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- Special Area of Interest
- My Topic- Gender Stereotypes in Character Design
- Disney's Approach to Gender Stereotypes
Gendered Stereotypes in Anthropomorphism Part 1 - Responding to Kevin S. Sandler's Essay "Gendered Evasion Bugs Bunny in Drag"
- Gendered Stereotypes in Anthropomorphism part 2 - Can Gender be Removed Completely From Anthropomorphic Character Design?
- Character Designs Responding to Anthropomorphism Research
- Analysis of Purpleboy (2019) by Alexandre Siqueria
- Character Designs Responding to Purpleboy Study
- Analysis of Les Lèvres Gercées (2018) by Kelsi Phung and Fabrien Corre
- Character Designs Responding to Les Lèvres Gercées Study
- Evaluation

- References

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Special area of interest - 2D Animation 

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Special area of interest - 2D Animation 

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I’m interested in pursuing hand drawn 2D animation and character design as my special area of interest for this assignment.

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My Topic - Gender stereotypes in character design

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My Topic - Gender stereotypes in character design

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The topic of gender as a whole is something personal and relevant to me. Gender as a concept is incredibly complex and controversial and so in order to produce in depth and comprehensible research I’m narrowing this project down to  genders effects on character design within animation. Due to my own experiences and personal research I’ve come to understand gender as a performative action, one that is taught to us through socialisation, rather than a fixed asset of our being. I believe we’re reaching a point in society where people are finally coming to understand that gender isn’t as binary as once conceived. Not only this but the acceptance and support for transgendered people is seeing a rise. With this knowledge and understanding of gender becoming more socially prevalent and accepted I’d like to see a move in animations characters designs to begin embracing these concepts. This includes a move away from the more stereotypical male vs female designs.

One of the current issues with this is that the perpetration of certain gender stereotypes can result in many negative side affects within our society and often leave people repressed and out of touch with themselves. Ultimately within my own animations and designs I want to be pushing for as gender neutral a world as possible.
Therefore I would like to use this project to study genders effect on character design in both mainstream and lesser known animations. The goal is to improve my own character designs and learn how to concisely subvert certain gender expectations within them. However I do appreciate that animation and art in general often benefits from exaggerating peoples features and characteristics and therefore can understand why character designs have evolved to fit certain stereotypes. Therefore another aim of the project will be looking into how these stereotypes can be embraced in a way that still challenges modern preconceptions of gender.

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“Gender Dimorphism – “Gender dimorphism describes the characteristics and physical differences that separate males and females. ” Philip Mak (A sociologists view of gender differences in animation)

Disneys animation style is instantly recognisable and loved by millions. As the most influential animation studio in the world their stance on gender has enormous influence over the societal understanding and acceptance of gender norms. Disneys stance on gender is very much in keeping with the accepted norm for us, the general rule is women are feminine, small and slight, with lots of the most popular Disney princesses displaying almost infant like faces. Men conversely are large, powerful and strong, many of the Disney designed men have huge chests, chiseled jaws and gigantic hands. This is particularly noticeable when compared with their female counter parts.

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Exaggerated proportions emphasising gender dimorphism between Megana and Hercules

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What this perpetrates is the concept of opposite sexes. Of male and female, masculine and feminine, becoming the only two available choices standing as polar opposites from the other. This difference between the characteristics of the “two genders” is known as gender dimorphism. This gender dimorphism is what I take issue with, Judith Butler in her book Undoing Gender talks at length about how gender as a whole is a social construct and something that is taught to us, something we understand through a heterosexually coded gaze. She too takes issue with masculine and feminine being portrayed as polar opposites and goes on further to discuss how gender itself is a performative act that we undergo in order to be accepted socially.

“Sometimes a normative conception of gender can undo ones personhood, undermining the capacity to persevere in a liveable life.” (Butler, Undoing Gender, 2004)

What Judith Butler points out is that not all people can be boxed and confined under these restrictive stereotypes resulting in a persons social exclusion should they choose to pursue their own definition and desires for their gender. Should they choose to repress themselves and attempt conformity they may experience intense mental duress and be “living beside of themselves” playing a constant role in order to better assimilate with society. Representation in media is important for marginalised people in helping them feel secure and validated within themselves. It also exposes the general public to these lesser known issues and helps resolve some of the negative prejudice that surrounds gender nonconformity. Currently steps are being taken to be more inclusive of different races in media and I believe this should expand to non typical expressions of gender as well.

However gender dimorphism used as a tool in animation not only causes issues and pressure for gender non conforming individuals but also puts pressure on seemingly cisgendered people too. The sociologist Philip N Cohen explains that “people feel a strong pressure to perform gender according to cultural norms.” However not all women are short petite and feminine and not all men are large muscular and dominant. Seeing these stereotypes exaggerated and presented to billions of people creates a standardisation for what the ideal man/ woman should look like; this leaves many people feeling undesirable and pushes many others to reach for a standard that is ultimately unachievable.

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Size comparison between Disney princesses and their male counterparts

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Upon further reading and discussion of the subject I came across the book “Reading The Rabbit” which is a collection of essays on Warner Brothers animation edited by Kevin S.Sandler. The essay titled “Gendered Evasion: Bugs Bunny In Drag” brought up many points about Disney and about why perhaps their stance on gender has remained so firm. I’ll be addressing this essay in more depth within my next post. Ultimately Disney has always offered escapism within their films and breaking social norms and biases deviates from this escapist goal. Therefore in order to create truly immersive, escapist cinema Disney must assimilate our cultural and societal norms in an effort to create a believable reality in which viewers beliefs and prior knowledge aren’t challenged. However in doing this Disney has reached a stage where believability for women regularly includes characters whose wrists are thinner than their eyes and also whose waists are thinner than their heads.

