Who Framed Roger Rabbitdiscusses the definition of animation by juxtaposing the live characters and animation figures under the same frame. Set aside its interesting narrative, the entire film keeps coming back to the definition of the animated figures in this imaginative world — Who they are; What they do; Where they come from. Essentially, all animated figures in the film are portrayed to approximate human behaviors. They can speak, travel, and interact with humans without any restrictions. What's more, these animated figures possess emotions—one of the most distinguishing traits to define a human. Sometimes they would get angry and upset just like we do. Sometimes they end up having a relationship with each other as Roger Rabbit fell in love with Jessica. The anthropomorphic figures provide the viewers a justification to rationalize the story,offering them an illusion of reality and in turn focus more on the development of the plot.
At the same time, however, the film does touch base on some intrinsic differences between animated figures and live humans. First of all, most of the animated figures live in Toon Town, an imaginative town where they should belong, despite the fact it seems totally fine when they can live with humans together. (This setting insinuates the segregation in which cartoons are seen as a minority, subordinating to human) Second, most of them are lack of basic thoughts and rationality. The Baby Herman's actual age is 50 but often acts like a 3-year-old child. Eddie and Roger Rabbit finally got caught, because Roger Rabbit cannot resist the ballad that Judge Doom is chanting. Most importantly, except for the threat of the deadly “dip”, the animated figures seem to be immortal, withstanding the deterioration of age and impact from external forces.
In my opinion, I think it is exactly because the blend of such similarity and difference makes the film so enjoyable to watch. On one hand, viewers are accustomed to such fictional world stem from the similar traits that cartoons share with the human. On the other hand, cartoons' nonsensical actions and facetious gags keep reminding us that they are ontologically different from humans, alluding to the unavoidable conflicts that the two parties encounter as the narrative progresses.
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