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animorphsljPsychogeography - The study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.
Psychochronography - The study of a time period through a specific singular object.
What follows is a series of short, irregularly updated essays concerning the time period in which the Animorphs book series was published, focusing on the emotional, artistic and political landscape of which the series was a part of. I plan to do one essay per book. As always, discussion and debate is encouraged. :)
#1 - You don't know anything about reality, Jake (#1 The Invasion)
It's June 1996. "Tha Crossroads" by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony take #1 of the billboards for the entire month, a tribute song to the passing of rapper Eazy-E to AIDS. Eazy-E is best known as one of the founding members of N.W.A. along with Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, and is still considered one of the pioneers of gangsta rap, a genre of music known of its use of crime and drug iconography. Supporters of the genre call it a documentation of inner-city life, while detractors claim it as both promoting certain criminal behaviors as well as stereotyping African American youth as uncultured and unintelligent. While the genre originated as far back as the 1980s, it was 1996 when it arguably hit its final high mark with the arrival of Jay-Z, Tupac releasing the first rap double album, and Snoop Dogg being acquitted for first-degree murder.
Regardless of your taste in gangsta rap as a musical genre, it found an important place in 90s American culture as one of the few things to paint a negative critical image on, well, 90s American culture. The 1990s, now more than ever, felt like a safe decade, a comfortable decade. I often think of the 90s as the tropical vacation resort of decades, pleasant and a tad artificial. Vietnam and Watergate were becoming distant memories (Richard Nixon had passed away in 1994). The Cold War was over. The economy was good. The only major military action in that decade, Operation Desert Storm, is considered one of the quickest and cleanest wars in history. President Clinton was the Democrat's answer to Ronald Reagan, a goofy celebrity president who played saxophone on Arsenio Hall.
It was in this landscape and Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant released Animorphs, a science fiction young adult series about a group of teenagers who discover a secret invasion of mind-controlling aliens. Animorphs is a lot of things, a mixing pot of various cultural, political and ethical ideas that I feel can only be accurately strained in the context of the 1990s. This is why I haven't actually read any of the updated reprints (though I have purchased all of them in support of Applegate), because I feel something in lost in translating the story for a 21st century audience. Yeerks don't work in a world where the word "terrorist" is constantly being thrown around to label boogeymen, while massive protests are toppling governments. The Yeerks as a concept can only really function in a complacent, unsuspecting world.
Complacent is the key word here. It's no coincidence that the series opens in a mall of all places, a symbol of American consumerism. It's also no coincidence that 3.5 of the main characters are white, and all but one live comfortably. Jake and Rachel are white and live in upper-middle class families. Jake's father is a pediatrician, his mother a writer and his brother a high school heartthrob and basketball legend. Rachel's mother is a lawyer and her father is a news anchor. Cassie's family live what has to be an expensive piece of real estate and are living their dreams of helping animals. Marco, who is half-white, has fallen on hard times at the beginning of the series, but before the supposed death of his mother, his life was also extremely comfortable, to the point where yacht trips were a regular occurrence.
The only Animorph that doesn't fit into this mold is Tobias, and that is perhaps the reason he is the most accepting of the situation. He never had the idyllic 90s lifestyle that the rest of the Animorphs enjoy and is more capable of divorcing himself from it. And it is that lifestyle that the Yeerks are invading. In just the first book, we discover that the Yeerks have their fingers in schools, police and community projects such as the Sharing. The first book is largely about the Animorphs struggle against this realization, that these smiling white cornerstones of American life are secretly corrupt. This is often the subject of gangsta rap. N.W.A.'s "Fuck Da Police" presents a fantasy trial in which rappers prosecute police officers for discriminatory behavior, calling them out on their privileged status in the community. Meanwhile, the moment in which the Animorphs realize that things are serious is when they discover that a local police officer is a Controller, one of the Yeerks who have infiltrated their society and dwell in their secret base under the city ("fuck the police, coming straight from the underground").
This series is not just about the Animorphs Vs. the Yeerks, but about the Animorphs Vs. the 90s. In order to save the world, the Animorphs must remove themselves from what the world currently is, because it's that world that the Yeerks have already conquered before the book series even begins.
