Thursday, April 28, 2005

At home with Topo Gigio. No. 1: Topo Gigio


(Full image shows Gigio bodypopping with Cornelius Castoriadis)

2 comments:

Reidski said...

Explain yourself! I have a rather vague recollection of watching Topo Gigio when a kid, but I could be wrong.
Just done a quick Google search and found a site which has a synopsis of each episode and I cannot but think there is a social metaphor contained therein - or am I talking complete pish?

John said...

Reidski--

You are not wrong, since I share those recollections. However, it was only when I did further research that I learned that Topo Gigio was the ideological guru of the Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard Party, or RSVP, a neo-Maoist organization based in Nanterre and, later, EuroDisney, which argued the anthropomorphism of cartoon characters was an archetypal reflection of the fetishization of Nature.

He met Castoriadis for clandestine meetings in the late 60s where the RSVP and Socialism ou Barbarie were supposedly attempting to thrash out a mutual program, but as these photos clearly show, they spent most of their time boogying and singing in high-pitched voices.

Or was that Pinky and Perky?