In this week, I have kept looking at my chosen topic ‘Anthropomorphism’ and focusing on the discourses of design of anthropomorphic characters in animations by reading Paul Well’s Understanding Animation:
In chapter 5, page 203- 204, it mentions about the tendency of creating anthropomorphic characters in opposite genders: the male tends to be defined as how they perform, and the female tends to be defined as how they looked like in a stereotypical way. Most of the time, male characters are more masculine, cunning and aggressive while in opposite binary, female characters are passive and sentimental.
The example of it is shown through the famous characters Micky and Minnie created by the well known Disney animator, that he described Minnie is drawn in the same structure as Minnie only she has been added more make-up on her face, and with a more female poses and costume to show her mannerisms to please audiences.
However it’s also been pointed out that anthropomorphic characters are over juvenilised through their signifiers to please the adult audiences.
Beside, there are also anthropomorphic characters interfere with the concept of ‘gender-bleeding’ shown in the animation such as Tom and Jerry, which ends up a complicating structure of relationship between characters in their story, and their sexuality becomes unstable to define the representation of genders of themselves.
in page 23 of Understanding Animation, it points out early animation uses Anthropomorphic characters include:
- Gertie the Dinosaur
- Felix the Cat
- Mickey Mouse
Disney company has developed the concept into achieving the hyper-realism in their future work. However, scholars Patrick D. Murphy and Richard Schickel argues these characters hide their natural terrors or wildness through cuteness, joke and musical cues in the performance.
By looking at the proposal questions, I have started my response as shown below:
The essence of including anthropomorphism in animation
- How anthropomorphism was structured under the cultural background
- How do the anthropomorphic characters signify the meaning behind the political issue?
- How anthropomorphic characters help to create gags in the film
- The destabilisation of anthropomorphic characters in media studies
Brief Outline:
The use of anthropomorphic characters is commonly seen in old and contemporary media, including animation and films. This thesis will discuss the source of anthropomorphism in art history, the benefit of bringing it to the animation industry, the political meanings relating to a few anthropomorphic animated films, and the destabilisation of ethical issues potentially included in different media forms.
My methodologies include researching related articles, reading well-known novels, and watching animated films, surrounding my chosen concept ‘anthropomorphism’. Eventually I will be gathering clues and comparing each element I have used in different topics to structure a result.
Hopefully, the reader can form a good structural understanding of anthropomorphism and add it to their creation of art.
Brief Literature:
Starting from the modernism period, where more revolutions happen in people’s lives due to the second world war, more hyperrealist characters show the feature of anthropomorphism appearing in the animation industry. By reading Paul Well’s Understanding Animation and Animation and America, which provides me a concept of how these anthropomorphic characters bring new meanings and gags to the stories and audiences. Through reading George Orwell’s book Animal Farm, it displays anthropomorphic characters designed to reveal political issues of socialist revolution sarcastically. By reading the articles produced by Claire Molloy, they allow me to view potential risks hidden in the use of anthropomorphic characters in media studies.
Bibliography
Topic 1:
- Wells, P., 2002. Animation and America. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.
- Singal, D.J., 1987. Towards a definition of American modernism. American Quarterly, 39(1), pp.7-26.
Topic 2:
- Orwell, G., 2024. Animal Farm. Wordsworth Editions Limited.
- Elaheh, F., 2011. Symbols, metaphors and similes in literature: a case study of Animal Farm. Islamic Azad University.
- Letemendia, V.C., 1992. Revolution on Animal Farm: Orwell’s neglected commentary. Journal of Modern Literature, 18(1), pp.127-137.
- Fajrina, D., 2016. Character metaphors in George Orwell’s animal farm. Studies in English Language and Education, 3(1), pp.79-88.
- Animal Farm (1954) Directed by J. Batchelor. [Feature film]. United Kingdom: Associated British-Pathé.
- SnarkTheMagicDragon (2015) Revolt Of The Toys 1946. 20 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5a31idiJz8&t=480s (Accessed: 5 March 2025).
- The M3 Media Collection (2021) The Tale of the Fox (1937) English Subtitles Best Quality. 25 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dCvmEY_9fo (Accessed: 5 March 2025).
- Steve Cutts (2020) The Turning Point. 1 Jane. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7LDk4D3Q3U (Accessed: 5 March 2025).
Topic 3:
- Wells, P., 1998. Understanding animation. Routledge.
- mcanguish1977 (2013) How a Mosquito Operates (1912) Winsor McCay animation. 29 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77cn30IeZPU&t=81s (Accessed: 5 March 2025).
- Open Culture (2016) Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). 27 November. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32pzHWUTcPc (Accessed: 5 March 2025).
Topic 4:
- Molloy, C., 2011. Popular media and animals. Springer.
- Molloy, C., 2006. Discourses of anthropomorphism. Liverpool John Moores University (United Kingdom).
In the following few weeks, I will be keep reading the research article and ends up more points for my outline and literature reviews.