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• 1 2017-12-03T13:06:25-08:00 Winnie The Pooh 7 How cyborg animals in the film industry interrupt the uncanny valley image_header 2017-12-03T13:38:20-08:00

  While it is humanoids and different human-like mechanisms that create a sense of uncanny, the film industry also uses hybrid animals to create the same reaction from audiences. Donna Haraway briefly discusses the distinction between animals and machines in Cyborg Manifesto: “the cyborg appears in a myth precisely where the boundary between human and animal is transgressed” (Haraway 293). While the film industry tends to lean more towards the use of animation and computer- generated imagery (CGI), there is no exception within the realms of animation and animals. In recent years, a plethora of movies have come out via box office that are centered around animals- some being animated while others are mechanic. The extensive use of animation and CGI as well as mechanics have caused some animals to be too realistic, subsequently allowing these movies and characters to fall into the uncanny valley.
   

  Machines are not meant to be self-moving or autonomous.

  Live action movies most often fall victim to the uncanny valley; an example of this is The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The show uses cartoon illustrations to bring the book to life, but takes its mechanics too far with the bear itself. At the end of the segment, viewers are shown a Winnie the Pooh replicant- a stuffed bar that seems to be normal; However the bear becomes a hybrid between animal and machine once the bear winks at the audience. Haraway describes this phenomenon as “the spectre of the ghost in the machine” (293). She refers to them as ghosts because machines are not meant to be self-moving or autonomous. Pooh’s blinking is uncanny because viewers do not expect a stuffed bear to be able to move on its own. Of course, it is only the mechanics working within the bear that causes the winking but nethertheless, it leaves viewers feeling frightened and uncomfortable because it is unfamiliar as well as surprising.

  Audiences expect Winnie the Pooh to be lifeless

  The single dimension movement of Winnie the Pooh’s wink forms a different function within the acceptability between reality and virtuality: the stuffed mechanical bear is very real while his actions are not. Fethi Kaba, author of Hyper-Realistic Characters and the Existence of the Uncanny Valley in Animation Films, explores the uncanny valley dip within robots, mechanics, and the use of CGI. Kaba proposes that mechanical robots, like what Winnie the Pooh is, create uncanny feelings amongst audiences due to motion: “motion could deepen the valley since form sets up expectations in an observer and if other factors such as motion do not match these expectations then there is further rejection of the entity.” Audiences expect Winnie the Pooh to be lifeless therefore, when the expectation does not match the motion, the machine burrows itself into the uncanny valley slope.