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Rapunzel’s proportions from Disneys film “Tangled”

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Perhaps if men were exaggerated to similar proportions the believability that Disney creates may become more challenged as currently men can exist in many different roles, shapes and sizes whilst still being instantly recognisable as men. However many of the male models for characters are a lot more realistically built. Allowing men to recognise themselves and women to recognise an “idealistic” version of themselves that is completely unobtainable. This isn’t to say that men aren’t exaggerated and that harmful stereotypes and idealised body expectations from male cartoon characters and also modern day live action comic based films can’t negatively impact men. In fact when searching and looking through pictures of Disney princes I found, with perhaps the exception of Flynn from Tangled, that Disney princes follow a body shape almost as restrictive as Disney Princesses. Disney Princes, much like comic book super heroes, are built with large triangular chests thick arms and trimmed waists; there’s no representation for shorter men or heavier men seen (that aren’t of the older generation) I found. This lack of representation and idealised view of what a perfect man should look like is likely equally damaging to many mens self esteem and shouldn’t be disregarded when moving character design forward.

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Lack of body shape diversity in Disney’s Princes

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These stereotypes of women being smaller and weaker also feed into this inherently heterosexual idea that woman are the submissive partner in relationships, in doing this Disney alienates LGBT people and their relationships which may not conform to the societal standard. Even nowadays in our Western society thats slowly progressing to be more accepting of LGBT issues, LGBT people are often expected, or even assumed, to submit to this mould of one partner being masculine and one partner being feminine in order for their relationship to be understood, accepted and acknowledged. In a way Disney refusing to acknowledge these non-stereotypical  relationships or deviate from these rigid gendered stereotypes can be viewed as them dehumanising gender nonconforming people, by refusing to depict them within their idealised world mirrored off our own. It perhaps says to gender nonconforming people that they cannot exist unchallenged within this Disney utopia, further assisting in their alienation from society.

This rejection of gender and sexual nonconformity can be seen further in Disneys design and characterisations of its villains. Scar from the Lion King is undeniably male, yet he’s drawn as thinner and smaller than the other male lions. He moves and speaks with a more flamboyant nature and therefore displays stereotypically feminine traits. Jafar from Aladdin also displays these traits. Ursula from The Little Mermaid is openly based off the famous drag queen Divine. The fate if all these characters is obvious from the moment they’re read as the antagonists. They’re all depicted as unequivocally evil and ultimately defeated, often to the point of being killed, by the protagonist. This subconsciously imbeds the impression in audiences minds that people displaying gender nonconforming traits are deviants, they pose a risk to society, and therefore shouldn’t be tolerated.

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Drag Queen Undine and Ursula

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Scar and Jafar

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Ultimately what I’d like to see from Disney is more positive inclusivity of different body shapes and people who don’t conform to gendered stereotypes both transgendered and cisgendered. Having effeminate bad guys or butch, assertive, strong female villains would be fine if these traits were allowed to exist equally within protagonists and other “good guys”. Within my own designs I’m hoping to move away from Disneys heavily gendered approach and embrace designs that are more challenging and will hopefully provoke further thought from viewers in regards to gender.

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Gender stereotypes in anthropomorphism – Part 1. Responding to Kevin S. Sandlers Essay – Gendered Evasion Bugs Bunny in Drag

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Gender stereotypes in anthropomorphism – Part 1. Responding to Kevin S. Sandlers Essay – Gendered Evasion Bugs Bunny in Drag

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Anthropomorphism definition:
"The showing or treating of animals, Gods and objects as if they are human in appearance, character or behaviour." - Cambridge Dictionary

Anthropomorphism is massively popular and used widely throughout all animation, animal characters have been present in animation since the early 1900’s with characters such as Micky Mouse gaining massive fame and popularity that still exists to this day. Within this blog post I want to discuss how many animation studios use anthropomorphism in a way that not only enforces human gender roles but also perpetrates them in a highly sexist way. I’ll be looking at what I believe to be good and bad examples of its usage and perhaps explore how it can be adapted to be more gender neutral.

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Early 1900’s popular anthropomorphised characters Mickey Mouse and Felix The Cat

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Why anthropomorphism works

After reading the essay titled “Gendered Evasion – Bugs Bunny in Drag” by Kevin S. Sandler I became aware of the concept of “realness” and how it relates to animation. Within this essay S. Sandler goes onto explain using the theory of Judith Butler defining “realness” as:

“Animated films ability to compel belief that is above suspicion, to embody and reiterate norms.”

What this means is that for animated films to be compelling and believable to audiences, audiences need to be able to recognise their own cultural and societal beliefs; see our own world mirrored back at us in a way that doesn’t challenge our perception of reality. Disney is cited in this essay as a massive perpetrator of this belief. Their ability to appeal to the masses and dominate the animation industry stems from this ability to offer totally immersive escapist viewing experiences, that don’t call for in depth or critical thinking. They’re specifically designed for easy viewing. S. Sandler describes this by stating “The mess audience can assimilate and legitimise social assumptions and cultural norms- that is, social performance- without ever having to interrogate or repudiate their phantasmatic construction.” What this results in is a multitude of media that perpetrates societal norms exclusively rarely ever challenging them, unless these believes are being challenged already in a way that favours their change. Whilst I can understand why large companies would utilise this strategy from a marketing, money making perspective; I take deep issue with it as it feels soulless and pandering to the masses doesn’t result in change. We live in a society that advocates and pushes “compulsive heterosexuality”, yet we live in an age now where we know this to be incorrect. We’re in a transitory period where 100’s of years worth of bigotry and misrepresentation is being brought to light, the concept of sexuality has evolved to be understood away from binaries and better viewed as something deeply personal that exists within spectrums. Gender theory is also moving and evolving in this direction, with masculinity and femininity being exposed as human constructs unrelated to our sex and much more flexible than mass media would have us believe. My issue therefore stems from extreme frustration that public conception is moving forward yet being hindered by these huge corporations that wish to continue perpetrating harmful out dated stereotypes for money.

