Episode 68 - The Prince of Egypt (Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner and Simon Wells, 1998) (with Francesca Stavrakopoulou)

The Prince of Egypt (Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner and Simon Wells, 1998).

The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!

Episode 68 marks Chris and Alex’s first look at popular animation studio DreamWorks, turning to the California-based company’s early cycle of cel-animated cartoons to examine The Prince of Egypt (Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner and Simon Wells, 1998). Joining them to separate the historical realism from the packaged Westernised fantasy is biblical scholar and broadcaster Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter, whose research encompasses ancient Israelite and Judahite religions, and portrayals of the religious past in the Hebrew Bible. Listen as they discuss the artistic and historic license (and forms of poetic embellishment) that support this part-musical animated adaptation; The Prince of Egypt’s late-1990s context and vital place within the development of DreamWorks as a successful Hollywood studio; how the original Exodus story functions as a foundational myth central to the construction of Israelite identity; the formal and narrative interplay between Moses’ divine power, the supernatural, and Egyptian magic; star voice casting, vocal performance, and problematic processes of white-washing and colour-coding; the use of embryonic digital imagery during certain spectacular set-pieces; and how The Prince of Egypt presents its Christian iconography alongside the framing of miraculous activity within Moses’ own search for figurative and literal truth.

Suggested Readings

• Honess Roe, Annabelle. 2013. Animated Documentary. Palgrave Macmillan.

• Fletcher, Angus. 1964. Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

• Sleight, Graham. “Fantasies of History and Religion.” In The Cambridge Guide to Fantasy Literature, edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, 248-256. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Stavrakopoulou, Francesca. 2004. King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

• Stavrakopoulou, Francesca. 2010. Land of our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims. New York: T&T Clark.

• Stavrakopoulou, Francesca. 2012. Reading the Hebrew Bible. London: Routledge.

• Summers, Sam. 2020. DreamWorks Animation: Intertextuality and Aesthetics in Shrek and Beyond. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

• Wells, Paul. 1998. Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.