Visual Analysis

Though the Bottle and The Dog Who Was a Cat may seem very different they both have much more subtle messages in them about identity, and the idea of  what a person is.

Bottle shows a person changing over time, their identity becoming something else when they meet someone new. As they share things with each other, they begin to change and they are no longer the person they started out as, but rather an amalgamation of their own identity and this new person that they have met. If they had not have met, then each person may have stayed the same, or been influenced by something else. It shows how the people around us help to make up our identities, rather than us just being one fixed, never changing person. They give and take different parts of who they are until they are a very different person than they started as, and as they slowly come together they begin to break apart. this could be a metaphor for all kinds of things, not least marriage and becoming a single unit, or trying to become or be a part of someone else so much that your own identity is lost. Another interpretation is that, in a way, they could even be telling each other how they should be, with the things they are saying - it may not be just sending a gift/sending a part of themselves. In real life, it could be subtle or not, but they way people act, what they do and even gifts they give to each other could all be a way of showing how they want a person to be, especially when family or partners are involved.

I think that using stop motion was a very effective technique for this because things are changed in a much more organic way, using actual parts of the world to make up these characters, which is in effect what happens in reality and stops them from becoming perfect solid shapes which doesn't really show them as natural living beings as well. Stop motion also shows the passing of time much more effectively than other types of animation and the fact that stop motion is done with photography works as a kind of documentation of their life, as that is what people do with photographs now.

The Dog Who Was a Cat Inside shows a different story of someone struggling with their identity as opposed to finding/creating it with someone else. The dog character is shown to have a cat on the inside, which can be seen as a metaphor for not feeling the same inside a you act/look, which could also be showing gender dysphoria/sexuality. The dog chases away another cat/kindred spirit after a second, as it acts as a dog is supposed to, and not necessarily how it wants to act. Other dogs act more hostile towards the cat inside the dog, symbolising the way that many people often treat people differently depending on their true self and what they do - for example, if we look at this as a dog being male and a cat as female, this shows another male attacking the dog for being female on the inside/not acting as a typical male, which is a big problem in our society today. The dog then gets into a fight with their cat, showing the inner turmoil or someone who's identity does not match up to other peoples' ideas of how they should be, and how they themselves feel they should or should not be. 

After getting into trouble, and being in a different environment than usual with no expectations, the cat and dog are able to work together and make themselves much better off for it. They are happier, and as they emerge, they find someone who is the opposite of them - a dog in a cat's body. This perhaps shows then that letting go of your surroundings and everything that dictates how you should be allows you to see other people and other people to see you how you truly are, and that people would be happier outside of the rules of society and how they expect you to be. Gender is not the only possible meaning of this animation, however; mental illness is another thing that works really well with this animation, especially with the treatment people affected with Autism get, or when people don't ct as other want them to when they have depression or even psychosis. On a less drastic level it can show the difference between when is acceptable/normal to like and what isn't, like the differences between subcultures and how they may act towards different activities and the like. I feel like this animation is left open enough that the viewer can interpret it the way that they want to, and whichever way it means more to them which I things is a great idea and works very well. 

The animation itself is done in a way that has particular shapes for everything which could show a mentality of 'this is how certain things should be/act/look' within the setting that the dog/cat is in. For the most part, other than the actual cat/dog, the animation is not actually that bright, giving it a glum, miserable feeling which does well to reflect the sort of mood and mentality that the sort of people with dysphoria or any of the above illnesses may have.

Both animations show their ideas about identity very well, even if the message when it comes down to it could be considered as quite different; while Bottle shows how you may change and be changed by the people around you, TDWWAC shows how you might be a certain way and other people want to change that, but that there are other people with similar identity issues and that you are not along in that. The former could be more of a warning of what happens when you let go of your individuality, and how it is not always a fixed thing, whereas the former could be seen as more of a reassuring message that you are not alone, and it is fine if your identity does not conform to what is expected of you. I feel that this lighter message makes TDWWAC a lot easier and inspiring to watch, even if the message in Bottle can be just as important, but I think that they were made with this in mind, as the message of both can be conveyed better with their differing moods and atmospheres.

