Episode 220: WATERSHIP DOWN (1978) with Emma Youndtsmith

Special guest Emma Youndtsmith joins Trylove for the first time to discuss a classic of ‘70s animated adaptations! WATERSHIP DOWN has a reputation for ruining childhoods, with gruesome imagery and dark implications about the systems of power in the natural world. You could read it as a post-WWII allegory, as a broader indictment of fascist hegemony, or just as a journey of self-discovery. But with Emma, we tried to go further than the striking violence for which it’s remembered to pull out some new insights: Why the book might be sadder than the movie, what it’s saying about the nature of nature, and what makes Kehaar an all-time G. Find Emma: On Twitter at https://twitter.com/Etuni On Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/quiltedquads/ Volunteering at the Trylon every other Friday “The Rabbits of Tomorrow: Watership Down and the Evolution of Animation” by Daniel McCabe on Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/03/17/the-rabbits-of-tomorrow-watership-down-and-the-evolution-of-animation/ Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Kehaar's Theme" composed by Angela Morley and performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from the WATERSHIP DOWN soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 220: WATERSHIP DOWN (1978) with Emma Youndtsmith 4:00 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 5:54 - Comparisons to the book 12:37 - WATERSHIP DOWN in context of personified animal animation 18:09 - The traumatizing provenance of WATERSHIP DOWN 24:46 - The Black Rabbit 31:54 - Cowslip’s warren 36:14 - Woundwort’s warren and hegemony 39:39 - The worldbuilding 43:03 - Ya boi Kehaar 55:37 - The Junk Drawer 1:00:35 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF! 1:07:50 - Cody’s Noteys: Animal Kingdom