On the radar
rising star
anders morgenthaler
cartoonist and film-maker
words by Ralf Christensen
Describing Mr Anders Morgenthaler can be a rather confusing task. A tall, slim, bearded man, one minute he’s joking about body fluids and oversexed pandas, the next discussing how society and the individual would punish paedophilia in quite different ways.
As a satirist his work takes risks and is often contentious, yet the 35-year-old can surprise you sometimes. For example, he’s vehemently against pornography. He directed an animated feature, Princess, about a man who beats a gory path back to the person he holds responsible for his sister’s life and death as a porn actress. He’s also the director of the film Ekko about a man who kidnaps his own son from his ex-wife. And then he’s the cartoonist behind the sky-blue hippo Dolph, whose main interests are his baseball bat, cursing and Hitler.
“You’ve got to have a completely taboo-free space in your life,” explains Morgenthaler in reference to the comic strip and TV show WulffMorgenthaler that made Dolph, Morgenthaler and his partner Mikael Wulff famous in Denmark. “I mean, we do make quite sick jokes but we don’t do it to provoke. We do it because we think it’s fun. I want to influence mainstream by introducing twisted stuff into it. And I know that it’s possible. Every kid in Denmark knows Dolph today.”
But Mr Morgenthaler also wants to enlighten the minds of youngsters. “My new mission is to make children want to explore the world, and to play and learn,” he says. “As opposed to going to school where you start off wanting to learn and then lose interest, which is a disaster. We learn through strong feelings, experience, play. It’s in our genes. But the richer a society gets, the more the focus is on rational assignments. And that’s when we lose the fantasy and the playful learning processes.”
Morgenthaler’s mission will be fronted by his two new characters Carsten and Gitte. These funny – and engagingly ugly – dolls will appear in a movie consisting of six short films, with Carsten and Gitte commenting while sitting in a cinema themselves. For example, there’s a story about bullying, after which Carsten and Gitte discuss the issue.
“The [project] will guide children. It’s a gentle stimulant rather than an adrenalin kick,” explains Morgenthaler. “Disney and Cartoon Network can actually be so fast-paced that children get high on adrenalin and dopamine, while the stories are devoid of any content as well as being locked in dogmatic ideas of friendship and gender.”
Perhaps in the future, when Morthenthaler’s lanky frame is bent with age, he’ll be loved in the same way as Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. Lindgren won the adoration of generations who grew up with her vision of children as powerful beings in their own right. No doubt he’ll also be remembered for his perverse idea of fun, and for plunging feet first into controversy.
“WulffMorgenthaler is the first thing kids read in the newspaper. I know of adults who will fetch the newspaper, censor it, and some days literally cut the strip out. And then they simply tell their kids, ‘Well, sometimes it’s just cut out and we don’t know why’, ” Morgenthaler laughs. And then he adds: “At least we’ve made sure that young people get into the habit of reading newspapers.”
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