É muito importante enaltecer e dar visibilidade as mulheres no mercado audiovisual e, não é diferente na animação.
Mesmo com o fácil acesso a todo tipo de conteúdo na mídia, ainda falta informação sobre as mulheres no mercado da animação. Afinal, como têm sido suas conquistas e busca de ascensão?
The female road to reach visibility in the animation industry hasn't been easy. At the beginning of animation by the eastern culture, in the 30's, the main offices were in its highest moment. By that time, one of the production steps was limited to heavy handmade work, physical abilities and inadequate sanitary conditions (unknown by then). This was the Ink and Paint sector, the only permitted to admit women for work. Their work was to adjust the outlines and paint frame to frame the celluloid cells. Nowadays it is known that the ink used by that time was toxic to the health of those who manipulated it. As hard as it was and low reward, women who worked in that sector felt privileged of working in a predominantly male area.
On the right there is a letter delivered to a woman called "Miss Mary V. Ford" that was searching a job as an animator for the Disney feature "Snow White" (1937).
“Querida Senhorita Ford, Sua carta foi recebida em nosso Departamento de Arte-Final e Coloração para resposta.
Mulheres não fazem nenhum trabalho criativo relacionado à preparação dos desenhos, já que o trabalho é realizado inteiramente por jovens homens. Por essa razão, garotas não são consideradas para a escola de treinamento.
O único trabalho aberto às mulheres consiste em fazer o contorno com tinta dos personagens em folhas de papel e no preenchimento dos traços no verso, conforme instruções.
Para se candidatar às funções de arte-finalista e colorista é necessário comparecer ao estúdio, munida de caneta, tinta e trabalhos feitos em aquarela. Não é aconselhável vir a Hollywood com essa intenção específica em mente, já que são realmente pouquíssimas as vagas disponíveis em comparação ao número de mulheres que se candidatam.
Walt Disney Productions, Ltda.”
One of the first women to conquer this place was Lilian Friedman, who reached the role of animator when women were just allowed to work at Ink and Paint department. She was the first woman to work in a creative job and be credited for it. Her promotion was given by the director and animator James “Shamus” Culhane, probably the first person to give her encouragement to her ambitions. Lilian was one of the responsibles for inking and eventually animating the beloved characters Betty Boop and Popeye. Unfortunately, by the pressure and harassment faced at work, she left her career to never come back.
Meanwhile, companies like Walt Disney Pictures were slowly accepting women and integrating them more and more in the creation and animation departments. It was the case of Bianca Majolie and Sylvia Holland. At the beginning of World War Two, men had to leave work to serve the army and that gave women the opportunity to assume a more active and influential role by the studios. The animator Retta Scott was recognized with the release of Bambi (1942), calling attention to the one and only Walt Disney, who made her the first woman to receive screen credits in the history of the studio. Until then, any of the women mentioned above has been credited in the movies they have worked on.
Another great woman who worked at the Disney studios and was a game changer was the artist Mary Blair. She used strong colors and fine outlines to create storyboards. Her style was adopted by the company as a model for future productions and it is used until today. Mary worked as a story artist in the production of "Alice in Wonderland ''(1951), "Cinderela"(1950), Peter Pan (1953), and others.
Concept art made by Mary Blair for "Alice in Wonderland" (1951)
Awarded Women
Inspired by the one above in the text, women keep fighting for their space in the animation industry and pushing the next generations for doing more. Women contributed a lot for innovations inside the animation history. Below, we listed some examples of women in leadership roles by this industry in the last few years:
In 2021, Victoria Alonso was promoted to President of Physical, Post Production, VFX and Animation at Marvel Studios. It is a great accomplishment, due less than 50% of women in the Animation Industry are present in leadership roles. She has built a great career at Marvel until the President function. “What If…?” (2021) series at Disney+, is the first animated series at the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and has Alonso as a supervisor.
