h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I noticed another Danger Mouse conversation, and thought I'd throw in my two cents:

it struck me in a rare moment of clarity that the enemy of our little crusading rodent friend is the Greenback, a term used for the American dollar, a green greedy monster residing in a plush chair, etc., pet, and what have you, mafia crones (crows) included.

what is more, Danger Mouse operates out of a RED postbox. is our hero trying to free us from the evils of capitalism, or have I gone too far this time??

Probably best to post this in a thread or forum about Danger Mouse, then... like http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A278219 - hope this helps.

Mark

Yes, hmmm, a few notes, in no particular order

I think it fair to say that 'Dangermouse' deals not only with the old monolithic entities of 'pre'-post-marxist ideological positioning,but many other issues which shall be addressed here under the rubric 'the politics of difference'.
Although one might cite many examples to support the reading (take for example the potted old Labourisms from the "journey to the centre of the earth" episode: catchphrase 'eee, by gum 'e's a bad'un!'; not to mention the ticking timebomb at the end of each episode (surely symbolic of an eschatology of revolution) but also on much more subtle level - and indeed if we take a much less 'classically' Marxist reading - much of the narrative attests to Malatesta's great dictum 'the optimum is opposed to the good' endless blunderings, farce, wrong turns in which Penfold (who one SHOULD remember here is 'bronze medal winner in the Penfold look-a-like competition' with what Kristeva has called 'the de-massification of difference' In a very literal sense 'DM' sticks up for the 'little guys' (a mouse and a hamster) whether again we consider this Literally (part of a nascent anti-speciesist politics) or allegorically (a politics of the marginalised) need not necessarily lead us back to traditional formations of class politics, - despite much of the show being seemingly premised on that great tirade of Brecht's Mother Courage against the heroic, the great,and for the mediocre (1)

For my part I have always read the show as an allegory of the great unspoken literary battle of the twentieth century between Joyce and Proust.
Our Hero (be it 'Stephen', or DM) is one and the same the voice of the narrator (David Jason) he wears an eyepatch (hmmm!) the narrative is full of little 'epiphanies' of the banal ( - David Jason rounding off cliffhanger episodes with a string of heroic superlatives, which are in turn perorated and perforated by the lines ' . . .AND will WHOEVER stole my bicycle please return it . . .), of unexpected semioses, and, of course,'good conscience' as to the infantilism of punning: -

DM [frenetic, warning Penfold of incoming arrow] Duck!
Penfold: What?
DM [urgently]: Duck down!!
Penfold: Yes you do get down from a duck . . .

The villain of the series 'the baron' (Whether considered here as 'de Charlus' or 'Greenback', he is filled "with almost superhuman pride"(2) of A very Proustian (Fauborg Saint-Germain) monomania as to his (partially illusory) vaulted postion in society of an epigonic aristocracy.

Elsewhere, of course the Po-Mo-ish tropes against the tyranny of trompe d'oeil (DM and Penfold drive off the edge of the animation cell) evince an engagement with the conservatism of narrative fiction, and a longing for the medium's expansion and emancipation.


Res. 178239 is Chair of Comparative Animated Culture(s) at Birkbeck College, London - with a special interest in Dangermouse Studies.
His many publications include 'Droopy: Bilocation and Quantum Entanglement' and 'Screwy Squirrel - The ends of 'Classical' Space, Modular Functions and Superstring Theory'

(1)see 'Mother Courage and Her Children' scene two
(2)see 'Sodom and Gomorah'trans. Moncrieff & Kilmartin, Vintage, London 1995 p.521