Seminar 6: Animation in the Commercial Realm

In this seminar we discussed how animation is becoming more common as a tool to advertise and educate, rather than to simply entertain an audience. As advertising is such a big thing now-a-days it only made sense that people were going to start to apply animation to this area, as animation is a growing trade. Not only this, but it is a more interesting way to get your point across, and can be aimed at a number of different audience.

For me, a good example of where animation has been used in an advertisement is the Lloyd's TSB advert. Although this is aimed at an older audience because it is advertising the bank, it can still reach out to children and younger people because of the style of the animation. For me, it's very successful because of this as the characters and the setting of the story gains your attention, and therefore their message gets across to the viewer. Not just this, but the song is incredibly catchy. Whenever I hear it I am always reminded of Lloyd's TSB.

Creative Response to my Essay: Completed Character Turnaround

My final turnaround didn't actually take that much time to complete. I think my character model definitely helped me and sped up the drawing process, as I only had to line up my drawings with the template underneath and try to keep the proportions and dimensions of her clothes and hair consistent, Which I think I did a pretty good job at doing, especially as I was drawing from my imagination rather than an actual object. She seems to fluctuate slightly in size and shape, but it isn't really too noticeable, and similarly to my last turnaround I completed as part of my visual language project, I quite like that she isn't perfect. She seems more stylised this way. 

Character Turnaround in Fine Liner

As much as I liked my turnaround, I thought it would be much more successful if I added colour. Because I had the time to spare I went for it and added colour to my original frames using Photoshop. I'm glad I pushed myself to do this, as it is an improvement that I had never got around to doing with my other turn around projects. Not only this but I think the addition of colour just tops of the animation. The girl seems to be a lot less jumpy now that I have added colour, and it has just given it that finish that it needed. I shall have to try and push myself to add colour to future projects of this nature, as there definitely is a great improvement from my initial fine liner animation, and it looks more professional (in my opinion).

Added Colour to my Character Turnaround

Overall, I think I have been able to apply some of the knowledge I learnt whilst researching my essay very well, resulting in range of female characters that I feel are more representative of the average female form. I shall have to continue to look at the work I have produced for this project and apply it to future works, as creating more relatable characters, in my opinion, is very important.

Further Reading: The Illusion of "Identity" by Sean Griffin (1994)

I decided to read further into Gender Identities, not only because I am interested in what people have to say on this topic, but because it would benefit my creative response. 

Unlike live-action, Animation is not grounded in the actual physicality of a live being. Instead animated figures are capable of transforming at the "whim of the animator" and are able to do anything and everything they want to. In the 1930s however, Disney began to develop their own way of animating, which involved creating very realistic human forms and movements, which gave the "illusion of life" to their viewers. The method of Rotoscoping helped Disney to achieve this realism in some of their animations.

Disney also began to develop the twelve principles of animation, one of which being "appeal". Because the use of Rotoscoping would retract from the character's appeal, they would touch up on the drawings to emphasise on the movements being captured. This worked for a lot of their female characters in their early days, and were able to create characters that were very appealing, even if they weren't necessarily representative, as I have discovered whilst writing my essay. They were however, less successful with the males. This could be due to the fact that a lot of the main male characters were pushed aside to make way for the female protagonist. For example, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Prince Charming is very "wooden" as a lot of the focus was on Snow White, and apparently the studio didn't have time to rework his character before the film's release.  Prince Charming also doesn't have a lot of screen time so you don't have a lot of time to appreciate the character and to see his appeal, or lack of as it would suggest.

Having said this, Disney were very successful at creating appeal for their male characters in their 1992 film, Aladdin. It has been argued that the film has not been accurately representative of the race portrayed in this animation, but has been said to be an "enlightened feature" that has used animation to "further  the decentering of white heterosexual patriarchy". On the other hand it has been argued that in the attempt of overthrowing the system to deconstruct identity there has been a number of faults concerning "social constructionism". For example, the Genie - voiced by Robin Williams - shape shifts into many different characters including some caricatures of famous celebrities, different species, as well as dressing in drag. His transformations and his personality are obviously flaunted and this gives the character masses of appeal, but if the viewers aren't aware of the performativity that is being portrayed, then they may read this performance as "true". This point is emphasised when we return to the point that Disney create very realistic human forms and movements, and lack exaggeration as they focus purely on "the illusion of life". Due to this, some viewers may not see the joking nature of some scenes. 

