The panel discussion that took place at Vienna Pixel had professionals of the animation field discuss the topic of diversity and representation in animation.
The discussion starts off with the guests discussing their favorite childhood characters, pointing out the fact that these characters heavily influence people, following them into their adult lives even.
The question is posed as to how character design can made good when following „classic“ character design approaches, that have lots of rules and principles, have the potential to reinforce bad stereotypes.
One issue that needs to be addressed is the fact that the reinforcement of such types happens already in art school, for example in live drawing sessions, where the models are often white, think and straight, not sufficiently integrating other body types into the education of art students. The professionals then recommend to go outside, to sit on the bus, for instance, and look art people, to look at their body shapes and outfits and whatever else, as there is so much diversity in that. They point out that when it comes to character design, artists tend to see a lot online or in the production of big studios that they compare their own work to and then find ones line, narrowing down their way of finding inspiration elsewhere because they feel comfortable in that line of work and don’t have to take too many risks.
Another challenge for artists is their own subconscious prejudices, which means that it is important for people to talk to the groups they want to represent in order to do it correctly. Some studios even have diversity teams that ensure the representation of the characters is suitable as sometimes, even if there are no bad intentions, people can get it wrong if they don’t talk to the ones it actually concerns.
The classic school of animation works quite well in communicating intention, action and characteristics but sometimes they tend to be overdrawn, one of the artists mentions. They talk about how they discovered that representing someone through their actions rather than the look of the character can be very interesting, as you can’t tell from their look whether they are good or bad.
Larger productions have seen a lot of progress however there is still a long way to go. The professionals then move on to describing some experiences they have made concerning the topic of representation themselves.
One example that is named is about one artist working on a project that featured trans-persons and there was a lot of discussion within the team as to how to show the respective sequences. However, the team consisted of CIS people only, so they called in some friends to talk with and get feedback from them to make sure the representation was authentic. Another example was a game with a story about a disabled person, where the team reached out to an agency for accessibility and a disabled basketball player, who even supported the work on the game design for the apartment to realistically depict how the character interacts with the world.
Representation requires thorough, self-critical research from the creators and it is really a responsibility that they share through all kinds of diversity, be it gender, disability, or race. They also stress that intersectional research is important, explaining how just talking to a person of color, for instance, isn’t enough to represent all of one entity. Social backgrounds, living circumstances, dreams and personal definition need to be considered.
Often, higher positions in the industry are predominantly led by men, whereas women, queer people, or marginalized groups might have trouble to reach these positions. Still, the panel guests convey that it is an organic process and that being sensitive and open to listen and give people opportunities is important, so that spaces that, for example, support a persons specific requirements can be set up. Listening is one of the issues in the industry, and good leaders should take in the people around them. But, on a positive note, they also mention that they feel a big shift in awareness in the next generation coming on.
One thing that is still noticeable in many areas of the industry is even present in the education at universities and art schools – male-identifying students have shown up to collect feedback more than non-male identifying people, with more confidence/certainty, showing just how much it is still engraved in women’s minds how much more they have to prove themselves and that they are harder on themselves, often questioning their abilities. Therefore, mutual support and opening up towards each other is of great importance.
The panel concludes the talk with some questions from the audience, debating over topics like cultural consulting and as to why it is not a priority at big studios, for example. The answer to this comes out pretty clearly states that after all, a company’s goal is still to make money and that in the end, the value of the content comes from and with the value of the people/end-consumer of the contents because this translates back into the company. Therefore, it can be hard to find initiatives or to get them right. Also, there is still a lot that is not known to many people, so some disabilities, for instance, might not be represented because too little people actually know about them.
The panel guest suggests to do anti-bias training, to really inform themselves and to do so actively in order to tell appropriate stories.
They then move on to other questions, and one important topic mentioned is the issue of constantly feeling not educated enough even if they do research, talk to and bring in people to tell their stories – and yet, mistakes happen. Still, it is important to think about the intention behind that, and maybe being able to separate certain treats of a character from others. In the example, the representation of an asexual person who is a mean character is mentioned, as it left the community disappointed due to their portrayal, as asexual people are not often seeing representation in the media. But it is about the intention behind it – would the creators portray all asexuals as mean and manipulative or is this just a character that happens to be both of these things?
Overall, it matters how and why we create characters audiences can identify with, and there should be a way of creating them that connects to their story and on how they solve problems – and to then go from there, in order to discover their form and shape based on the character rather than its look.
Also, characters should not be reduced to one identity in terms of what they can portray, such as in having an immigrant always tell their „immigrant story“ and taking away the rest of their identity.
Also, all of us have stereotypes inside of us and we also live clichés, and creating content that is expected is just less interesting, because people often expect what’s coming etc.
To sum up: being aware and open-minded, talking to people, listening and educating oneself is a major part in the creating and portraying of character. There is much work yet to be done, but there also is a noticeable shift in the industry, sparking hope for the future!
