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. 

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

Variety.com 1937, available at http://variety.com/1937/film/reviews/snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-1200411503/ (accessed January 15^th 2015)

Rogerebert.com 2001, available at http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-1937 (accessed January 15^th 2015)

Flickeringmyth.com 2014, available at http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2014/02/the-evolving-princess-progressive.html (accessed January 20th 2015)

Variety.com 2012, available at http://variety.com/2012/film/reviews/brave-1117947728/ (accessed January 21st 2015)

Opheliasplace.net 2012, available at http://www.opheliasplace.net/open-letter-to-pixar-and-the-writers-of-brave/ (accessed January 25^th 2015)

Kveller.com 2014, available at http://www.kveller.com/mayim-bialik-why-my-sons-and-i-hate-the-movie-frozen/#more-5865 (accessed January 25th 2015)
Who.int 2015, available at http://www.who.int/gender/whatisgender/en/ (accessed March 3^rd 2015)

Seminar 5: Gender in Animation

Today's seminar was all about gender in animation. Now, when it comes to debates on "sexism" I'm usually on the fence. I think it's wrong that women throughout history were considered inferior to men, resulting in many not being as successful as men in their artist careers and other situations along these lines, but when it comes to how women are portrayed in animations I couldn't really care less.

Let me explain what I mean.

I think people at the moment are going overboard when it comes to criticizing how women are being portrayed. Take Barbie for example. There's an uproar about how skinny she is and how there isn't a range of sizes for the doll, depicting all body shapes. Granted, there isn't a range, but should there have to be? The way I see it is that it's just the design of one female character. This doesn't mean that this is the "perfect" body form for a woman which we have to adapt. It's just a toy. It doesn't mean this is how we as women should look. It maybe hard to believe this because of how much thin people are idolized in the media, but we don't have to look like that, but really that should be a given.
I think it's crazy that people are saying that Barbie should be a "normal" weight or even plus size. Isn't that just "Skinny-bashing"? What about the people who ARE that thin, (maybe not to that extent, because the proportions of barbie means that if she was a real human being, she would cave in due to the weight of her head and she would have other problems along these lines)? Aren't we just "bashing" skinny people for saying that Barbie should be a "normal" weight? What annoys me about this is that if a plus sided Barbie was produced people would probably still moan about it because the doll would give others the impression that it's okay to be unhealthily over-weight. We would request smaller dolls to eliminate this, but if they'd just made a "normal" doll to begin with, it's likely we would have complained about there not being dolls to accommodate those who are skinner/larger. The company can't win really.

I don't see why we can't just accept Barbie for what she is, and move on. Some people are as skinny as this, others aren't and we should just leave it at that. Maybe I stand alone with this opinion; I know I'm definitely in the minority if not.

So to conclude I think people just need to calm down and take things with a pinch of salt. Yes it's bad that women are seen as inferior to men in most departments, but I don't think we need to get critical about how women characters are depicted in animations. Obviously not all women act or look like they do, and the artists aren't generalizing this image to ALL women.