Rango, Ethics and Animation

The first task is to describe if not define ethics: in the film context a quality of the unique instance (where politics might instead be about the consequences for all or for a majority or a group). Documentary for example has a duty to the unique events and subjects it pictures. The question then might be phrased: what is unique in animation? This suggests some distinctions. Simulations based on large data sets do not address the unique and particular and therefore should be considered in this frame as political. Hand-drawn and handmade stop-motion animation might be read as unique expressions of gesture and require a distinct ethical approach. The more mediated forms of CGI animation do not so much sit between these poles as establish a third: how to distinguish ethical from political obligations of animation. No promise of a solution, but tactics for posing the question.