Moving on from this point I wish to talk about how anthropomorphism is used harmfully to perpetrate outdated gender stereotypes. I’ve been looking into Warner brothers use of anthropomorphism, particularly in regards to their original Looney tunes series. A key point that was brought to light within Kevin S. Sandlers essay on gender, is that Warners brothers (and many other companies) use of anthropomorphism follows one rule, male until proven female. Within the essay the statement “Gender, therefore, is an imitation of an imitation.” Is made. As gender is a human construct, there is no original source for it, therefore we’re just repeatedly preforming certain acts and set characteristics that have been presented to us by early generations. However from studying anthropomorphised characters, especially after realising the male until proven female rule, what this demonstrates is that the scope for what can make a character read as male is infinitely big whereas what makes a character female is conversely small.

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The all male main cast if Looney Tunes

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All the leading characters in traditional looney toons animation, such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy duck, are male. Warner brothers seemed to realise this and attempted to add female counterparts to these characters in the form of Babs Bunny and Melissa Duck. The issue comes from the way the females counterparts were designed and characterised. What we can assume from Warner Brothers designs is that adult females are characterised by the presence of small waists, large breasts and a personality that consists entirely of being submissive and flirty. Female children are small and petite, dressed in pink and usually donning a bowed ribbon.

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Lola and Babs Bunny

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If a female character doesn’t meet these traits within these animations shes often portrayed as being completely undesirable. Daffy ducks shape is simple, and although vaguely human shaped, still visibly duck shaped. Melissa in comparison is simply a “sexy” human female with a beak, I frankly find her design both lazy and disturbing. The lack of depth and thought put into her character is quite clear by the design. When designing Babs Bunny, though she’s thankfully less sexualised, they still felt the need to colour the character pink in order to code the character as a female; this perpetrates the also outdated trope of gendered colours and is another absurd human convention that’s equally out dated.

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Melissa Ducks design

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Beyond this already unappealing lens of inbuilt sexist thinking, another trope Warner Brothers plays a lot is crossing dress for laughs. The Gender reversal trope, though now starting to die out, was in unfortunately common usage within the comedy genre of film and animation. The rule for this genre being that the acts and effects of cross dressing/ transgenderism are only acceptable if they’re reversed by the end of the film. Furthermore in order to not break the escapist trance and shatter the films “realness” the character under taking the cross gender performance must be constantly humiliated in order to relieve the tension created by its presence. This is seen more commonly in the comedic effect produced by seeing male characters dress in drag. The dehumanisation of the “effeminate man” is of particular concern to me especially with the statistics from places like America where the average life expectancy of a transgender women is sub 40 due to hate crime.

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Gender Stereotypes in anthropomorphism – part 2 – Can gender be removed completely from anthropomorphic character designs?

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Gender Stereotypes in anthropomorphism – part 2 – Can gender be removed completely from anthropomorphic character designs?

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“Anthropomorphism always assumes an identification with contemporary gender configurations, identifications Butler states “with a set of norms that are and are not realizable.” Kevin S.Sandler – Reading the rabbit pg 171

Can gender be removed completely from anthropomorphic character designs?

Ultimately I think the answer to this question, at this time, is no. We still exist in a society where gender is assumed immediately upon either seeing a person/character or hearing their voice regardless of situation. If gender isn’t immediately identifiable people often become confused and fixated on this unknown, and are unable to move past it; within animation this can work to break the “realness” of the story and push viewers out, inhibiting them from connecting fully with the story. However I do hold hope that its within our capabilities to push and move towards a more open and unrestrictive society where gender does not only become inconsequential but perhaps something irrelevant entirely.

The Chuck Jones quote “Bugs Bunny is a glorious personification of our most dapper dreams.” for example, conveys to me that people are aware somewhere deep down that we are restricted. To explain, I think the key personality trait Bugs Bunny displays throughout his animations is his confidence and freedom. Bugs is rarely (if ever) the butt of the joke, even when crossdressing for gags, rather, its the bumbling man he’s fooled thats humiliated. Bugs Bunny is shown to be time and time again unapologetically himself; unrestrained and ungoverned by societies conventions of sexuality and gender. Chuck Jones in acknowledging this sentiment by declaring Bugs Bunny “a glorious personification of our most dapper dreams” proves to me that perhaps deep down people are aware that we’re limiting ourselves with false gender constructs and traditions borne from years of mindless imitation. There is, rooted deep within public consciousness, a desire to be more free in how we present ourselves and how we govern and label ourselves. The more gender roles and stereotypes are challenged and shown to be restrictive in main stream animation the easier this concept of gender as a performative act, imitation of an imitation, can be integrated into mainstream social consciousness. Once this is achieved the removal of gender stereotypes and gender as a whole from animation and film alike can perhaps begin without breaking “realness”.

The concept of gender is still very firmly cemented not only in societal thinking but also in our language; although post-gender pronouns such as they/them are beginning to come into public awareness, people for the most part still seem largely unused and/ or uncomfortable with using them. Therefore in this next post I’m going to be looking at what I believe to be good anthropomorphic character designs, ones that are moving away from its more sexist roots and progressing towards something more feminist/ post-gender.

An animated film that immediately comes to mind is Dreamworks Kung Fu Panda (2008). The character designs for this movie were created by French-American character designer and animator Nico Marlet. He’s currently employed by Dreamworks and has worked on many successful films such as Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Madagascar and many more. His designs are beautiful, fluid and well balanced; from what I can gather from studying them, he seems to favour traditional mediums and use a combination of pencil crayons, alcohol markers and watercolour. All his designs are full of action, the movement of the characters is captured beautifully, and his drawings contain this angular, stylistic quality that I really love. I also find, particularly in his designs for the movie Kung Fu Panda, he subverts a lot of the classic anthropomorphic tendencies; not feeling the need to exaggerate gender dimorphic features in order to gender his characters one way or the other.

