Does gender representation in the industry influence animation?
Abstract:
Over the years gender representation in animated films has significantly increased. Not only female characters started to appear in the lead roles but their characteristics have also evolved from the basic social stereotypes. The change towards equality has been also seen in the industry itself. This paper will study if there is a direct relationship between gender representation in the industry and on screen.
Literature review:
The following literature review is going to be divided into three parts. The first part will cover the topic of the underrepresentation of females in the industry and its improvement over time, the second part covers the increase of female representation in animated films and the last part will discover a connection between gender representation in the industry and on screen.
Jobs in the animation industry have been gender-segregated from the start. The creative departments in most studios were handled by men, while women were limited to the drawing and painting department, where the work was mostly uncreative (Furniss, 2000). Over time women started to take more job positions, however inequality still exists. From 2014-2018, the gender ratio of males to females across head positions was 8.5 to 1 (Smith, Choueiti, Pieper, Clark, 2019). A bigger gender gap is in such roles as directors, writers, and producers (Smith, Choueiti, Choi, Pieper, 2019). Even though gender inequality in the industry is still on a high level, the number of women working on films and taking top positions have significantly increased.
From the early animation films, women were represented in a very stereotypical way with exaggerated features and primary as a side character. Although, in the modern time only 20 (17%) of the 120 top animated features from 2007-2018 had a female lead or co lead (Smith, Choueiti, Choi, Pieper, 2019), the female representation in animated films as well as the number of female leads have increased.
The last part of the paper will combine two previous paragraphs to understand if there is a connection between increase of women taking positions in the industry and female representation on screen. The presence or absence of the connection will be reinforced by two statistics: one of them will show top animation films with female leads and/or better female representation and the percentage of women working on these films, and the other will illustrate top animation films with male leads and the percentage of women working on them.
The main purpose of the paper is to find out if gender representation in the industry influences gender representation in the animation films. If so, this paper will prove that gender equality and more diverse representation will benefit the industry and is a right way to move forward.
Bibliography:
Smith, S.L., Choueiti, M., Choi, A., & Pieper, K. (2019). ‘Inclusion in the Director’s Chair: Gender, Race/Ethnicity, & Age of Directors Across the Top Films From 2007-2018,’ USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, Los Angeles, CA. Retrieved from: http://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/inclusion-in-the-directors-chair-2019.pdf
Smith, S.L., Choueiti, M., Pieper, K. & Clark, H. (2019). Increasing Inclusion in Animation. Investigating Opportunities, Challenges, and the Classroom to the C-Suite Pipeline,’ USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, Los Angeles, CA. Retrieved from: https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii-inclusion-animation-201906.pdf
Furniss, M. (2000). ‘“Color and Line” in Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics,’ London: John Libbey. Rev. edition: 71-74.