To summarise, it is hard to "find a safe place from which to speak or create any sort of representation that is not attacked for being 'politically incorrect' in some manner" which Aladdin is a great example of. However, the exaggeration of human forms can help to create appeal and get across to the viewer the performativity of the animation. This is something I can and will bear in mind when it comes to designing my future characters, especially if I am dealing with a touchy subject such as Gender Identity. 

Creative Response to my Essay: Designing a Character for my Turnaround

Now that my model turnaround was complete, I went ahead and designed a character that I was going to animate using this template.

Young Female Character Design

I made the character a little bit chubby, as most young children tend to be, although I think I did draw her legs a little bit too wide and her shoulders too broad. I will be able to edit this when I draw out my turnaround however, so I'm not too worried about this design. 

I think this is a nice design for a young girl, and is a lot less perfect than the girls that are portrayed in the animations I looked at in my essay. She has messy hair and her clothes are very "everyday". I gave her messy hair and designed her with sew on patches on her overalls to make her seem more adventurous and a bubbly, which I think I have been successful at doing so. I'm quite pleased with the design, even though her body does seem a little bit disproportional, so all that is left to do now is draw out my frames with this design. 

Creative Response to my Essay: Creating a Turnaround

Because my character designs went well, I wanted to push myself and see if I'd be able to produce a turn around of a character. Rather than using my existing characters I wanted to design a young girl, as this was something I was yet to do. I thought it would be best to draw a template model turnaround, and use this as the base for my design, so I googled an existing human turnaround to use as a reference. As I wasn't able to find any children performing in a turnaround, I simply drew the body scaled down in each of my frames, which I think turned out to look fine. 

Example Turnaround I Used as a Reference

My Template Turnaround

Considering this is my first turnaround of a human, I think I've done well. Especially considering I had to improvise with my reference. Whilst I was drawing the frames, I also had my moodboard of representative female characters, so I could incorporate their body shape so I had a combination of the model in the example and a young, chubby animated character (Lilo, for example). 

Due to the success of this first attempt I can now go ahead and design a young female character and use these frames to create a turnaround for it. 

Creative Response to my Essay: Character Design

Here are the female characters I have been able to produce so far. Whilst I was designing my characters I made sure to refer back to my mood boards, as they picked out what features an "average girl" possessed. I have tried to incorporate a selection of these features in my designs.

The first female character is based very loosely on my own dress sense, consisting of an everyday outfit  of jeans and a jumper. I also made the girl tall and lanky as it is not often that tall girls are represented in animations. 

The next design is of a "female gamer", and not one who is large-breasted and plays video games to "impress guys". Instead she is a girl who genuinely enjoys playing the games. I also gave her a Legend of Zelda t-shirt to further enforce her love for video games. I wanted to design a female character that likes playing games, as it is still seen to be a "male's" hobby and it still shocks some members of society that females play video games, when in fact a good 49% of gamers are female. 

For the next two designs I chose to focus on a larger body shape, and have created both a white character and a darker skinned one. I chose to draw the characters in a dress and a skimpy jump suit as those who are more judgemental of body shape tend to frown on larger women showing skin. I also did this to try and enhance their curves.  

Lecture 11: Postmodernism

I barely understood what modernism meant, so when it came to listening to a lecture on postmodernism I was well and truly lost. I have done further reading and research into this topic, and I'm still confused as to what postmodernism is. I get the impression that postmodernism occurred after the modernist movement, and consisted of escaping the "double-mindedness of Modernism by being thorough in its criticism by extending it to religion as well as theology" according to J. M. Thompson.