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The first of his character designs I want to look at more closely are those of the character Tigress. Its clear from her design (and also her name) that she’s an anthropomorphised tiger however despite being a female character theres not a lot in her design that would necessarily lead your brain to that knowledge. We know she’s a female because she’s voiced by Angelina Jolie in the film yet she doesn’t bare any of the gender dimorphic exaggerations seen in the Warner Brothers designs. Her waist isn’t unrealistically small and she doesn’t have a large or obvious chest, furthermore her clothes are those fighting of a martial artist and also ungendered in anyway. With Tigress’s design I believe they could have just as easily have had her voiced by a male without needing to change the design at all. To me this indicates Marlet’s succeeded in creating a gender neutral character design that doesn’t break realism or challenge the audience, proving this is an achievable goal.

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Vipers design once again remains true to the design of a snake without compromising any of the biology for the sake of gender dimorphism. Her name is simply the name of the animal she is and goes a step further than even Tigress’s in the sense that they’ve made no effort to attempt to feminise it either. There’s an implication of make up on Vipers face but ultimately I think this works to add character and personality to the character rather than explicitly coding her as female. Although I wouldn’t say the design is quite as gender neutral as Tigress’ it’s still miles ahead in the way it’s not blatantly sexualised or overly feminised in the way much anthropomorphic design is.

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Po’s character design is wonderful, once again the balance and characterful movements of the character are captured beautifully in Marlet’s designs. With his design being that of not only a male character but also that of a “legendary warrior” and the protagonist it’s nice to see the design subvert the usual standards for this role. Thinking back to the character design standards popularised by Disney, the conditions for Po’s character would dictate that he would fit the stereotypical “Hercules”-esc body shape. Having broad wide shoulders, muscled arms a small waist and a stereotypically handsome face, yet Po doesn’t really seem to tick any of these boxes. This is of course the point of the film; with the moral of the story being about how you don’t have to fit a certain standard of physical social beauty or strength to encompass the qualities of a “hero”.
In casting a large bodied, clumsy, bashful character, all qualities that would usually make up the comic relief or heroes side kick character, Kung Fu Panda subverted social expectations of what makes a hero successfully. I think this goal of deliberately subverting expectations is what lead to such successful and subversive, yet socially acceptable character designs. It could be argued that Kung Fu Panda could have taken this further and had Po as a female protagonist instead of male. However I ultimately feel it sent a powerful message to young boys, who perhaps don’t meet the Disney criteria of beauty, showing them that their worth isn’t any lesser. A point which is arguably just as important a point to make with the lack of diversity within the designs of romantically desirable male characters.

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Character Designs Responding to Anthropomorphism Research

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Character Designs Responding to Anthropomorphism Research

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Below are some sketches and designs for an anthropomorphised bear character I've created, heavily inspired by Nico Marlets designs. I tried to deliberately give the character atributes from both male and female genders; thicker eye brows and a lower brow bone to perhaps indicate male gender and long hair and the slight impression of breasts to indicate female gender. The breasts were deliberately drawn in a way that could be interpreted as gynaecomastia to increase the characters gender ambiguity. Therefore I found that what swayed the way the characters gender is read was down to the characters clothes. If I dressed the character in a floral shirt and shorter, more feminine style shorts the character read as female whilst when I drew the character in a typical "dad on holiday" style outfit they read more as male. This is interesting and entertaining for me and I would like to design more androgynous characters whose gender I can switch up with clothing to promote deeper thinking from audiences.

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Unfortunately this film only appears to be be available in France at the minute so you may need a VPN to view it.

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Découvrez l'offre VOD-DVD de la boutique ARTE

"C'est une fille !", dit la mère-poule. "Un garçon !", hurle le père-loup. Depuis toujours, Oscar, qui pousse dans le potager de ses parents, pense être un garçon. Il veut devenir un courageux parachutiste, comme son père. Un jour, il sort de la terre et découvre avec stupeur son corps féminin. Une longue période de doute et de discriminations commence alors...

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Purpleboy - Regarder le film complet | ARTE

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"C'est une fille !", dit la mère-poule. "Un garçon !", hurle le père-loup. Depuis toujours, Oscar, qui pousse dans le potager de ses parents, pense être un garçon. Il veut devenir un courageux parachutiste, comme son père. Un jour, il sort de la terre et découvre avec stupeur son corps féminin.

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Purpleboy is a film by Alexandre Siqueria made in 2019, it depicts the story of a young transgender boy as he grows up and tries to find his identity and place within his world. The official synopsis reads as follows “Oscar is a child who sprouts in his parents garden. Nobody knows his biological sex but he claims the masculine gender. One day Oscar lives an extraordinary but painful adventure in an authoritarian and oppressive world. Will he manage to have the identity recognition he desires so much?” The film begins with a screen filled with pink and blue seeds, the pink seeds contain the feminine symbol and the blue seeds claim the masculine. However amongst these seeds we find a purple seed containing the transgender symbol, we watch as this seed falls and lands in the hands of a couple who plant it, in a symbolic display of conception, in a yonic hole in their garden. Immediately this film is challenging gender norms by using this purple seed to represent an identity outside of male and female; by combining the colours blue and pink to form purple, another identity is shown to exist with elements of both masculinity and femininity being encompassed within whilst being something unique and entirely individual.

Time passes and the seed is nurtured and cared for by the couple and grows into a young child that sits within the earth. Only the head and shoulders of the child are visible, everything else remains hidden, planted, irrelevant. This choice is design renders the child androgynous, we don’t know its biological sex and therefore we’re unable to assign gender with any level of certainty. The only visual cue remaining for us to utilise in guessing the childs gender is its hair. Initially the child’s hair is long and wavey, much like its mothers. We watch as the mother attempts to tame the hair forcefully, tugging through the hairs knots with a brush and adorning it with a crown of flowers, forming the image of a stereotypical little girl. The child however rejects these efforts tugging off the crown and messing their hair up in an act that can be viewed as the rejection of feminine identity. We see the childs interaction with the father figure next, it becomes immediately obvious that the child idolises the father, and wishes to grow up in his image. The childs hair is shaved and a gift from the mother is crushed and used as paint to draw a fake moustache on the childs face. From this point onwards the childs gender becomes easily obvious to us and we begin to read him as male.

