Posts tagged REPRESENTATION
The ‘Unmasking Scene’ in the Student Films of Shofela Coker
The ‘Unmasking Scene’ in the Student Films of Shofela Coker

Nigerian-born artist and illustrator Shofela Coker’s student films Oni Ise Owo (2007) and Iwa (2009) narrate tales of redemption at the intersection of divine will and the exercise of human agency. Iwa is a remake of the earlier animation completed as a Motion Graphics final project when Coker was an art student at the Memphis College of Art. This post reads a critical scene in both films to explore artistic creative agency at the intersection of traditional African art production and the digital provenance of animation.

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EDITORIALMichael OshindoroSUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, REPRESENTATION, BODY, TECHNOLOGYComment
ZOMA Studios' Mmanwu
ZOMA Studios' Mmanwu

Since its inception, the animation industry has been a storytelling engine: telling all types of stories from all types of people. However, according to the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the animation industry still has a representation problem. Multidisciplinary artist, Uzo Ngwu, is trying to combat the lack of African representation in animation with her newly founded studio ZOMA Studios and their debut project Mmanwu.

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EDITORIALUzo NgwuREPRESENTATION, IDENTITY, MAGICAL REALISM, NATIONAL CINEMAComment
Analysis of (OO) (Seoro Oh, 2017)
Analysis of (OO) (Seoro Oh, 2017)

(OO) is an animated short film directed by Seoro Oh in 2017 that illustrates the unpleasant experiences that someone encounters when they catch a cold. The unnamed protagonist’s journey begins with a sneeze but escalates into a cold. He is shown struggling with breathing through his nostrils and, as a result, finds himself constantly blowing his nose into a tissue. Everyone, at some point in their lives, experiences the feeling of not being able to properly breathe through their nostrils, whether it is because of a cold, being sick in general, or allergies.

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EDITORIALJessica ShenMETAPHOR, REPRESENTATION, IDENTITY, STYLEComment
Reclaiming personal memory through Hollywood fantasy in Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
Reclaiming personal memory through Hollywood fantasy in Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

In the first act of Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto (2005), a tale of a young transgender woman growing up in small town Ireland during the height of the troubles in the 1970s, there is an extended fantasy sequence in which Kitten (Cillian Murphy) imagines her own conception by her parents. It is one of many fantasy sequences that are scattered throughout the film, and one that relies heavily on manifesting a fictional memory which most likely did not happen.

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EDITORIALLuke BrookmanGENDER, REPRESENTATION, TRANSGENDER, GENREComment
Silicon Docks (Graham Jones, 2022)
Silicon Docks (Graham Jones, 2022)

Like so many people, I was extremely taken aback by the recent pandemic. Not just surprised by the spread of the virus itself, but also how poorly the world had prepared. However, my husband Graham was less surprised, almost languid - and seemed to have a special plan for how to deal with being stuck indoors. “I want to make a film called Silicon Docks,” he announced. “And I want you to animate it for me!”

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CREATIVE REFLECTIONKasia WiśniewskaPANDEMIC, IRELAND, PERFORMANCE, MASCULINITY, REPRESENTATIONComment
Review: Nea Ehrlich, Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century (2021)
Review: Nea Ehrlich, Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century (2021)

In Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century, Nea Ehrlich discusses a growing body of works broadly called animated documentaries. For the purposes of this open-access monograph, Ehrlich employs Sheila Sofian’s definition of the form as “any animated film that deals with non-fiction material” (36), expands it beyond the cinematic space and considers the use of animation outside of the theatrical setting.

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BOOK REVIEWAnastasiia GushchinaDOCUMENTARY, TRUTH, REPRESENTATION, TECHNOLOGY, CULTUREComment
Review: The Factual Animation Film Festival (FAFF) 2022
Review: The Factual Animation Film Festival (FAFF) 2022

The Fall of 2022 marked the 9th year of running of The Factual Animation Film Festival (FAFF). Following the success of 2021, this time the festival maintained its hybrid format offering both in-person and online events. Those who found themselves in Berlin on September 24th, could attend a screening at local Z-inema moderated by Marina Belikova, one the festival’s producers.

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EVENT REVIEWAnastasiia GushchinaREPRESENTATION, GENDER, DOCUMENTARY, FANTASY, IDENTITYComment
Redefining Gender Representation in Dua Lipa’s “Hallucinate” (2020) Music Video
Redefining Gender Representation in Dua Lipa’s “Hallucinate” (2020) Music Video

Dua Lipa’s animated music video “Hallucinate” was released during the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The song is taken from Lipa’s second album, Future Nostalgia, and was influenced by the studio 54 aesthetic (Daly, 2020). Dua Lipa's animated character in the music video has been compared with the features of Betty Boop, a figure who epitomized the hedonistic nature in America in the 1920s.