Postmodernism began as a reaction to Modernists attempts to reduce things to their simplest and purest forms. Postmodernists would go that bit further and questioned everything, which would usually involve deconstructing work. A good example of this is Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans. He took an everyday object and changed it's context by painting it and having it hung in an art gallery. He then went on to make many copies of his work, making the art just as mass produced as the supposed "artless" can.

Andy Warhol - Campbell's Soup Cans

Postmodernism is also the idea that absolutes don't exist, and that we aren't bound to what it "right" or "moral" because your truths and beliefs are true to you, and you alone, so rather than saying "this is the correct way to do things" like modernists were, postmodernists instead said "on whose authority?"

Lecture 9: The History of Animation

I've already talked about this lecture in great detail as part of my research for a studio brief, so instead of repeating myself and explaining again how Animation has developed over the years, I am simply going to select a couple of Animations that I find to be extremely important in the Animation world.

Windsor McCay 1914 - Gertie the Dinosaur

Gertie the Dinosaur isn't the first ever cartoon despite what some believe, but it definitely was the first to bring a character to life that had such an appealing personality. It was also the first animation to use mechanical processes, such as key framing and registration marks on tracing paper and this animation actually influenced Animators such as the Fleischer Brothers and Walt Disney to animate.

Windsor McCay 1918 - The Sinking of the Lusitania

McCay later went on to produce The Sinking of the Lusitania. The Animation was a staggering 27000 frames long, and was the longest animated film at the time of it's release. The film was also the first serious/dramatic work of animation that depicted the Lusitania sinking during WW1. McCay wonderfully demonstrated animation's potential, and that it could be used to inform and document rather than simply to entertain.

Disney 1929 - The Skeleton Dance

The Skeleton Dance by Disney was a short produced as part of the Silly Symphonies series and it is credited for being the first animation to use non-post-sync sound and is arguably the first ever music video as the animation was developed to fit around a piece of music composed by Carl Stallings.

Creative Response to my Essay: Sketchbook Work

Before I got started with drawing, I thought it would be a good idea to mention some of the work I have been doing in my sketchbook. The sketchbook is mostly filled with drawings and doodles I have done on the train to pass the time, but a lot of them are relevant to the work I am doing now.

The first set is a selection of observational drawings I have done of people on the train. This could be an approach I continue to work with as I design my female characters, as you can't get much more "normal" than the general public. I could either do further observational sketches, or I could even just base characters around certain features that these people possess.

 Observational Drawings of Train Passengers

The next set of drawings are of characters that have been based on/inspired by myself and people that I know. Again, this could be another approach that I adapt with this response as I would be creating characters based on average people, ones that are more likely to be representative of females. Or again, I could simply draw from specific features they possess.

Characters Based on Myself

Sketches of my Sister, Maressa.

Character Based on my Friend, Ellen.

The last set of drawings that I have chosen to talk about focus on capturing different body shapes and sizes. This is something that I will definitely continue to do when I design my female characters as this is going to be an important part of my response. 

Doodles Considering Body Shape and Size

Creative Response to my Essay: Moodboards

Following my research into League of Legends, I conducted further research into female characters that more accurately represent the average female, and not a perfect girl with a stick-thin figure. I thought it would be best for me to create a moodboard of the range of characters that I researched/found, as I would be able to easily pick out the features of that character that make them more realistic or representative of females. I started with the characters from LoL that deviated from the usual "all boob" female, along with Merida from Brave whom I had looked at in great detail in my essay.

Female Character Moodboard

Lilo and Stitch in my opinion is another great example of  accurate female representation. Nani, Lilo's older sister, has a much more realistic body shape, as she has a bit of a belly and muscular thighs. Not only this, but she is a strong-willed character who tries her very best to raise Lilo on her own, which to me is widely overlooked and I think Nani deserves more praise and recognition than what she gets, especially considering that Lilo is far from being a perfect child. She throws tantrums and makes it hard for Nani to care for her. She also deviates from the average "girly-girl" as she doesn't like playing with dolls, and has a much more creative imagination which the other girls in her class tend to bully her for as they find her "weird". So not only is she a girl that doesn't fit in with the crowd, she also has a much more healthy body image, much like many characters in this animation.