Essay; Prelim Research

A trope is simply a figure of speech. When using this literary device, you intend for the word or words to have a meaning that is different than the literal meaning. In other words, there is a shift from the literal meaning of a word or words to a non-literal meaning. [http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-trope.html]


A literary trope is the use of figurative language – via word, phrase, or even an image – for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. The word trope has also come to be used for describing commonly recurring literary and rhetorical devices, motifs or clichés in creative works [wiki]

Linked to: Stereotypes

tv tropes: The site includes entries on various series and tropes. An article on a work includes a brief summary of the work in question along with a list of associated tropes. In addition to the tropes, most articles about a work also have a "Your Mileage May Vary"(YMMV) page with items that are deemed to be subjective. These items are not usually storytelling tropes, but audience reactions which have been defined and titled.

Trope description pages are generally created through a standardized launching system, known as "You know that thing where... " (YKTTW), in which site members, who are referred to as "tropers", can draft a trope description and have the option of providing examples or suggesting refinements to other drafts before launch. While going through YKTTW is not necessary to launch a trope, it is very strongly recommended in order to strengthen the trope as much as possible.[tv tropes]

The Tropes vs Women in Video Games[Femfreq] - controversy relevant? Possibly.

Archetypal literary criticism is a type of critical theory that interprets a text by focusing on recurring myths and archetypes (from the Greek archē, "beginning," and typos, "imprint") in the narrative, symbols, images, and character types in literary work. As a form of literary criticism, it dates back to 1934 when Maud Bodkin published Archetypal Patterns in Poetry. [wiki]

It has been argued that Frye’s version of archetypal criticism strictly categorizes works based on their genres, which determines how an archetype is to be interpreted in a text


In a monomyth, the hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events. The hero who accepts the call to enter this strange world must face tasks and trials, either alone or with assistance. In the most intense versions of the narrative, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help. If the hero survives, he may achieve a great gift or "boon." The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon. If the hero does decide to return, he or she often faces challenges on the return journey. If the hero returns successfully, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world. The stories of Osiris, Prometheus, Moses, Gautama Buddha, and Jesus, for example, follow this structure closely

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a non-fiction book, and seminal work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell. In this publication, Campbell discusses his theory of the journey of thearchetypal hero found in world mythologies.


Since publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell's theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. The best known is perhaps George Lucas, who has acknowledged a debt to Campbell regarding the stories of the Star Wars films






One of the questions that has been raised about the way that Campbell laid out the monomyth of the hero's journey in Hero with a Thousand Faces was that it focused on the masculine journey. Although this was not altogether true—the princess of the Grimms' "The Frog Prince" tale and the saga of the hero-goddess Inanna's descent into the underworld feature prominently in Campbell's schema—it was, nonetheless, a question that has been raised about the book since its publication.

Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood film producer and writer, wrote a memo for Disney Studios on the use of The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a guide for scriptwriters; this memo influenced the creation of such films as Aladdin, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast. Vogler later expanded the memo and published it as the book The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers, which became the inspiration for a number of successful Hollywood films and is believed to have been used in the development of the Matrix series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots

TV tropes:Tropes are just tools. Writers understand tropes and use them to control audience expectations either by using them straight or by subverting them, to convey things to the audience quickly without saying them.Human beings are natural pattern seekers and story tellers. We use stories to convey truths, examine ideas, speculate on the future and discuss consequences. To do this, we must have a basis for our discussion, a new language to show us what we are looking at today. So our storytellers use tropes to let us know what things about reality we should put aside and what parts of fiction we should take up.
"One does not necessarily have to cluck in disapproval to admit that entertainment is all the things its detractors say it is: fun, effortless, sensational, mindless, formulaic, predictable and subversive. In fact, one might argue that those are the very reasons so many people love it."—Neal Gabler, Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality

If your favorite shows have long lists of tropes associated with them, well, so does everybody's. A show featuring an Action Girl or showing a character kicking the dog is not a bad thing; the former is merely a reasonable type of character (badass character who is female) and the latter is a character action that happens plenty in Real Life.

Consider the following points before you label simply including a common story element or character type as a sign of creative failure:

"But it's what this author is doing this time that matters, as much as, if not more than, what he or she did last time, and that, certainly, matters far more than its kinships, its family likenesses with its mode, its genres, its formal kind."

—Valentine Cunningham, Oxford


There is nothing new under the sun. Including that very statement. And the book from which it comes. Completely ignoring the possibility that one's favorite show just might not be hewn from the very essence of the universe by Thor himself and placed in the periodic table under Or for "Originalium" doesn't change the fact that it wasn't. And acknowledging that it isn't should not lessen its appeal, either.