The use of wolfs to represent males and chickens, wolfs pray, utilised to present females doesn’t go unnoticed by me. I believe this choice is deliberate and done to show the insidious nature of our worlds misogyny where women are near constantly presented and viewed as the weaker sex. Despite the heavy use of anthropomorphism used in every other characters design, the main character is always drawn as a human. This obvious visual difference between species and design also prevails in categorising this character as something outside of heteronormative “normal” gender presentation much in the same way the purple seed did. It also demonstrates the physical visual discrepancies transgender people suffer for in real life when they’re not “passing”. The concept of passing comes into play later in the film; it’s a concept I would define as: when a transgender person is viewed as and “passes” for a cisgender person by people unaware of their biological sex.

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The film progresses and we see the child older now, in their early adolescence, flying in a plane by their dad. The child crashes trying to follow his father, losing their plane wings and falling to the earth where he lands in a rushing river. The world Oscar lands in is dominated by looming phallic trees perhaps further indicating to us the misogynistic nature of this world. A group of young boys, also drawn as anthropomorphic wolves, are seen playing football nearby. They kick their ball into the river and ask for the struggling child to help return it to them. The child does and afterwards they ask for his name, he introduces himself as Oscar as he climbs out of the river offscreen. We see the young boys shout out declaring Oscar to be a girl and they run off closely pursued by the now angry Oscar. As Oscar chases and attacks the young boys we see the bottom half of his body for the first time. Unlike the other children Oscar is completely naked and exposed; the bottom half of his body is pale and contrasts with his tanned head and shoulders after being hidden underground for so long. Due to his nudity we’re also able to see Oscar is growing breasts and has a vagina instead of a penis. The nudity stands out to me, I believe its to demonstrate the vulnerability of transgender and gender nonconforming people living in a world where violence and hate crime can come unexpectedly from anywhere at any time. Furthermore displaying a character as implicitly male before then revealing their naked body to be that of a biological female challenges the viewers preconceived ideas of what defines a persons gender. The viewer now must decide how they label Oscar. Oscar whose intensely stereotypically masculine, who plays with dirt, who starts fights and choses to don shaved hair over long hair; all characteristics that we associate with male identity. Revealing Oscars body doesn’t change Oscars behaviour, suddenly the viewers are presented with the question of what truly defines a persons gender.

The young boys begin to attack and chase Oscar and its heavily implied that they abuse Oscar not only physically but also sexually in the resulting confrontation. We see the young boys chase Oscar into a small pond where they play viciously swimming and hitting the water. Eventually the young boys are chased off by the sound of approaching sirens and the rippling of the water displays breasts being groped before the water sinks disappearing, leaving Oscar curled up sobbing in the earth. His body is swallowed and returns to his parents garden.

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The use of nudity in Purpleboy reminded me of the workings of the artist and photographer Della Grace Volcano. Della Grace Volcano is an intersex, genderqueer person. They use neutral pronouns and, throughout their photography, unflinchingly present not only their own body but also the bodies of other gender nonconforming people. Their work forces people to confront their knowledge of what gender is and shows genders failings in its inability to categorise intersex and transgender bodies as either male or female. Volcano’s work shows not only intersex and transgender bodies, naked and unashamedly so, but also the bodies of butch women and effeminate men. People who aren’t transgender or intersex but are still categorised as different as “failing gender” as Judith Butler may say. The photographs Della Grace Volcano produces presents these individuals as strong and proud and unquestionably human. They empower and represent gender nonconforming people and have definitely had influence on how I choose to draw and design my characters. I’ll be referencing their photographs for poses and gender divergent bodies in my character designs.

Della Grace Volcanos photographs and a drawn studies by me

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Returning the to plot of Purpleboy the film continues back at the parents garden. Oscars retreated under the earth and a flower has bloomed from the mound where his body is laid. The mother observes the flower as it begins to bleed, symbolising the start of Oscars puberty with the arrival of a period, and turns to confront her husband declaring Oscar a girl. The farther tears up the garden, that’s shaped like the plane they flew in together, in a fit of rage and angrily storms off pursued by the mother. I’m a little unclear about the intended meaning of the next sequence, I believe that the father is disappointed in having a supposed “daughter” as its heavily implied that this world is extremely male dominated and misogynistic. Oscar continues to lash out in anger after his mothers declaration, rising from his mound and breathing fire that burns in flashes of blue and pink. The father tries to put this fire out as Oscar cries at him not to and ultimately ends up abandoning Oscar and his mother. I’m thinking the blue and pink fire that comes from Oscar could be a representation of his internal struggle with his gender, fluctuating between masculinity and femininity in an attempt to figure out where he fits. The fathers attempts at suppressing this fire maybe his attempts at trying to force Oscar into gender conformity.

This scene, for me, depicts the struggles transgender youth face when coming out to uneducated and perhaps bigoted, unsupportive parents. Children who begin to question their gender at an early age are often still very much under their parents thumb. They have little say in what clothes they wear and what hair cuts they’re aloud, causing the suppression of true gender presentation and often causing intense mental duress. Its unfortunately still common for transgender children to be disowned by their parents or banned entirely in experimenting with clothes or attitudes that seemingly belong to the opposite sex. Whilst with time some parents come round for many they don’t and new family has to be found and formed from the ground up.