I wanted to stray away from Disney again a bit more, as I wanted to look at a wide range of characters, so began to look at Studio Ghibli. I had only ever watched Spirited Away, and it's only recently that I have watched his other animations. First of all, they are all visually stunning. Secondly, I love that the plots and the characters are so imaginative and different to most films I have seen. It was a nice change to the usual plots that I'm used to watching. I was particularly blown away by Howl's Moving Castle and I'll most likely rant on about how amazing it is at a later date, but at the moment I'm going to talk about Sophie. Sophie truly is an average girl and is depicted as being quite ordinary. She doesn't even see herself as being beautiful or attractive. She is instead quite plain but is very kind, polite and friendly. It also a good example of an animation where the old woman isn't drawn as an "old hag" and depicted as being ugly. Instead she simply gains a few pounds and a couple of wrinkles on her face.

Mei and Satsuki from My Neighbor Totoro are also great female characters. I particularly like that Satsuki isn't a typical girly-girl, instead she has short hair like a "tomboy" and has a lanky figure. Yes she is thin, but it isn't the typical hourglass figure that is usually favoured in animations. Then we have Mei. Similarly to Lilo, Mei is chubby and very adventurous. 

I then looked into Jamie Hewlett's character designs, in particular Tank Girl. I've always been a fan of Hewlett's art style/his works, so I'm quite surprised that I haven't come across this character before. This girl deviates massively from the common stereotypical look and personality that is often given to females, as she has next to no hair, face piercings, weapons, and generally looks aggressive. This character gave me the idea of looking into different stereotypes concerning personalities, such as goth and "nerd" etc, as not only will this give me a variety of different character designs, this will definitely be representative of a lot of different females. This could be a good route to go down, so I shall bare that idea in mind. 

Body Shape Moodboard

Having collected a good amount of research and accumulated a good idea of what representative female characters look like and what their features are, I figured it would be a good idea to begin drawing my own characters, drawing from my research and further examples if needs be. I gathered together a range of different body shapes and created a moodboard to aid my drawings.

Creative Response to my Essay: League of Legends

Whilst I was writing my essay, I found that Disney had created a variety of different characters which on the whole had considered to be sexist, as the females stereotypically relied on the male to save them. There are also mixed views on how representative the characters are of females, as most characters are given natural beauty and narrow waists. Generally the only exception to this are the evil antagonists, who were stereotypically portrayed as being ugly.

I wanted to take this opportunity to pick out further examples of characters that deviate from the "disney norm", and take from these examples to design a couple of my own characters that are more representative of females as a whole. This will include looking at different body forms, as well as race and physical appearance. If I go into more depth about the character's background and personality, I will consider their hobbies, interests, careers, etc, so that there is a wide range of characteristics and values that will hopefully be more representative of women now-a-days.

I'm going to stray away from Disney slightly, and look at more female characters alongside the ones I have already explored in my essay so I have a wider range of characters to draw from. I'm going to look briefly at League of Legends. I love the game and I think the character design is beautiful, but it has been criticised for being sexist. A lot of the female characters have been highly sexualised, most of which have been created with a skinny waist and being practically 90% breast, Sona being a great example of this.

Ahri (Top Left), Miss Fortune (Top Right) and Sona (Bottom)

Having said this, I personally think that there are a good variety of characters. Granted, a good percentage of the female champions in League are very breasty, but Riot Games have also explored a range of different sizes and body shapes and colours, resulting in a wide range of characters and personalities. To back this point up, Riot have recently released a new champion called Jinx who is very slim and flat chested. A lot of skin is on show, but she hasn't been sexualised, instead she is a fun, crazy and outgoing character. 

Jinx the Loose Cannon - Released Oct. 2013

Annie, Karma and Kayle are further examples that show diversity across the female characters in League, all of which I think are great designs. I can't quite put my finger on what I particularly like about the characters, but as a whole I like that no two champions are the same, and each have their own background story and "lore". I also like the attention the detail that there is in the splash art, and how the environment is also taken into consideration. 

