Go Go and The Fist
Sharon Zhang
Go Go and The Fist is an animated short about a little girl and her best friend, a paraplegic dog, who sneak down the fire escape for ice cream on a hot summer’s day. This project summarizes my Parsons experience in its entirety, drawing from my earliest artistic and narrative memories, and incorporating artistic practice from every academic year at Parsons. To the extent that this piece is autobiographical, the main character Go Go shares my childhood nickname, which means “puppy” in Mandarin. Her design is based on a doodle my mother made of me when I was three or four years old. I used this same character in my first video assignment at Parsons to tell an animated story about how I tried to bungee jump off the monkey bars. The Fist is based on a pug living somewhere around Union Square. I was utterly taken by this strange little creature that had no business existing in nature, with its smushed face and half-mechanical body. Being a dog, however, this pug didn’t seem to care at all. My character is named The Fist because the origins of the word “pug” is the Latin “pugnus” for “fist” which perfectly captures the physicality of my character as well as his assertive optimism. The world of Go Go and The Fist is filled with little moments I have collected over the past few years, making a spin on the classic quest something sweet, absurd, and fun.