Psychochronography - The study of a time period through a specific singular object.
What follows is a series of short, irregularly updated essays concerning the time period in which the Animorphs book series was published, focusing on the emotional, artistic and political landscape of which the series was a part of. I plan to do one essay per book. As always, discussion and debate is encouraged. :)
#1 - You don't know anything about reality, Jake (#1 The Invasion)
It's June 1996. "Tha Crossroads" by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony take #1 of the billboards for the entire month, a tribute song to the passing of rapper Eazy-E to AIDS. Eazy-E is best known as one of the founding members of N.W.A. along with Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, and is still considered one of the pioneers of gangsta rap, a genre of music known of its use of crime and drug iconography. Supporters of the genre call it a documentation of inner-city life, while detractors claim it as both promoting certain criminal behaviors as well as stereotyping African American youth as uncultured and unintelligent. While the genre originated as far back as the 1980s, it was 1996 when it arguably hit its final high mark with the arrival of Jay-Z, Tupac releasing the first rap double album, and Snoop Dogg being acquitted for first-degree murder.
Regardless of your taste in gangsta rap as a musical genre, it found an important place in 90s American culture as one of the few things to paint a negative critical image on, well, 90s American culture. The 1990s, now more than ever, felt like a safe decade, a comfortable decade. I often think of the 90s as the tropical vacation resort of decades, pleasant and a tad artificial. Vietnam and Watergate were becoming distant memories (Richard Nixon had passed away in 1994). The Cold War was over. The economy was good. The only major military action in that decade, Operation Desert Storm, is considered one of the quickest and cleanest wars in history. President Clinton was the Democrat's answer to Ronald Reagan, a goofy celebrity president who played saxophone on Arsenio Hall.
It was in this landscape and Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant released Animorphs, a science fiction young adult series about a group of teenagers who discover a secret invasion of mind-controlling aliens. Animorphs is a lot of things, a mixing pot of various cultural, political and ethical ideas that I feel can only be accurately strained in the context of the 1990s. This is why I haven't actually read any of the updated reprints (though I have purchased all of them in support of Applegate), because I feel something in lost in translating the story for a 21st century audience. Yeerks don't work in a world where the word "terrorist" is constantly being thrown around to label boogeymen, while massive protests are toppling governments. The Yeerks as a concept can only really function in a complacent, unsuspecting world.
Complacent is the key word here. It's no coincidence that the series opens in a mall of all places, a symbol of American consumerism. It's also no coincidence that 3.5 of the main characters are white, and all but one live comfortably. Jake and Rachel are white and live in upper-middle class families. Jake's father is a pediatrician, his mother a writer and his brother a high school heartthrob and basketball legend. Rachel's mother is a lawyer and her father is a news anchor. Cassie's family live what has to be an expensive piece of real estate and are living their dreams of helping animals. Marco, who is half-white, has fallen on hard times at the beginning of the series, but before the supposed death of his mother, his life was also extremely comfortable, to the point where yacht trips were a regular occurrence.
The only Animorph that doesn't fit into this mold is Tobias, and that is perhaps the reason he is the most accepting of the situation. He never had the idyllic 90s lifestyle that the rest of the Animorphs enjoy and is more capable of divorcing himself from it. And it is that lifestyle that the Yeerks are invading. In just the first book, we discover that the Yeerks have their fingers in schools, police and community projects such as the Sharing. The first book is largely about the Animorphs struggle against this realization, that these smiling white cornerstones of American life are secretly corrupt. This is often the subject of gangsta rap. N.W.A.'s "Fuck Da Police" presents a fantasy trial in which rappers prosecute police officers for discriminatory behavior, calling them out on their privileged status in the community. Meanwhile, the moment in which the Animorphs realize that things are serious is when they discover that a local police officer is a Controller, one of the Yeerks who have infiltrated their society and dwell in their secret base under the city ("fuck the police, coming straight from the underground").
This series is not just about the Animorphs Vs. the Yeerks, but about the Animorphs Vs. the 90s. In order to save the world, the Animorphs must remove themselves from what the world currently is, because it's that world that the Yeerks have already conquered before the book series even begins.
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