Annie (Top Left), Karma (Top Right) and Kayle (Bottom)

How Successfully has Animation Been Used to Represent Gender and/or Otherness?

This essay is going to address how gender has been represented in western animations. The World Health Organization defines ‘gender’ as being the “socially constructed roles, behaviours and attributes that society considers to be appropriate for both men and women”, where as ‘sex’ refers to the “biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women” (who.int, 2015). This means that aspects of ‘sex’ will not differ much between different societies (for example, women have developed breasts that are usually capable of lactating while men have not), yet there is room for differentiation between different societies in terms of ‘gender’. This essay will bear this definition in mind when exploring how gender has been represented in animations. It is going to primarily focus on females and their roles, and how they may have potentially been sexualised, starting with Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Snow White

Disney practically set the standards for animation and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was their first feature length film. It was recognised that Disney’s audience was primarily female so this had a massive influence on the characters he designed at the time. “I feel this sequence would be for the women. After all 80 per cent of our audience are women. If we get something they loved it would help because there is a lot of slapstick stuff that women don’t like so well. If our characters are cute they’ll like them. We don’t cater to the child but to the child in the adult – what we all imagined as kids is what we’d like to see pictured” (Davis, 2007, Page 110). Snow White was designed with his audience in mind, and he took from what the average American woman was like at the time. During the 1930/40s, women were typically housewives and it was considered that their role was to stay at home and take care of the house and children, which can explain Snow White's character. She is depicted as an innocent, sweet-natured and gentle princess, and when she finds the dwarfs in the forest, she acts motherly towards them and is happy to keep their house clean.

At the time of the film's release, there were very mixed views of Snow White. John C. Flinn wrote, "Snow White is the embodiment of girlish sweetness and kindness"(Variety.com, 1937) and praised the film for being one of the finest examples of Technicolor, but other critics didn't share the same opinion as Flinn, and saw her as a dull and boring character. Roger Ebert stated that if the film had been primarily about Snow White "it might have been forgotten soon after its premiere" (Rogerebert.com, 2001). Where as the film is still considered to be a classic today as it is the first full-length animated feature in colour, there are still mixed views about the protagonist. Many have considered the film to be sexist, as Snow White does not show much ambition or motivation, with her only goal seeming to be to find a handsome prince which gives the impression that "beauty takes precedence over personal ambition and all of life's problems can be solved by finding the right man" (Flickeringmyth.com, 2014). This viewpoint is strengthened by the fact that wild animals become tame in the presence of her beauty, and that the prince falls for her based on her looks, showing that she is admired primarily for her appearance rather than anything else. It is also considered sexist as it implies that it's in a woman's nature to clean, as Snow White cleans the cottage with the animals when she first finds it in it's horrific state.  She is allowed to stay with the dwarfs because of this, as well as the fact that she cooks. At the time of the release this may have been an accurate representation of women, as their roles were much more submissive, but the animation is not very representative of women today.

Cinderella

A similar thing goes for Cinderella (released in 1950).  When Cinderella's father dies at the beginning of the film, she is forced to slave away for her stepmother and her two daughters. She is very passive about being treating poorly by her family, and she does not attempt to try and make her life better. Instead she waits for someone to save her. Her fairy godmother visits her as she is about to give up hope, and she is granted to go to the ball, where she falls in love with the Prince, who had rejected every girl he saw before Cinderella. Again, this shows that appearance is favoured over personality and the fact that she is a hard worker; he had not even met her before that night. The two end up celebrating their wedding at the end of the story, and she returns to her usual princess-self, which again suggests that women's problems can be solved by finding the right man.