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Implications of suffering and violence transgender people face

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Implications of suffering and violence transgender people face

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Thankfully for Oscar the film ends with familial acceptance. By the end of the film Oscars grown into a tall man, his mum zips him into a white jump suit and we see her lovingly trace and embroider the name Oscar into his jumpsuit. This shows her acceptance of Oscars identity which is further emphasised as she gently pulls Oscar down into a hug, morphing from chicken into a human; no longer alienated and apart from Oscar but fully understanding and accepting of him. Her hairs revealed from under a headscarf that’s strikingly similar to how Oscars looked at the start of the film and she smiles at the camera as the film closes out. Ultimately I think the way this film challenges and subverts gender performance and expectation is incredibly successful. I love how Oscars biological sex is hidden and only revealed after genders been constructed and accepted by the audience I believe its an intensely clever way of prompting further thought into what actually makes up a persons gender. I also love that Oscar’s not shown to be uncomfortable within his body until society has punished him for it; there’s a popularised misconception in the understanding of transgender people that they’re simply “a man born in a women’s body” or vis versa. I disagree with this as I don’t believe in the concept of two genders or even really gender as a whole. I sometimes wonder how much of gender dysphoria is innate and how much of its simply born from social exclusion and unacceptance, whether maybe somewhere in the distant future less transgender people will feel the need for surgery, or be forced into surgery by their governments, as they will simply be accepted and allowed to live as they choose.

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Character Designs Responding to Purpleboy Study

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Character Designs Responding to Purpleboy Study

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After watching the film Purpleboy and researching into the works of Della Grace Volcano I decided I wanted to draw a stereo-typically butch lesbian character. Whilst reading Jack Halberstam's book Female Masculinity it came to my attention that many of the struggles transgender people face in terms of how their gender is "socially read" are also faced by other people who may not identify as transgender within the LGBT community. For example Jack, the author of the book, who identifies as a butch lesbian despite being biologically female still faces discrimination in women's toilets due to her outward appearance and gender presentation. I find butch lesbians are rarely represented and depicted in our societies media, I worry this may be due to our standards of beauty for women, where it seems that masculine traits such as having prominent muscles or a square face are seen as "ugly" and therefore portrayed as undesirable. I have many female friends who express fear of trying activities such as weight lifting as they fear it will cause them to appear more masculine and therefore be less conventionally attractive. I think it's incredibly powerful when women chose to escape the mold society places on them by embracing their masculine traits and presenting more "butch" so I wanted to celebrate these traits with my designs.

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Les Lèvres Gercées (2018) - Kelsi Phung and Fabrien Corre

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Les Lèvres Gercées (2018) - Kelsi Phung and Fabrien Corre

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Setting out to create a story they hoped would "allow trans and non-binary children and adults to recognize themselves and to feel represented", Kelsi Phung and Fabien Corre's student short Les lèvres gercées impresses with its important storyline and bold aesthetic. Inspired by the Gender Revolution feature-length documentary, this five-minute animated short from GOBELINS, l'école de l'image is a topical, impactful watch due to its grounded, authentic narrative and relevant subject.

After watching that aforementioned feature, Phung and Corre found they were impacted by one specific scene - where a mother explains that she first opened her eyes to the trans identity of her child when she was 7 years old and told her Mum that she would rather die than not be able to be herself as a girl - touched by this moment, the directorial duo set out to explore this scenario further in Les lèvres gercées.

"We decided that we wanted to talk about the background of this story, a story that we share as queer directors and that many LGBTI+ people go through nowadays", Phung explains. "We wanted to talk about the huge impact of communication within the family home, especially in a society that is so violent against LGBTI+ people rights."

Phung and Corre adopt a subtle approach to their storytelling. As a viewer we never feel like we're being force fed this narrative, instead each brief glimpse into this family's life reveals a little more, helping us arrange the pieces of the puzzle and make our own internal calculations on exactly what is going.

Les lèvres gercées never feels like a piece claiming to have all the answers, instead it feels more like a discussion starter, a film designed to get you talking. Something the filmmakers were certainly thinking about when making it - "We hope that it will open up conversations within families and contribute to the building of a society that doesn't tell LGBTI+ people to hide or to be ashamed of themselves", Phung reveals. "We hope that it will help our siblings to not be afraid to exist."

Animation is well-known for exploring fantasy worlds, but inspired by a real-life story and made using live-action shots as references, Les lèvres gercées isn't a film looking to inject a little escapism. This is a piece of filmmaking that feels very current and very genuine and we hope that by sharing it, not only will it entertain you, but hopefully it will make you see (or want to see) the world a little differently.

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Les lèvres gercées by Kelsi Phung & Fabien Corre | Short Film

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Setting out to create a story they hoped would "allow trans and non-binary children and adults to recognize themselves and to feel represented", Kelsi Phung and Fabien Corre's student short Les lèvres gercées impresses with its important storyline and bold aesthetic.

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Les Lèvres Gercées is a small yet highly powerful animated short that divulges into the struggles and issues faced by transgender children when first coming out to uneducated parents. It’s inspired by an exchange shown within the 2017 documentary Gender Revolution directed by Katie Couric. During an interview with a mother and her transgender daughter, the mother reveals how she couldn’t quite get her head around her daughters gender change until her then 7 year old daughter expressed suicidal thoughts, asking “What happens when I die? Will I be a girl then?” The severity of this comment pushed the mother to act and address the issue by supporting her daughter and beginning her research into transgender people. Something interesting I gleamed from watching this feature length documentary was this concept of gender transition being something that’s shared, not only by the individual undergoing the gender transition but also by their family and friends and all those that interact with them. When an individual transitions our perception of them, how we address them, what name and pronouns we use must all transition with them; thus creating a shared experience between the transitioning person and those surrounding them. This gives people the power in a sense to almost halt or block a persons transition through refusal to adapt to their new name and pronouns and therefore denying the transgendered person social acceptance. This impact is heightened in transgender children as their lives are largely controlled by their parents, they’re not in a position to mould an accepting community around themselves and therefore face intense mental turmoil when faced with denial. This idea of a persons transition being blocked and halted due to the shared nature of a gender transition and the lack of control children have over their gender expression is what this film effectively explores.

