UPA’s Fudget’s Budget : Metaleptic play and monetary critique

In a bid to develop a critical economic analysis of the United Productions of America (UPA) cartoon Fudget’s Budget , this article combines Erwin Feyersinger’s concept of metalepsis in animation with heterodox monetary theory framing money as a social relation rather than a commodity. Originally developed by French literary critic Gérard Genette, the narratological device of metalepsis in animation refers to the transgressions of ontologically distinct worlds often seen in cartoons, such as the breach of the animator into the world of his creation or vice versa. As this article argues, the economic system of representational money can itself be examined through the lens of metalepsis at least insofar as the relation between the transcendental reference point of a currency unit and its tokenized in-world circulation of coins, bills, and digital denominations puts money in two irreconcilable places at once. It is against this background that the stylized bookkeeping grid hovering over the animated characters for the duration of Fudget’s Budget makes for such an exquisite case study on the metaleptic tension between transcendentalism and worldly circulation, both within the cartoon and beyond. In conclusion, therefore, this article seconds UPA’s contention that animation can find a suitable form for any idea , and this form is only dependent upon the idea to be expressed .