It has been said, "all Disney's female characters are weak, passive figures who sit around waiting to be 'saved by the guy'" (Davis, 2007, Page 9). Snow White and Cinderella as mentioned above, are great examples that can back up this statement, but there are a good number of female protagonists that go against the "Disney norm". Merida from Brave (produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in 2012) is far from a weak character, but instead she is strong and determined.  The film differs from most Disney films, as it isn’t a story about a girl who seeks marriage or romance, instead Merida refuses to become betrothed. She sabotages the Highland Games that were set up by her parents for Merida’s hand in marriage, and during the games she even proves herself to be more skilled than the male contestants in an archery tournament, a supposed “male sport”.  This ultimately leads to an argument with her mother - Queen Elinor - and ends up accidently turns her into a bear with a spell she received from a witch when she had stormed out and she is forced to undo the spell herself before it becomes permanent. So rather than the film having an underlying romance plot, it actually focuses on the relationship between mother and daughter, which many have seen to be a breath of fresh air compared to the usual story about a damsel in distress and her male love interest. Also, Merida never once relies on someone else (with the exception of her mother in bear form, fighting in the odd scene) to help her with her problems; instead she is independent and uses her own initiative to tackle the situation by herself. Furthermore she shows that she has the skills to survive on her own in the wild, as she is able to hunt, cook and prepare food for herself and her mother, which was typically the male’s role around the 1930s and the era in which the film was set.

Merida - Brave 

The film was received in a much more positive light than both Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, and many critics praise Merida for being “a fairy-tale feminist” and not needing to be rescued by a male or prince, yet she is a “tougher, more self-reliant heroine for an era in which princes aren’t so charming” [6]. Merida has also been admired for her body image, in particular by Ophelia’s Place, a charity that helps young girls with eating disorders. They praise the character for having “a more realistic female body shape, as opposed to a Barbie-like figure, so coveted by today’s media” (Opheliasplace.net, 2012) unlike Snow White and Cinderella, who both have a skinny waist and a general slim physique. Frozen - despite it being a massive commercial success - has also been criticised for this very reason. Elsa and Anna have been criticised for being too skinny and not accurately representing a realistic body shape. Mayiam Bialik stated that the characters had "tiny waists, ample busts, and huge heads" and that her sons thought they "looked like BRATZ dolls" (Kveller.com, 2014).  Where as this is not a healthy body image for the girls to have, Disney did a good job of getting across the message that "not everyone is perfect", by showing Anna with a "bed-head" when she woke up in the morning. Many viewers thought it made a nice change to see this side of the character where they aren't "made-up" with make-up and their hair is a mess.

Frozen is also a good example of where the female protagonist in the film is not a weak character who's sole purpose in life is to find the right guy. Although the film does have an underlying plot of Anna finding love, the story is based on the relationship between the two sisters, and trying to save the country from being banished into an eternal winter. Although Anna does have help from Kristoff along the way, she manages to save her sister (and ultimately herself) by sacrificing herself. Not only does this strengthen the bond between the two characters, it shows that she was brave enough to save her sister and didn't need a man to step in and do it for her.

Captain Amelia from Disney's Treasure Planet is another great example of this. Although she is not the main character in the film, she does demonstrate that "she will take no interference from anyone" (Davis, 2007, Page 211). When James Hawkins (Jim) and Dr. Doppler first step on board the ship, they mistake Mr. Arrow to be the captain. He sets them straight by pointing out that he isn't the captain, but Amelia is in fact the one in charge. Not only does she have the role of what usually is a male's job, but she plays it well and demonstrates her courage, intelligence and capability by assuring the safety of herself and both Dr. Doppler and Jim when they realise that the crew that was hired are in fact pirates after the treasure in Treasure Planet. Although, she does surprisingly fall in love with Dr. Doppler so there is a underlying romance plot in the story. With that being said, this is not focused upon greatly in the film and Amelia does not let the romance change who she is. In the final scene you can see the two together with their children, but she is still dressed in her uniform, implying that she is still in charge and still capable of taking care of herself.

Captain Amelia with Dr. Doppler and Ben - Treasure Planet

Not only has the personality of female characters been criticised in animations, but their appearance as well, in particular the difference between the "good" characters and villains. It is expected that these characters are going to have an evil nature, but Disney usually portray the villains as being unattractive or old, particularly in the "classic years" from 1937-67. In Cinderella, the step-sisters are depicted as being horrendously ugly and they come across as being the bad characters in the film because they abuse and bully Cinderella. Another good example of where the evil character has been depicted as being ugly is Yzma from Emperor's New Groove. In fact she was so ugly that she was often described as being "scary beyond all reason".