The story is told through a jarred, stop and start, dialogue between a mother and her child. The child is revealed through the dialogue to be a young transgender girl, she’s clearly attempted to come out to her mother but is being thwarted in her attempts to be recognised. The film starts in a prolonged silence with mother and daughter sat across from each other at their dining table, the mothers face is cropped out of screen preventing us from seeing anything above the nose. It’s clear immediately that there’s a disconnect between them, what we experience in this film is not the “big reveal” but the transitory period that comes after a persons coming out. The characters are rarely seen in frame together, on the couple of occasions when they are we only see the daughters face. Through this we share this feeling of disconnect with her, we cannot see the mother therefore we cannot connect or understand her. Even when hugging and pressing a kiss to the others cheek in goodbye there is a wall between the characters preventing them from connecting.
The mother is shown throughout the film to be incredibly uncomfortable and also bigoted in her opinions of transgendered people, however she’s not outwardly violent or immediately suppressive. Instead the film explores a much more realistic and pervasive attitude which is one of denial and blatant refusal to even try to begin empathising or understanding her child. This leaves their relationship in a limbo like state where neither can connect or speak to the other; as the young girl attempts to move forward and push for acceptance as a girl, the mother continues to try and live in the past where the topic of gender remains untouched and she still has a perceived son. This dissonance between the two is painfully realistic and relatable and you find yourself watching almost holding your breath as both characters circle the other with neither quite managing to push hard enough to address the issue.

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What really strikes me about this film is the subtly in which it handles the topic. Often in media, when telling LGBT stories, we see the extremes: children disowned, beaten, always in large, explicit and conclusive acts. However the reality for many is never as clear cut often leading to a dissonance preventing LGBT people from connecting with this Hollywoodified story. The film shows how small acts of violence occur from thoughtless throw away comments and casual misgendering, in statements a cisgendered person may well never even realise is impactful. The prolonged silences and sharp cuts increase the impact, drawing your attention to the dialogue and experiencing it as if you were the young girl in the film. At many points throughout the film the mother uses he/him pronouns and words like “son” when talking about their child to other people and to her childs face. We see how this casual refusal to adapt hurts the child differently each time. A shot in particular that impacted me deeply was a cut to a close up of the childs face after hearing their mum misgender them to their school over the phone. We see her face crumple and her eyes well up in a display of silent and helpless suffering. The film effortlessly shows how moments like this, where you can’t interrupt to correct or defend yourself, are felt so deeply.
Later on in the film we see the child stand up for herself, addressing the mother directly, expressing forcibly that shes asked not to be “called like that” in reference to her mothers misgendering. This effort is once again met with denial, refusal to even have an argument or discussion. The mother expresses that her fathers about to arrive home and that they can discuss it another time; the child's left dejected and we share the knowledge with her that the mother has no intention of picking up this conversation later.

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Thing’s hit a head in the film as the mother arrives to pick her daughter up from a visit to her friends house. Before this moment there had been tension between the mother and daughter about this visit; the mother wished for the child to remain at home to greet an uncle who was visiting, the daughter desperately wanted to see a friend instead. This small disagreement between the characters was a further slight from mother to child as the child has clearly asked for permission to visit their friend and the mother had half heartedly agreed, in a manner suggesting she wasn’t truly listening. When picking up the child from her friends house we initially see the mother with her back to us rambling about the uncles visit. As she turns around we see her body and face contort with shock quickly followed by anger as she takes in her daughters appearance. Although we’re never shown the daughters appearance here it becomes incredibly obvious that, with the help of her friend, she’s dressed in feminine clothes and wearing make up; the mothers response to this is intense and verbally violent. She begins shouting in a rage throwing out words like “tranny” and claiming that this is “messed up”, viciously attacking and berating her child. Its important to note that even during this scene we’re still only shown the bottom half of the mothers face. The mothers still refusing to connect or understand her child and is instead denying and refusing them in a manner that’s much more confrontational than usual; the mothers internalised confusion and bigotry is finally released in an attack her child will remember forever.
This confrontation is followed up by a shot of the childs jacket left abandoned at dining room table with the daughter nowhere to be seen. We over hear a voice mail left by a teacher at her school claiming shes been caught fighting a student after being bullied for the way she dresses and subsequently excluded for a week. The teacher goes on to almost justify the other students bullying claiming that if she didn’t dress so “fancifully” she wouldn’t draw too much attention to herself. This short scene demonstrates how alienated transgender people can become from society, the teacher here is clearly siding and even justifying the verbal abuse the daughters clearly being subjected to at school. She’s encouraged to fit in rather than express herself in a false-sympathetic, patronising manner in an act of blatant transphobia. I think the absence of either characters here shows how their disconnect has reached a peak, they can no longer inhabit a room together never mind hold a conversation; hence why we have to learn about this series of events from a voicemail message.

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The film concludes with the dialogue quoted in the gender revolution documentary. The daughter interrupts another awkward drawn out silence to ask “What happens when I die? Will I be a girl then?”. Clarity finally seems to hit for the mother, we cut to a shot that finally exhibits the whole of her face. We watch as she slowly stops what she’s doing and lowers her hands as her facial features widen into a look of fear, shock and realisation. It’s clear to us as an audience that the daughters finally got through to her mother, contacts been made and the mothers finally looking at her child and realising how desperate the situation really is. The film ends here and we’re left with hope, especially if you know how the story proceeds in the documentary, that the mother and daughters relationship is going to be on the up from here. I think it’s finally become clear to the mother how isolated and dehumanised her child is feeling; as Judith Butler states in undoing gender when we stigmatise and class people as other we deny them the right to be human. The obvious answer then for the mother is to stop living in denial about her daughters identity and to begin supporting and protecting her in her transition in order to make her life feel liveable.

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Reveal of the mothers face as the reality of the situation finally kicks in and the characters finally connect.

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Reveal of the mothers face as the reality of the situation finally kicks in and the characters finally connect.

