question was asked to people in Zurich and the answers were totally different: a gentleman, an honorable man, sincere, someone with virtue. Thinking that this attitude was something related to the Latin or Hispanic-American culture, he tries the survey in Mexico, getting similar

HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY results to the Anglos from Zurich. (Capriles, 2008). Reactions so different indicate that people associate the term with different ideas. Even if the archetype of a trickster is universal, clearly different circumstances had magnify this characteristics in the Venezuelan society, were being a trickster is not only seen as something good, is seen as something necessary, and it is deeply entwine in our everyday life. We can see how important this characteristic is in the Venezuelan society by seeing its arts, songs, stories and shows, but theres one specific character in the Venezuelan culture that sums all this and represents the Venezuelan archetype of a trickster perfectly well: Tio Conejo, ( Uncle Rabbit). This children-directed character that participates in fables and comics which are made not only for entertaining but for teaching also, uses all kind of tricks, deceiving and misleading his peers to get what he wants. Studying these short stories for kids we will evidence how Venezuelans conceives the trickster and well achieve a better understanding of their society. Defining the Trickster through the eyes of different cultures. Uncle Rabbits tales came as an idea that went around in the Venezuelan oral tradition for centuries. It has no original author, but the concept of the trickster is common in all the stories. The trickster archetype is universal, and to help define such an elusive character we will see a brief summary of how the different cultures, which sum the todays Venezuelan culture, perceive the trickster. One of the cultures that most influence had was naturally, the Spaniard. In the 17th century, Spain was experiencing a strong trend shift in its literature. Stories and tales of poor and dirty characters that lived driven by impulse in the streets of Seville and Valencia had started to replace the epic tales of Royal Knights conquering America and

HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY becoming heroes. These novels won the hearts of the people for decades, eventually, traveling overseas and arriving to Venezuelas oral tradition. Venezuelan tribes from the south of the country also had the trickster well defined in their myths and stories, as Jiomonikoshwan, the mountain bird played a trick on Iwa, the owner of fire, making him laugh hard enough so the little bird could steal Iwas precious treasure: fire. (Capriles, 2008). The African culture also has an important contribution to the creation of Uncle Rabbit. In Nigeria and Dahomey, the rabbit is the mayor representation of the trickster animals because of his elusive nature. Uncle Rabbit is in fact, a direct descendant of the African Rabbit (Capriles, 2008). In all these cultures the trickster appears as someone elusive, humorous, driven by impulse and always on the road. Always friend of the accidental, the trickster is a figure celebrated in Venezuelan society and part of our collective mind. Product of a mixture, like our own culture, Uncle Rabbit is used as constant reference of our identity. In Venezuela the trickster is seen as a survivor, it does whatever it has to do to survive without moral boundaries; it uses clever tricks to stand a chance against the figure of authority, evading norms, folkways or mores, and even Taboos. While the background assumption of the trickster might be negative in other countries, in Venezuela is celebrated, thats the principal distinction. Is not the fact that you pay a public worker to skip you lines in getting a passport, is the fact that you go to a group of people and tell them your action as a great ability of yours. (Rodriguez, 2010). That is the most Venezuelan part of our view of the trickster, and we can clearly evidence all of these characteristics in the protagonist of the most famous stories for kids in Venezuela, Uncle Rabbit.

HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY

Analyzing Uncle Rabbit. All of these characteristic are evident in the next three stories of Uncle Rabbit. We`ll analyze a wordless comic indented to stress kids creativity called El To Lobo Y El To Conejo, and two short stories, Tio Conejo Flies to Heaven, adapted to English by Amy Friedman, and Por qu To Conejo Tiene Las Orejas Largas? (Why Does Uncle Rabbit Has Such Long Ears?), one of the most famous stories of Uncle Rabbit. Both of the Stories are annexed to this paper. Lets analyze the first the wordless comic.

HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY

(Yuyay Pakari, 2009)

HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY In this wordless comic, we can see many of the characteristics of the trickster. Uncle Rabbit is about to be eaten by Uncle Wolf when he offers him a bigger reward, a sheep. A lie that saves Uncle Rabbits life. Looking for that sheep, Uncle Rabbit finds the skin of a sheep in a house nearby, he then uses it to disguise a rocks as this animal as he kicks it away through the horizon, the wolf goes following and never returns. This comic is a traditional Uncle Rabbit story. He lies, and then deceives Uncle Wolf, the predator or bigger authority, not only managing to save himself but also getting rid of the wolf altogether. We can enjoy another trick made by Uncle Rabbit to a bigger animal in the short story called: Uncle Rabbit goes to heaven. (Friedman, 2010) Available in the final page of this work. Uncle Rabbits elusive nature can be seen here as he escapes the revenge of Tio Zopitote, and we can evidence in this story probably the most dangerous aspect of the trickster: the lack of moral boundaries and feeling of guilt. Uncle Rabbit doesnt care for the Wolf who will chase these sheep for miles to discover is just a rock, nor for Tio Zopilotes mark in his neck, the supposed origin of the skin head of the buzzards. And in the end, these lacks of moral boundaries, of being regulated by folkways or even mores, and its geniality in the improvisation, creating an emerging norm as he goes, makes Uncle Rabbit a symbol graced and admired by society in Venezuela. Another Characteristic of the Uncle Rabbit stories is that he always is chased by a bigger animal, normally by a predator. He often complies about his status in the food chain, as he does in the short story called Why Uncle Rabbit Has Such Big Ear? He ask God, complaining about his size, Why you made my so small?. Then God asked him to find certain objects that the bigger animals posses. Uncle Rabbits tricks all the bigger animals and goes back to God proud.

HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY Seeing this God grabs him by the ears and laugh saying Look how clever you are. What would it be of the other animals if I were to make you bigger, if with your current size you could still bring me all that I asked for?. Finally the ears grew large, as it was the only part of Uncle Rabbit that was bigger, luckily for the other animals. (Almoina, 1990) Here we can evidence how Uncle Rabbit wants to change his ascribed status, and by doing it he gains an archived status, the one of the trickster. In this story also, is seen how even God thinks of being a trickster an advantage against bigger animals. Looking at though applied sociology, and transporting the Venezuelans personality outside of Venezuela and into the International Community, we can relate how the Venezuelan Government do things that go against what considered acceptable in the Western Hemisphere. The everything-but-usual and irreverent behavior of Venezuelans president, Hugo Chavez can be seen as a way of confronting and surviving bigger countries in the political stage using other methods than force. This also reflects in Venezuelans immigrants; that often call out their trickster to be more competitive in the work field, as the Venezuelan coach winner of the World Series in 2005, Osvaldo Guillen says, we (Hispanics) have to be clever, we need to be different. This are only some example of how this archetypes in found in the personality of Venezuelans everywhere, in all positions, and how they apply it in their everyday life. Conclusions When we analyze the character of Uncle Rabbit in a story, is familiar and easy to understand; nevertheless, we must not forget that the conception of Uncle Rabbit is a product of a mixture of different ideologies, all of them connected by the archetype of the trickster that for historic and cultural reasons, in magnified in the collective mind of Venezuelan society.

HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY Looking at Uncle Rabbit, in a country that inculcates the trickster values early, as it uses his stories in all elementary schools to teach the children how to read, we can now grasp a better understanding of the trickster archetype and his privileged place in Venezuelas society and how this reflects in the personality of the Venezuelan.

HOW A CARTOON REFLECTS THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF THE VENEZUELAN SOCIETY Reference Almoina de Carrera, Pilar (1990). El hroe en el relato oral venezolano. Caracas: Monte vila Editores. 127-129. Amy Friedman (2010) Tio conejo flies to heaven .Tell Me a Story 3: Women of Wonder. Universal Uclick. Retrieved from www.mythsandtales.com. Capriles, A. (2008). La Picarda del Venezolano o el triunfo de Tio Conejo .Caracas: Santillana HarperCollins Publishers (2009) Retrieved from http://www.collinslanguage.com/ Helslin James (2010) Sociology: A down to earth approach. Pearson. 23 Krippendorff, Klaus (2004) Content analysis: an introduction to its methodology. Second Edition. Sage Publications. [Google Books version] Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=q657o3M3C8cC&q=content#v=snippet&q=content&f =false Rodrguez, M. F. (2010). To Conejo celebra. La picarda criolla se anuncia a 'viva voz', Entrevista a Axel Capriles, A. Anuario Electrnico de Estudios en Comunicacin Social "Disertaciones". Art 14. Universidad de Los Andes. Retrieved from: http://erevistas.saber.ula.ve/index.php/Disertaciones/ Yayuy Pakari (2009). Coordinacin EIB. Quito. Retrieved from http://yuyaypakari.blogcindario.com/2009/05/00004-estimulando-la-creatividad-enlosninos-y-ninas.html

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