Every story is influenced by what came before it — and storytellers (e.g., writers, directors, actors) are bound to show that influence, intentionally or not, in the process of telling. Just because something's been used before doesn't mean it's a cliché, and stories often gain something by having ties to other works. That said, there certainly is such thing as too derivative, but there's a difference between playing a trope straight and utter Cliché Storm (and even those aren't necessarily bad).


It's impossible to write something completely and utterly without tropes, anyway, so stop trying.


All tropes can be written badly. This includes tropes that everyone thinks are good, like Magnificent Bastard. A badly written Magnificent Bastard may be done in such a way that everyone else in the story are idiots and generally gives less of an impression of intelligence and more of an impression of cheating or changing the internal rules of the story. Refuge in Audacity has different breaking points for different people.


All tropes can be overused. Too many Xanatos Gambits tend to make the show confusing, no matter how well written they are. Too many Moments Of Awesome take up room where plot could go, or make the audience pay less attention to the relatively boring plot bits, making the story more shallow. The Moment Of Awesome is supposed to be a singular moment for a character and the Rule of Cool can make up for weak points in a story, but rarely does it work as the story.


Just because a trope is realistic doesn't mean it's good. There is a reason why we have an entire category devoted to Acceptable Breaks from Reality. For example, The Hero gets shot in the shoulder and dies. The Determinatordoesn't come into play, no My Name Is Inigo Montoya, nothing. Realistic, maybe, but that is not what we want a hero to do. That's right, one of the most fundamental character archetypes is usually unrealistic. The important thing when writing a story is that it's believable, not that it's real. Reality Is Unrealistic, after all; often people are so used to tropes that it's reality they find jarring.


A good show doesn't need "good" tropes. People often search for an ideal recipe for a hit show, as if entertainment was some sort of alchemical process, and are surprised when their stitched-together creation lurches three steps before disappearing into critical oblivion. A well written show won't be any worse if it doesn't have a Magnificent Bastard. A good show doesn't get worse if the main five characters don't form a Five-Man Band. Heck, a good show doesn't even need basic tropes like The Hero or Big Bad.


http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/keyconceptsgcse/keycon.php?pageID=audience

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audience_theory


- main char archetypes

- main story things

how and why are they used?

Create my own - chars first and the storyboard/do scenes of them going through their her's journey or whatever else?


A cliché or cliche (UK /ˈkliːʃeɪ/ or US /klɪˈʃeɪ/) is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.

In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning, referring to an expression imposed by conventionalized linguistic usage. The term is frequently used in modern culture for an action or idea that is expected or predictable, based on a prior event. Typically pejorative, "clichés" may or may not be true.Some are stereotypes, but some are simply truisms and facts.Clichés often are employed for comic effect, typically in fiction.


Most phrases now considered clichéd originally were regarded as striking, but have lost their force through overuse. The French poet Gérard de Nerval once said "The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile."


A cliché is often a vivid depiction of an abstraction that relies upon analogy or exaggeration for effect, often drawn from everyday experience.Used sparingly, they may succeed, but the use of a cliché in writing, speech, or argument is generally considered a mark of inexperience or a lack of originality.

A stock character is a stereotypical person whom audiences readily recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. Stock characters are archetypal characters distinguished by their flatness; as a result, they tend to be easy targets for parody and to be criticized as clichés. The presence of a particular array of stock characters is a key component of many genres


Stock characters also feature heavily in the comic traditions of Kyōgen in Japan and Commedia dell'arte in Italy; in the latter they are known as tipi fissi (fixed [human] types).

The study of the Character, as it is now known, was conceived by Aristotle’s student Theophrastus. In The Characters (c. 319 BC), Theophrastus introduced the “character sketch,” which became the core of “the Character as a genre.” It included 30 character types. Each type is said to be an illustration of an individual who represents a group, characterized by his most prominent trait.


http://www.soulcraft.co/essays/the_12_common_archetypes.html


https://www.udemy.com/blog/archetypal-characters/


http://www.byrdseed.com/patterns-in-writing-iv-character-archetypes/


http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/narrative-techniques-in-writing-definition-types-examples.html


http://www.bustle.com/articles/39702-criticism-of-anita-sarkeesian-tropes-vs-women-comes-in-4-groundless-forms


http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Episodes



http://narrativefirst.com/articles/not-everything-is-a-heros-journey


http://narrativefirst.com/vault/what-character-arc-really-means


http://narrativefirst.com/articles/dramatica-story-theory-for-the-21st-century


http://nanowrimo.org/forums/character-cafe


http://nanowrimo.org/forums/plot-doctoring


http://www.musik-therapie.at/PederHill/Character.htm


http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/11/20/daily-routines-writers/


http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/12/16/writers-wakeup-times-literary-productivity-visualization/