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Character Designs Responding to Les Lèvres Gercées Study

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Character Designs Responding to Les Lèvres Gercées Study

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"One has to submit to labels and names, to incursions, to invasions; one has to be gauged against measures of normalcy and one has to pass the test." Judith Butler Undoing Gender

After watching Les Lèvres Gercées I decided I wanted to design some transgender characters that were in the early stages of their transition. In media we often only see transgender characters that fully "pass" in their new identity; however this ability to "pass" is often unachievable without many years of hormone replacement treatment and perhaps several surgeries. We need to see gender nonconforming transgender people and learn to accept a persons chosen pronouns and identity regardless of however we'd initially label them. In Judith Butlers undoing gender there's a section where she talks about how children discover their gender through "experiments" through a series of substitutions and improvisations children explore "their own agency and their own ability to shape their gender within the confines of our world." (Undoing gender) She goes on to explain how towels, scarves and aprons my be used by young gender curious "boys" to experiment with their own version of femininity, imitating long hair and skirts. I found the idea of a young child exploring gender in this innocent and curious way incredibly endearing and decided to design a young male assigned character whose beginning to explore their gender. A few of these sketches were also inspired from the Katie Couric Gender Revolution documentary where parents of twins discuss how both their "little boys" liked to play dress up as young kids and wear fairy dresses. One of the young boys grew out of this phase whereas the other one proceeded to decide they wished to present female all the time.

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For my final character design I decided to draw another transgender female character. I wanted to draw an older character that was also in their early stages of transition; purely exploring the social side rather than the medical. It felt important to me to express this characters beauty and femininity even without the assistance of hormones or surgeries to alter their body. It's a common misconception that all transgender people wish to transition medically, for many social acceptance is all that's required to alleviate gender dysphoria. I wish to design and see more gender non-conforming characters like this in mainstream animation to help people become acquainted with this concept and begin seeing these people as people and not just the butt of a lazy joke.

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Overall I feel I’ve discovered not only how pivotal of a role gender plays in designing characters but also how much societal knowledge and opinions of gender impact how we view and read animated characters and films. I’ve learnt how gender dimorphism has been utilised in character design for years to idolise the idea of the small, soft and delicate women and the heroic, strong and dominant male; perhaps assisting in the socialised misogyny that’s still so prevalent within our society to this day. Furthermore I’ve followed the trends in character design and seen how they correlate and perhaps encourage the damaging body expectations we hold ourselves to as a society; how women are encouraged to remain slim and petite and how men are encouraged to be muscled, tall and strong. For many people these gendered expectations are impossible, some people may naturally grow into features encouraged in the opposite sex. For example, some men may not grow tall and instead be naturally lean and slim whereas many women will grow into a stockier sort of build with wide shoulders and thicker waist. Because of how we design female and male protagonists, and role model characters, people who possess bodies divergent from these “norms” may suffer mentally and socially as a result. It’s important, I’ve found, for people to be positively represented in animated media; if the only way we display gender nonconforming people is as a joke or as flawed, gender nonconforming people will begin to lose their place within the world and feel alienated and unloveable as a result. In watching animated media that addresses transgender issues and the societal impact of being discriminated against I’ve felt validated and hopeful, as a transgender person myself. I believe that if we push out overly exaggerated gender dimorphic traits and begin to utilise much more inclusive and experimental character designs we’ll create media that will be not only be validating for gender nonconforming people but also encourage greater social acceptance in younger age groups and perhaps lead the way to a more gender neutral and inclusive society.

This research will inform how I go about designing characters for future animated projects; I’m planning on continuing looking into gender as the main theme of my final year project so the work researched here will directly influence my designs for that. When designing characters from this point on I’ll be more inclined to consider where I’m submitting to social norms and what I can do to alter these designs to make them more inclusive for gender divergent people and also people of less accepted body shapes. I think I could continue to develop this work further by researching more films that explore gender in both “socially accepted” and socially subversive ways and perhaps look into how gender expectations damage not only transgendered people but also people who are cisgender but don’t fit into the expected stereotypes (for example butch lesbians).

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Web Links

-Cambridge dictionary | english dictionary, translations & thesaurus (2021). Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ (Accessed: 10 January 2021)

-Wells, E. (2015) The representation of women and gender in warner bros. Cartoons: a performance of satire. Augustana College - Rock Island. Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=wollstonecraftaward (Accessed: 25 October 2020).

-Mak, P. (03 April 2017) A sociologist’s view of gender differences in animation. Available at: https://blog.toonboom.com/storytelling/a-sociologists-view-of-gender-differences-in-animation (Accessed: 21 October 2020).

--Kroustallis, V. (09 December 2019) Purpleboy by alexandre siqueira, Zippy Frames. Available at: https://www.zippyframes.com/index.php/shorts/purpleboy-by-alexandre-siqueira (Accessed: 25 November 2020).

Films Links

-Gender revolution: a journey with katie Couric (2017). Available at: https://www.facebook.com/katiecouric/videos/gender-revolution-a-journey-with-katie-couric/10154790608436005/ (Accessed: 5 January 2021).

-‘Les lèvres gercées by kelsi phung & fabien corre | short film’ (2018) Short of the Week. Available at: https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2018/12/31/les-levres-gercees (Accessed: 16 December 2020).

-Purpleboy - Regarder le film complet (2019) ARTE. Available at: https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/075710-000-A/purpleboy/ (Accessed: 10 December 2020).

Films

- Kung Fu Panda. (2008). [film] Hollywood: Mark Osborne & John Stevenson

- Les Lèvres Gercées. (2018). [short film] France: Kelsi Phung & Fabien Corre

- Purpleboy. (2019). [short film]. Portugal: Alexandre Siqueira

- Gender Revolution. (2017). [documentary]. USA: Katie Couric

Books

-Sandler, K. S. (ed.) (1998) Reading the rabbit: explorations in Warner Bros. animation. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press.

-Butler, J. (2004) Undoing gender. New York ; London: Routledge.

--Halberstam, J. (1998) Female masculinity. Special Edition. Durham: Duke University Press.