Joanna Quinn is the only female director among the 13 competitors to the Oscar Award in 2022, in the category Best Short Animated Film with “Affairs of the Art” (2021). The 60 years old British animator made the film with an exclusively female production team. Graduated in Graphic Design, Joanna says that she didn't know the animation world before her first award but, with time, she noticed the lack of female presence at leadership roles in film productions and felt she needed to move on with it and inspire women to this universe.
As executive vice president of creative for Sony Pictures Animation, Karen Toliver is the first black woman to receive the Oscar Award<span for Best Animated Short with the beautiful animation “Hair Love” (2019). The award was remarkable and made history for being a very rare story about the afro hair culture to achieve such an influential and important award. She has experience at great companies such as Walt Disney Pictures and Fox Animation.
The Chief Executive Officer and President of STUDIO4°C, Eiko Tanaka, is the first woman to found an animation studio in Japan. She has a great experience at Ghibli studios, as a Production Supervisor including productions like “My Neighbor Totoro” (1988) and “Kiki delivery services”(1989). It took her to the creation of the series “Batman: Gotham Knight” (2008) and "Thundercats" (2011) reboot.
“Frozen” (2013) was the first animated feature film directed by a woman from the beginning to the end of production. Jennifer Lee co-directed one of the biggest Walt Disney Pictures successes, responsible for more than US$ 1 billion box office. More? Jennifer became the most influential woman at the next animations from Disney Studios. This can be considered a remarkable fact in equality gender history in the animation director career.
Female main role in animation
The female point of view, representation and gender equality can break patterns and transform narratives. All experiences and perceptions can contribute to enhancing a masterwork. Over time, it is seen a transition of a passive and predictable behavior of female characters - that can depend on a masculine character, for example - to a more active and independent action.
One of the pioneers was the great work of Miyazaki, with amazing stories starring brave and empowered young girls, profitable and beloved by the audience.
The counsciousness about femininity and feminism open multiple paths for creators. The films explore more female characters, in genres like adventurousness, independence, bravery, etc. The Pilar`s Diary, produced by Mono, is an example of how female characters can be well accepted by the audience when they throw themselves in great adventures and lead themselves. This representativity is very important and positive to the young girls who love to watch animation. In that way, we inspire them and prepare a whole generation to be self-determined, full of freedom and autonomy inspired by the animation characters.
Frame of the series Pilar's Diary (2020), co-produced by Mono along with NatGeo Kids inspired by Flavia Lins work.
The Impact of Change
It is seen that many positive changes are happening, on the other hand we still have much to enhance in this industry, mostly in creative leadership roles, VFX, and others, that still are in the lack of female participation worldwide. Not to mention the inequality wage by gender and race in many companies around the world.
The digital world has brought multiple opportunities through the use of new and accessible tools to create content. Today women can finally study to get into the animation industry, being pupils to female teachers active inside the industry and that are included in the process of production and creation. Also, come International festivals dedicated to awarding female leadership and production, and sharing it to the world, like the austriac Tricky Women Animation Festival, annually in March.
Those incentives are historical repairation to women, once they fight through tough times in many generations. The damage increases between those communities accrue structural problems of our society. It is a small repair to highlight people that have been historically erased.
The arising of female participation in the industry shows us all how gender equality may be very positive for the productions. This inclusion does not only apply to women, but also to multiple communities and social groups historically erased. A door is open to gender equality, which may show us all growth and discover new perspectives and horizons.
We included links during the text for you to learn more about these inspiring women. Go check it out!
Know more:
https://womeninanimation.org/congrats-corinne-kouper/
https://womeninanimation.org/study-shows-lack-of-women-in-booming-vfx-field/
https://thewomensdirection.com/2021/03/30/top-10-female-directed-animations/
https://www.themarysue.com/history-of-women-in-animation-part-two/
http://greatwomenanimators.com/lillian-friedman-astor-2/
https://garotasnerds.com/conheca-a-historia-de-mary-blair-a-ilustradora-favorita-de-walt-disney/
https://www.awn.com/news/disney-developing-digital-docuseries-ink-paint
