Chuck Jones is the best counterexample to “the curtains are just blue” because you would not believe the amount of thought and art theory he put into his silly little cartoons
I need to dig out my Chuck Jones books but one time he was talking about the Wile E Coyote gag where he runs off a cliff and continues running for a little bit before noticing there’s no ground underneath him and then turns to the camera and holds up a sign saying “Help!” before plummeting and Jones said the reason Coyote does that instead of immediately trying to get back to the cliff edge is bc Coyote embodies anxiety and in that particular moment represents the fear and worry about the judgement of others over and above the desire for self-preservation.
Like, if someone was told that interpretation without knowing any better they’d think it came from some pretentious academic or whatever but nope! It’s literally the creator like those are the thoughts he had in his head when he was creating the cartoons
the Nine Rules of the Roadrunner cartoons always sticks with me. Rule 3 especially
