Abstract
French animator Michel Ocelot has garnered much praise for his fairy-tale films, which resist commercial norms and often question gender and racial stereotypes. But his Kirikou film series has nonetheless been criticized for recycling stereotypes of traditional African life. This article reframes these criticisms by focusing on the depiction of human-nonhuman relations. Ocelot’s Kirikou films present a striking contrast between minimalist human figures and detailed backgrounds that focuses attention on how humans interact with the nonhuman. This aspect of the Kirikou films reminds us the fairy tale has much to reveal about how we conceive the world we inhabit.
Recommended Citation
Siefert, Lewis C.. "Viewing Humans and Nonhumans in Fairy-Tale Animation: The Case of Michel Ocelot’s Kirikou Films." Marvels & Tales 37.1 (2023). Web. <https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/marvels/vol37/iss1/5>.