Yzma - Emperor's New Groove

Another example of where this is the case is in The Little Mermaid. Ursula is a large "sea-witch" who isn't exactly attractive, and she tries to harm Ariel to try and regain power. When her plans fail she turns herself into a beautiful young woman and goes by the name of Vanessa, in an attempt to marry Eric and steal Ariel's soul. When she is this beautiful girl, she goes unsuspected until it is almost too late simply because of her looks and kinder personality. A similar situation occurs in Snow White. The Queen asked her magic mirror who was the fairest of all and when the mirror replied with "Snow White" one day rather than herself she set out to kill her in an act of rage and jealousy. But she doe s not try to do this herself.  Firstly she hired a Huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and kill her, but when he fails to do so she sets out to do it herself, but rather than going in her own form, she transforms into an "old hag" and tries to kill her with a poisonous apple. So not only does it encourage the audience to associate evil with being old and unattractive (this point is strengthened by the fact that no one suspected Ursula to be evil when she was slim and pretty), but it gives the impression that beauty is the most important trait to have, as the Queen is willing to go to extreme lengths to be the "fairest in the land".

 It has been argued that Disney have created a good range of female characters. Granted in the earlier years their characters such as Snow White and Cinderella could be considered as being sexist for being your typical "damsel in distress", but the time at which they were released has to be taken into consideration, as this may have been an accurate representation at the time. The message behind these early animations may not have been a positive one, but as gender roles have changed, so have the way that women have been represented in animations, especially from The Little Mermaid and onwards. Although Ariel did seek true love, she was a much more courageous and outgoing character than the earlier Disney Princesses, and she showed ambition of wanting to explore the human world. From The Little Mermaid came Pocahontas and Mulan, Mulan arguably being one of Disney's most independent characters. She took her father's place in the army, and fought for her county on his behalf. She did however have to dress up as a man in order to be able to fight, but obviously this is because women were not allowed to serve in the army during that time, but she did demonstrate her determination and didn't wait around to be saved. Instead she became the rescuer of china.

It has also been found that as feminism has rose, romance has become less of a main storyline and more of a side plot. The main message of "all women's problems can be solved by finding the right man" is pushed aside as the stories begin to focus on more important messages, such as seeking knowledge and being independent (demonstrated in The Little Mermaid), and the relationships between family members, as shown in both Brave and Frozen.

Arguably, the only area that Disney needs to consider is the appearance of their characters. Most of the protagonists are slim and beautiful. Merida was a great character because she was a more healthy weight who had a more realistic body shape, but we are still yet to see a female character that is over-weight. There have been many characters that have been on the large side, but they haven't been the main character of the film. It would be nice to see a "plain" character, whose beauty comes from a wonderful personality. This would ultimately portray that there is more to life than being beautiful, which animations in the past have seemed to suggest. Similarly, it would be nice if Disney strayed away from the idea that villains are unattractive people. They have done a good job recently with Frozen, showing that in the end Hans was the bad guy who was only using Anna to get into power, but there haven't really been any female villains that have not been old or ugly.

Hans - Frozen

To conclude, we really do need to consider the time at which the films have been released before we accuse them of being sexist, as they easily could have been accurate at the time of their release, but there also needs to be a wider range of characters so that the female population can be accurately represented. Clearly the way that females have been represented in Disney's animations has changed alongside society's changing norms and gender roles, but their films need to continue to strive to represent these changes and not just focus the story on the typical fairy tale like they have been known to in the past.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Bibliography

Davis, A. (2007) Good Girls and Wicked Witches, Eastleigh, John Libbey and Co.

Cheu, J. (2012) Diversity in Disney Films; Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability, Jefferson, McFarland & Co.

Bell, E; Sells, L; Haas, L (1995) From Mouse to Mermaid, Bloomington, Indiana University Press

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