Consumerism

The Lego movie is a recently animated childrens' film that talks about consumerism - or tries to. The film involves a villain named 'Lord Business' and gives us a main character who is painstakingly average, who doesn't haven many original thoughts and can not do much without instructions or doing what he is told to do - including things like buying extremely overpriced coffee and accepting it as normal. All in all, he is a pawn, as are most ordinary citizens shown to be, and the antagonist is evil, first and foremost, because of money and greed. This is not uncommon in films and popular media - more money is a path to more power, and more power is a very short path to tyranny.

 The film is not subtle about the villain's motivations; in fact, it wants to shove it in your face and really notice it. This is where the film contradicts itself though; for all of its messages against consumerism and capitalism, the film is advertising products for a whole hour and a half, and it's audience pays to see this. A common way of utilising consumerism is indeed by targeting the young, who influence their parents to buy what they have seen, and in turn, buy these things when they are older and parents themselves. Especially as expendable income increases with every generation, and toys and products are something that people need. Alternet says that the Lego Movie 'reinforces a lie about how in an era of casino capitalism that the corporation, democracy and self are somehow symbiotic, and can co-exist in a positive relationship with one another'. The lie is perhaps in the ending, where it is revealed that it is a child playing with the main character Emmet, and the pieces of Lego that are against Lord Business, with the villainous character being based on his father. The father eventually realises the unfair world he has created through this, ungluing character and letting his son play with the Lego with him, instead of having it as a solid, never changing collection set. This may seem like it is showing everything working together, but it can also be argued that it is this that could begin to unravel the ties of consumerism ravelled around the Lego world, and that with the control the child has now gained, all aspects of consumerism within their little ego world could be destroyed.

All in all, the film's message isn't that clear, discouraging consumerism while promoting it. This leads to questions like just how much is consumerism affecting our ways of communicating through media, when more and more things rely on it to even connect with an audience. Even other cartoons and forms of entertainment and forgoeing plot, narrative and immersive storytelling to instead make their shows more marketable and in turn, focus on the merchandise than actual viewing experience of their show (see specifically: Cartoon Network - Young Justice and Sym-Bionic Titan).

Cities and Film

A lot of art forms - animation and film especially, use cities to show the context - both time and setting of the story and to inform the viewers. The city can also be used to set the tone and atmosphere of the piece. This is very common in animation as by the time animation became big and was much more mainstream, film and photography and other art had already created these stereotypes around certain cities and places.

The film Ratatouille uses these stereotypes to set the tone of the film; Paris is known as the city of love, and is very associated with food. This lets us know that it will be a film involving food and romance, which is then reinforced by the lighting and colours of the film. There are also very solid split/separation/line between good and bad, poor and rich, with the beautiful, very idealised and shown in everything piece of media about Paris, and very not beautiful parts of the city - the much more realistic side. These locations are used especially, with the city centre/restaurants and sewers to show the split between the people with money and opportunities, to the people who have nothing, and would never normally get these opportunities. It shows how the idealised city isn't actually ideal and how the city can make you feel like more than you are. Remy, a rat who is one of the main characters of the film, feels like a person, very involved now in big Parisian life and following his dream, but then realises what he actually is when back home and does not feel a part of them anymore. This shows that however much you build up a place, it is never going to be as perfect as you think.

The game Fallout New Vegas is set, quite obviously, in LasVegas.This is a city of win or lose, all or nothing. Las Vegas takes capitalism to the extreme, putting emphasis on how people are part of 'the system's machine'. It has a retro-futuristic setting, taking inspiration from the post-war culture of America, and it's 'combination of hope for the promises of technology and lurking fear of nuclear annihilation'. It is this hope, but uncertainty, that suggests you can still do what you want and try to make your own way through the world. As the player's actions do influence the world, this atmosphere works very well, even if the game will never feel a optimistic as it would if it was in a setting with a much lighter history.