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISDemikel EvansMUSIC VIDEO, REPRESENTATION, GENDER, SEXUALITY, QUEER IDENTITYComment
Feels Like Summer: A Forecast of Animation’s Political and Documentary Function in Music Videos
Feels Like Summer: A Forecast of Animation’s Political and Documentary Function in Music Videos

Childish Gambino’s animated music video “Feels Like Summer” (Childish Gambino, 2018) places many animated representations of hip-hop artists, actors and well-known celebrities in a fictional Atlanta neighbourhood. We see celebrities engaging in various fun summer activities in this fantasy community, including Migos playing basketball, Will Smith washing his car, and J Cole dowsing the hip-hop duo of Slim Jxmmi and Swae Lee with a water hose for annoying him with water guns.

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISHrithvikaRACE, REPRESENTATION, MUSIC, AMERICA, CELEBRITYComment
Looking at Pixar’s Soul
Looking at Pixar’s Soul

Pixar’s much-delayed computer-animated fantasy film, Soul (Pete Docter, 2020), was originally scheduled for theatrical release in the U.S. on June 19, 2020, yet was finally released on the Disney+ platform almost a year ago in December 2020. The story follows the life of a middle school music teacher named Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) who falls down a manhole on the streets of New York City into another world, a world in which his soul is separated from his body.

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EDITORIALFrancesca Lowney and Charlotte StonesPIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, COMPUTER ANIMATION, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, DIGITAL, REPRESENTATIONComment
“Let her come to me”: Opening the Ocean in Disney’s Moana
“Let her come to me”: Opening the Ocean in Disney’s Moana

Since its DVD release, Moana (Ron Clements & John Musker 2016) has carved a home in my heart. When I’m not re-watching it captivated and in love with its artistry, I’ll watch it thinking about the voyage Disney takes into Polynesian histories and the representation of culture which, although efforts were made through the formation of the Oceanic Story Trust to depict authentic Polynesian cultures, often falls short – as one indigenous rights advocate puts: “having brown advisers doesn’t make it a brown story” (Ngata, 2016).

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SEQUENCE ANALYSISCharlotte DurhamWATER, REPRESENTATION, GENDER, FEMINISM, DISNEY, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILMComment
Orientalism and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
Orientalism and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Eighty-four years after its first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand, 1937) and fifty-eight movies later, Disney finally has its first Southeast Asian princess with Raya and the Last Dragon (Paul Briggs, Don Hall & Carlos López Estrada, 2021). The titular character, Raya, joins the ranks of their other princess-of-colour from the Disney canon including Tiana from The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2009), Jasmine from Aladdin (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1992), and the titular characters from Pocahontas (Mike Gabriel & Eric Goldberg, 1995), Mulan (Tony Bancroft & Barry Cook, 1998) and Moana (Ron Clements, Don Hall & John Musker, 2016).

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EDITORIALPrakash Krishnan and Patricia Petit LiangDISNEY, ASIAN ANIMATION, REPRESENTATION, IDENTITY, FANTASY, GENDER, RACEComment
Fantasies of Asians in Animation
Fantasies of Asians in Animation

What a delight to participate in the Society of Animation Studies annual conference: “Animate Energies,” hosted this past June out of the University of Tulane by Eric Herhuth. It was sad to not see my SAS friends in person, but on the other hand its remote (and free!) nature likely facilitated participation by those unable to afford the expense or time to travel to an international event.

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EDITORIALAlison Reiko LoaderASIAN ANIMATION, FANTASY, HISTORY, REPRESENTATION, IDENTITY Comments
Fantasy, Femininity and Heroism: A look into Miyazaki’s female characters
Fantasy, Femininity and Heroism: A look into Miyazaki’s female characters

The representation of femininity within animation can sometimes indulge in and reflect problematic modes of gender representation. There is, of course, a long history of demonising forms of femininity, with stereotypical and socially constructed feminine traits including empathy, kindness, warmth and nurturance (see Kite 2001, 563). Not only are these traits often enforced onto women (Wing Sue 2010, 172), but are also conventionally considered signs of weakness (Windsor 2015, 893-897).

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EDITORIALSabrina BessalemSTUDIO GHIBLI, GENDER, REPRESENTATION, JAPANComment