Rejected 20 Years Later
If you go to animator Don Hertzfeldt’s YouTube channel, you can find his breakthrough short Rejected in full and glorious high definition. That seems rather generous of him, especially because he works independently. Still, there’s something about Hertzfeldt and his singular style of comedy and pathos that we all immediately identify with, so being able to watch Rejected online for free (legally) is quite a treat. What’s fascinating is how we got here (us, as in the viewer, and Rejected itself). For those of you that might be too young to remember this, Rejected was one of the first videos to go viral in the internet age. In the early days of P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing, usually illegally with the help of services like Napster, Morpheus, Limewire and more, Rejected was passed around and adored by many. Like “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd or “Half the Man I Used to Be” by Nirvana (actually “Creep” by Stone Temple Pilots, of course), Rejected was one of those popular files that just popped up no matter what you searched due to leech volume. So, many people did download it, and it helped shape all of us.
Erroneously labeled as the “Oscar Award Winner” Rejected on these services (even though it damn well deserved that Academy Award it was nominated for, and we all know it), Hertzfeldt’s insane comedy about advertising campaigns that got turned down for “reasons” just happened to click with everyone. For decades, non sequiturs became catch phrases (“I am a banana,” “My anus is bleeding,” “I live in a giant bucket” and more). The oddball humour of Rejected was so random, and yet it affected the majority of viewers the same way; it scratched the itch that most of us didn’t know we had. In a weird way, Rejected was celebrated for how it united viewers that happened to stumble upon this lovely creation, rather than make sense as to why these ideas were tossed out the windows by corporations (note: Rejected aren’t actually rejected ideas, but rather a joke as to what could be rejected ideas, if Hertzfeldt was to ever sell out in such a way [which he has gone on record and said he would never do many times]).
The climax of Rejected features animations slowly dying or being trapped in a void of nothingness.
As fun as Rejected is, its staying power comes from its quality, which might seem strange to say when there’s still this zeitgeist surrounding the short that it’s random humour through and through. Then again, Hertzfeldt is fortunately recognized for his unparalleled ability to capture existential fears and the epitomes of psychological loneliness in an unforgiving world, and his works help viewers feel recognized in this way. It’s thanks to successes like It’s Such a Beautiful Day (one of my personal favourite animated features ever) and the World of Tomorrow series (the first part garnering Hertzfeldt his second Academy Award nomination, which he also should have won) that the animator is celebrated as this thought provoking artist. You can absolutely find these same qualities in Rejected, and I beg anyone who hasn’t watched the short in a while to revisit it with this in mind.
You can’t ignore this abstract beauty, especially in the destructive climax. When I was young, I read the final chapter (where all of the rejected animations self implode, and their paper worlds come crumpling down [typo intended]) as the bad luck that these abandoned toons suffered (as if their twisted existences weren’t bad enough). As an adult, I feel completely differently about this third act. To me, Rejected ends with the recognition that many of us have as we wander aimlessly through life: what is this all for? For these cartoons, their lack of purpose results in a lack of stability in the foundations of their realities.
Is Hertzfeldt a sadistic god to these beings that is using their hand drawn make up against them (and the physical properties of the paper they exist on)? I know in previous works like Genre (an earlier student film of his), the hand of the animator actually torments its cartoon rabbit subject, so it’s not an idea he’s not toyed with before. There’s also the possibility that Rejected presents the collapsing psyche; these are ideas that we see in illustrated form, but this is the artistic embodiment of the dissolving of ideas when we move on to the next brainstorm. Rejected could also be more literal: in the same way that a sound arguably doesn’t exist if audible waves aren’t received, these cartoons cease to be if they aren’t fully fledged ideas by the corporations Hertzfeldt “pitched” them to.
The final sequence, with a crinkled piece of paper closing in on this character.
That’s how adult viewers, like myself, can view the film now. When we were kids, Rejected was absurdist comedy that we couldn’t believe existed. So, the philosophical anxiety of the film is what has helped Rejected remain in the cultural landscape of entertainment, right? No, although that might be what a massive takeaway from the film is for many viewers. If anything, one of two things happened since Rejected was conceived and released twenty years ago: either the short film predicted the random humour that people would have later, or it shaped the random humour that people would have later. Rejected is perfectly at home in an era where memes are more shareable than ever, indescribable comedy is demanded by the young civilians of the internet, and nostalgia has never been so valuable. Whether you’re an avid rememberer or a newcomer to the short, you’re bound to find something tangible here.
There are commercials that have ripped off the very “rejected” ideas Hertzfeldt shared with us (especially by Pop Tarts a number of years ago). The quick vignette style of Rejected has been popular with darkly comedic animated shows or films like Robot Chicken. I can’t help but think that Rejected had a bit of a say in all of this (well, especially in the ads that stole from Hertzfeldt, but in regards to these other avenues as well). If many of us just happened to bump into this short (either by cyber discovery, or by a friend showing us this weird clip they found), who is to say that the creators of these other works didn’t get inspired by these same encounters? Don Hertzfeldt just has this ability to find the content that the unloved portions of our brain desire: unorthodox jokes, painful loneliness, a non-religious explanation of our demises, and the brief glimpses of joy within the most frightening and inexplicable portions of the experience we call life. He has proved this time and time again, and it’s evident that Rejected, be it for current hilarity or an understanding of all of our dreads, is timeless; if anything, it makes all too much sense now.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.