I was thinking about trying an animation program that a friend turned me on to, and I needed an idea for something to animate. After thinking about it for a while I settled on hand insults. you gotta' admit they're funny. Suprisingly there's not a whole lot written on this subject. The best book was written by a neapolitan priest named deJorio in 1832. He didn't work with a very good artist and he declined to write about anything he thought was dirty, which probably leaves out a lot. Most frustrating of all, he left out explanations of things that he thought were so common as not to need description, and now those expressions are gone forever.
I'm dying to go to Naples and see what's left of the hand and body insult. Dejorio says they developed because people there had to communicate between balconies over the noise of the streets.
I wonder how slapping games developed? Dejorio said Neapolitans were always slapping each other on any excuse. Even educated aristocrats would play slapping games where a designated slapper would stand behind the slapee and give him a good whack on the back of the head. It had to be hard enough to make the guy mad. The guy would turn around and the grinning slapper would present both hands. The slap receiver would have to guess which hand he was slapped with. A wrong guess meant more slaps. If he guessed right he got to trade places with the slapper. I'll bet there were a lot of fights.
Everybody's favorite hand symbol is that of the evil eye. It has to do with imitating the horns of the devil. Neapolitans were obsessed with horn references. The gesture on the right (above)could mean evil eye but it could also mean a host of other horn-related things. Here's a partial list (below):
Nifty stuff, huh? I think we should bring back hand insults, though I could do without the slapping games.
My favourite is the full arm "up yours". The use of an etire forearm seems to give it the fire that a silent insult needs.
ReplyDeleteI love your drawings Eddie, I wish you put more up.
I saw a book of Japaneses hand gestures at the local Japanese book store located in the San Diego Mitsuwa grocery store. It was in English intended for the traveler. There were some great ones, such as angry you place your hands in fists on the side of your head, above the ears, index fingers extended like horns. My friend's favorite Japanese hand gesture is where you put two fingers to your nose, index and middle, then move your hand downward. It is believed to be derived from anime where nosebleeds are commonly caused by such things as when a guy sees a really pretty girl. So this gesture indicates someone is pretty. When my friend was in Japan he used the gesture with the young Japanese men he was with by pointing out a pretty woman, gesturing, causing the guys he was with the laugh at the hilarity.
ReplyDeletei always thought thumb-biting was a nice, clever shakespearean hand insult. other good ones i like are the up-thrusting of the pinky, with a hard twist at the end, or the slow prodding of the forehead between the eyes with the forefinger.
ReplyDeleteSo what is the #1 illustration beside the evil eye? "Got yer nose"?
ReplyDeleteIn the old days Disney kept a long list of hand gestures deemed unsuitable for overseas audiences.
ReplyDeleteI learned my italian renaissance insults from Shakespeare starting in 9th grade, most prominently "Romeo and Juliet". There's a whole exchange pre-fight in there with Mercutio: "DO you bite your thumb at me, sir?" etc.; I still bite my thumb at the odd jerk occasionally in lieu of better-known, modern deadly insults(and thumb biting is deadly, apparently-still).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, long before that guy wrote his 19th c. book these were known and not just by Shakespeare. As for ones being "lost"--I'd bet not--folk gestures tend to exist in some form whether people wrote them down or not--especially the "commonest" ones. So I'd not worry. : )
By coincidence, I did a drawing where a guy used the top right gesture in your sketch. When I was colouring it however, the program crashed and I had not saved. Do you have any tips for drawing rude gestures whilst avoiding application failures?
ReplyDeleteI think i could do with lots of slapping games. I want to see such games as a staple for every snooty gala event. Perhaps presidential debates?
ReplyDeleteHahahahahaha Glorious! Slapping games would make my job in construction so much more exciting! Presidential debates is great- it would certainly make all congressional sessions better.
ReplyDeleteWhat animation program is it?
Where I was raised, Neapolitan hand gestures never went away.
ReplyDeleteAndreas: Thanks for the reference to the book! I'll look for it!
ReplyDeleteWilliam: I don't have the disk at hand so I don't know what the program's called.
Hi Eddie
ReplyDeleteI read in a book -
Body Language by Alan and Barbera Pease,the handgesture you have illustrated here is illegal in Italy
(the one with index finger and pinky finger poking out while all the others are bunched in a fist.)
The book goes on to explain that it means other men are having sex with your wife.
Unaware of this a bunch of American college students who were drunk celebrating a win of their football team the Texas long horns were in Italy making this symbol,as the football mascot is a bull, and got arrested!
nice drawings eddies
ReplyDeleteCartoon: Fascinating! And thanks for the book tip!
ReplyDeleteMarlo: Thanks!
"Everybody's favorite hand symbol is that of the evil eye. It has to do with imitating the horns of the devil. Neapolitans were obsessed with horn references. The gesture on the right (above)could mean evil eye but it could also mean a host of other horn-related things. Here's a partial list (below):"
ReplyDeleteit's not the horns of devil per se, but the minotaur!!!
think about it, he was the lovechild of a lady and a bull! talk about infidelity!
ronnie james dio was a sicilian, he picked up the sign form his grandma and used it in a "metal" context for the first time!
Smo: Are you serious? Is that really where the horns come from?
ReplyDeletefck klbn 7&7&7&&&&&&&&&&&&&
ReplyDelete& fuck kliban?
YES!
I thought it was interesting in Italy, that the sign for "one" was made with the thumb. That can be interpreted as an insult in some other places!
ReplyDeleteHope that's not too cryptic a comment, but I've enjoyed your blog. I'm a writer/cartoonist (the two so far have been pretty separate, except in my own work), and would like to find out more about why you don't want writers doing animation scripts.
Jack: I love real writers, I just don't like what most animation writers are doing.
ReplyDeleteThey don't understand the medium. They're like people who don't play an instrument or read music trying to conduct a symphony.