LA Noir is set in 1947 Los Angeles, again with a post-war kind of setting. It uses everything we associate with the Noir genre, including giving us a cynical/negative atmosphere as opposed to the optimism of the post-war time period. Since this genre and setting is so closely associated with detective stories/novels, the game puts great emphasis and story telling as opposed to mostly concentrating on game play. The lines between film and games is probably at it's blurriest in this game, and uses everything we would assume about this game from it's genre to inform us and add something to it's narrative.

Identity

Identity is something that ties in a lot with Style and Subculture and has many different ways of manifesting itself. Identity, as it is now, in fluid and changeable and depends so much more on the individual now than on society. With the availability of media and ideas and especially the powers of the internet, people can discover so many more things, and people, and interests they may have. People are much more inclined to build their identity around the things they love and the people around them and people in the media are already so diverse, and there is much less worry about fitting in. There are still some limitations when it comes to appearance (that aren't always applicable to everyone) like many people being scared to/adverse to dress one way o that they aren't mistaken for a different gender/sexual orientation (which can sometimes be more a matter of safety than personal preference), but young people are almost expected to be individual and not conform to society's out of date standards and ideas, especially with so many of the older/parent generation being products of rebellion and subculture in their own youth.

In animation, identity from an animator/writer's point of view can be shown through an autobiographical piece of animation, or through consistent styles and views present throughout their creations (see Tim Burton), but one of the most important things about animation is the encouragement it gives to find your own identity and not just be a product on your environment and society.

In Brave, Merida is expected to marry at a very young age, without any experience in life or time to find herself. She is subjected to her parents' will whether it is good for her or not, and film shows her fighting against this to do what she wants, and to be able to shows how much more important her own expectations are.

Similarly, in Mulan, the titular character is expected to be one way - femine, a wife, a homemaker, and a daughter. She doesn't want these things, at least not at the time of the films, and she goes on to do things typically done by male protagonists and still expected to be done by males rather than females in real life. She subverts gender expectations by fighting in the war and actually having the intelligence and power to do things that help her side win. The film shows how she till has to act like and pretend to be make just to have this opportunity and to be accepted, especially in her Eastern Asian culture and though is something that is less relevant (specifically in England today), it shows just hard hard/extreme it would be for a woman to do anything other than what is expected from her.



Frozen shows the Queen Elsa break free from her royal responsibilities and have to stay locked away for the safety of others, and be able to be herself and express herself once she is free from her castle. This is also a metaphor for anxiety, depression and sexuality among other things, but shows how much happier she is when she is free to be herself and forge her own identity, and how it was only by doing that that everything around her, especially involving family were resolved.

Animations that focus on finding and accepting yourself, and subsequently being accepted by others is extremely important to do to encourage people, especially the younger generations to thing about what they want, how they want to be, and how it is okay to not be exactly how society expects them to be.

Style and Subculture

Subculture has always been a result of the younger generations aiming to rebel against society, and push away the ideal and standards pushed on them to make way for a mini-society that uses the values that the people involved in the subculture share.
It is harder to see subcultures that stand out as much as they did once in todays societies; not only is there a huge mix of past, recognisable subcultures shown in youths' styles of today, but with the freedom and ease people have with which to express themselves and try to make a difference on society, subculture just isn't as relevant anymore. People use it more as a mean of style and visual expression, with the word subculture loosely being able to refer to a following of people around a band or genre of music, having more in common than just style and the wish to rebel.

Subculture has never been something too relevant to animation, or at least the viewers of animation (the biggest example is one of 'weeaboos', fans of anime and manga that have absorbed so much of the Japanese culture show in these shows that they try to live it in real life, and almost fetishise Japanese culture as a result).

Certain genres or Auteurs may use these subcultures or almost a pseudo-subculture to appeal to a specific group of viewers, or to set them self apart from/rebel from the mainstream of animation and the views and values that mainstream animation may have. One example of this is Tim Burton's work, using very dark tones and styles (and arguably type of animation) to give his films settings almost a different culture than ours. It can be seen to take inspiration from Goth/Punk kind of cultures, especially with many of his protagonists looking so different from the usual animated protagonists and often the rest of the characters in the film. The protagonists are often outcasts, giving a feel or relateability to his target audience, and creating a space for certain viewers to enjoy themselves and feel comfortable in animation.




This is very important for any art form, but especially from mainstream, easy to find and literally all around you types of art like film or animation. People want to relate, or find others like them, and have their own space in society. When this space does not exist, then people like Tim Burton create it, and let generations of people who would have otherwise felt like outcasts of society themselves know that they are not alone, and are still important.

