ANIMATION STUDIES

Feminine current of British animation

In the animated film of the 1970s and later, the modernist poetics of, for example, the Zagreb School started to feel outdated. This was the reason for a whole group of new female and male authors to emerge and to tackle pressing social issues, including animated cinema as a new, alternative medium for public debate. Among a number of social issues tackled primarily in British and Canadian films, the field of gender inequality and the position of women in the society came to the foreground. The paper also follows the history of female presence in animated film and the history of female topics’ affirmation in this medium, starting with Helen Smith Dayton, Lotta Reineger and Mary Ellen Bute, to Marjut Rimminen and the influence of the Channel Four production (producer C. Kitson), or rather the authors such as Caroline Leaf, Angela Martin, Candy Guard, Alison Snowden, Karen Watsons and Gillian Lacey. Special attention is dedicated to Alison De Vere and Joanna Quinn. Non-British authors are mentioned as well, such as Monique Renault. What is particularly interesting is the influence of British documentary tradition (along the lines of John Grierson) which blended with animated film and other visual arts traditions. However, in animated films women had to struggle for the right to comedy as an artistic choice as well because the prejudice related to female sense of humor was extremely strong. The author concludes by stating that contemporary animation does not discriminate against women at all.

Midhat Ajanović