In last Friday's SLATE, Jill Hunter Pellettieri examined the ceaseless glut of talking animal movies being released by Hollywood animation producers. It's not quite as incisive or hard-hitting as I would have liked such a piece to be, but it's still worth a read. The article begins:
I'll come clean: I'm a sucker for talking-animal movies. In fact, even a nonhuman talking object will do. But while I used to think anthropomorphization of any sort would give me my fix—whether a chubby sheep who hides sheepishly each time he's shorn, or a penny who feels undervalued—Hollywood's two latest attempts at the talking-creature genre, The Ant Bully and Barnyard, have made me doubt my faith forever. If the first half of the 20th century was the golden age of animation, I fear we're now entering the Dark Ages.