The Gaze and the Media

'Men act and women appear' is a popular theme throughout art and entertainment, reflecting an out-dated traditional society. This is also reflected in animation by the overwhelming number of male protagonists compared to female - even male characters seem to outweigh their female counterparts, and generally serve better for story/plot reasons than females, who are there much more as a token, or 'fanservice'.

Jessica Rabbit

The animated film 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit addresses this to a degree. The character of Jessica Rabbit, one of the more main characters is designed in a very exaggerated, overly sexual way. On first glance this looks like it purely serves to entertain the male viewers, the character isn't as 2D as she appears to be, and her most well known quote is 'I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way'. This not only breaks the fourth way, but particularly points out how it is her design, and the person who designed her who made her that way. Characters who chose to dress or appear one way can be acceptable in moderation as long as it is reasonable, but Jessica Rabbit shows how the female characters serve the whims of their artists, most traditionally male in animation, and appear how males want to see them. This is also another reflection on society - she isn't bad, but society sees her as that from the way she is dressed and appears.

Even other female characters in popular animation are designed with skinny waists, large hips and often large breasts, even when uncalled for or aimed at a young audience. Male characters have a much larger range or designs though, since they are much less expected to conform to certain aspects of society, or at least are accepted more in other shapes because they are male, and therefore have more credibility and abilities than female characters.

Disney, among other companies have been known to change the stories that they are adapting to make their characters much more suitable for romance, or to be seen in a romantic/attractive way. Pocahontas, Snow White and Rapunzel among other characters were all supposed to be much younger in their respective stories, which largely did not focus on romance at all. 

Characters like Rapunzel are increasingly exaggerated to give them a much smaller waist (which carried on to the subsequent film Frozen in which the female characters all looked very similar) and sexualise them. the characters still have fairly childish faces though, which could be seen as an attempt to sexualise or fetishise children. 

Rapunzel

This was probably not intended (at least consciously) and some reasoning given from  Disney executive is that women are 'harder to animate than male ones due to their having to show a "wide range of emotions" and having to "keep them pretty" in the midst of movement". This, understandably, caused a lot of controversy. People come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and females can make all of the expressions that males can. This shows how even in art and fiction, females are held to these unrealistic standards, when males are given a much larger range of looks and expressions and actions.

Melody, Gravity Falls

There are examples, albeit few of animation treating female characters better and giving them a wider range. In Avatar: the Legend of Korra, the title character Korra is fairly muscular without being portrayed as 'butch' or 'boyish', and is given a very wide range of emotions that don't have to worry about keeping her pretty. Other female characters in the series are designed with different shapes and faces throughout the series are are treated the same as male characters. The same can be said for Gravity Falls, Adventure Time and Steven Universe that portray all kinds of faces and body shapes for their female characters. It could be that animators have more patience/experience when it comes to 2D animation, and an ongoing series is easier to cancel or change than a feature length film, but if so many animations can do it so well, then surely it can't be that hard for 3D to follow in those footsteps and do it too. 3D is still made up of a lot more males though while more females are getting opportunities to work on these 2D animations, showing how it is only the male gaze limiting these characters.

CoP Intro

Chronologies 9: Postmodernity

Chronologies 7: Communication & Mass Media

Chronologies 8: Modernism

CoP Animation

My animation shows the progression of iconic Jessica Rabbit from her overly-sexualised body shape to a more human, realistic shape. I think that having the example images at either side of the walk cycle help to show this idea, but as the animation is not perfectly smooth, I think that the walk cycle itself doesn't show it too well. Some colour might also have helped, both on the animation and on the end/start slides. I am still happy with this though, and it was fun to see how different it is animating the extremely stylised version to the realistic version.

Animation Ideas

- Focus on gender

- Genderbending?
- Infographic?
- Concept art?
- Character animation - movements = less stereotyped?
- Females in the usual roles of males?

Oversexualised villains etc to less?
- take the most sexist stuff
- chars as accurate ages
Snow White = 8 yr,
Rapunzel = 12
Pocahontas - 10 -12 http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/johnsmith.htm

Rapunzel and Pocahontas, more accurate age

Genderswap characters to show emphasis on ratio of male action main characters to female; what could I do with this?

characters designs arguably borderline sexist; change to more acceptable/realistic standards? Batgirl is the first character I think of for this, but Jessica Rabbit is probably the most well known for these kinds of proportions. Would show the difference between men's ideal and an actual woman.

Chronologies 6: Photography