Original link: https://sehseh.substack.com/p/66f
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Text / Xu Jingfang
I am reading Natalia. Nathalia Holt listened to the classic song “So This is Love” from ” Cinderella ” over and over in the book ” The Queens Who Made Animation Kingdoms” , which appeared in The classic scene where Cinderella dances with the prince in a shiny dress.
The first time I watched “Cinderella” I should have been no more than six years old. The cute little mice and birds in the movie impressed me deeply. Their smooth and cheerful actions created an atmosphere that ordinary movies cannot achieve. Disney cartoons define the world of animation as I know it.
Like the history of all other industries, the history we know is often the history of men, and the contribution and existence of women needs to be constructed and excavated.
Disney’s cartoons were founded in the early 20th century. The animated films it produced and the theme parks that followed have left footprints in the childhood of almost everyone in the world, and they are still innovating and influencing generations of children. Even if we are in Taiwan, we can clearly feel that Disney’s influence is far-reaching – think about how many Elsa you can see on the road every Halloween! From this perspective, Disney can be said to have created a kingdom of human civilization all over the world.
But surprisingly, we are quite new to female artists in the Disney industry, even blank. This gap is surprising, especially since the princess cartoon is still an indispensable achievement for Disney cartoons.
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Disney’s key minority, they are hidden from history
Holt documents an integral part of the history of Disney Studios through numerous historical documents and interviews. She especially spends space to track several female artists, including: Bianca. Marjorie (Bianca Mojolie), Grace. Huntington (Grace Huntington), Rita. Scott (Retta Scott), Mary. Blair (Mary Blair e ), Sylvia. Holland (Sylvia Holland), they all played an important creative role, thinking of the story, setting the role, given the style of painting and color.
Women are not only the most important second-in-command departments—most of the employees in the drawing and coloring department in the early days were women, who copied the animator’s drafts onto the plastic film to be shot by the camera lens—women with high creative energy, in fact, also Fundamentally contributed to Disney’s animation development. Holt recorded how female artists in different periods used their imaginations, and how they inherited the colors and designs of their predecessors, step by step to create popular Disney animations, including my favorite “Cinderella” and “Alice in Adventure” when I was a child. Wonderland”, “Peter Pan”.
The role of women in the animation industry is not only like the African-American female mathematician in ” Hidden Figures “, who is responsible for the basic operational tasks of NASA’s space missions; artistically, the drawings and ideas they leave behind continue to be Inspiring a new generation of animators. Their creativity is still alive after a hundred years.
The life experience of some artists is very representative of the times. Emily. Blair as an example, her personal animation career reflects the development of Disney Studios in the United States before and after World War II. She once visited South America under the Pan American program of the US government, leaving behind many portraits, sketches, and concept drawings. Her paintings at the time used bold reds, pinks, and unique patterns, which were refreshing. Her creation is in the short film “Hello! Friends” and “Three Horsemen”, the Brazilian parrot Jose. Jose Carioca became good friends with Donald Duck.
Walt Disney herself loved her talent so much that she even kept a collection of Mary’s watercolors of Peruvian children at home. Both of Walt’s daughters adored Mary. Disney is part of America’s cultural export strategy, and Mary is also involved in this special historical mission.
My gender consciousness, evolving in their animations
Mary’s own life story is quite unique, but it also reflects the common life experience of some American women at the time. She was separated from her husband during the war, and after the war she decided to follow him to the East Coast to support his new TV advertising company. Mary experienced multiple early miscarriages and finally had her first pregnancy when she was 35 years old, ten years older than the average American woman at the time had her first pregnancy. Mary experienced husband cheating and domestic violence in her marriage, but like many American women in the 1950s, she chose to stay in the marriage.
Walt Disney valued her talent, so she was specifically allowed to work remotely on the East Coast—in the age of no internet! Mary is a mother of two and a professional artist who regularly travels between New York and Los Angeles. Even across the American continent, Mary’s imaginative artistic concepts are still highly influential, shaping “Song of the South”, “Melody Time”, “Alice in Wonderland”, including when Alice fell down the rabbit hole. Unbelievable expressions on the head and feet, being locked in a bottle and floating and sinking in the eerie green ocean. She also created Cinderella from Cinderella.
Reading the female artists in Disney’s animation history is not just witnessing historical progress from their own life stories; the evolution of gender consciousness is indeed advancing step by step in their animation works.
Although I liked Cinderella very much as a child, as an adult, I was very critical of the cartoon. In my newly acquired feminist perspective, I thought that Cinderella’s slender waist and fair-haired appearance, like a Barbie doll, was a representation of a stereotype and could not truly reflect the appearance of a woman’s body. The marriage of Cinderella and the prince is even more problematic: Why do women need a “high-status” man to save them? Why is the happy ending in marriage? However, reading this book, I realized that the criticism at the time was also biased: I did not put Cinderella into the historical development of her own animation, so I could not correctly interpret the contribution of “Cinderella”.
Compared with Snow White in the previous stage, Cinderella is a very different princess character: she is not passively rescued, she is an active resistance character. Cinderella’s love story isn’t about getting a kiss in bed, it’s about escaping from her stepmother’s cellar. Moreover, Cinderella is a family leader. Not only does she lead a multi-ethnic team and is very loved, she can also integrate multiple resources and go out to capture the heart of the prince. (p.201)
The image of Cinderella is also quite prominent, and she responds to contemporary fashion through the color and design of her clothes. Cinderella put on a dress that Snow White could not wear, showing her calves and waist, showing her feminine curves. Her dress, covered with layers of ribbons and bows, also reflected the new style of clothing design that began to flourish after the war, no longer the utilitarian military uniforms and one-pieces. Even the glass slipper painted by Mary recorded a popular post-war shoe style: the high-heeled square-toed shoe. (p.218) In other words, the femininity displayed by Cinderella was an innovative look for women at the time, representing the trend of re-embracing femininity after World War II.
A Tribute to Artists Who Painted Childhood
There is no doubt that movies are an important product of human civilization; and animation is a gift to all children (and that child in all adults). “The Queens Who Made Animation” chronicles the history of Disney animation, and lays out a wonderful history of women in two intertwined narrative lines: the development of Disney and other animation companies on the one hand, and the evolution of many animation works on the other. In the process of reading this book, I have a sense of awakening from time to time, because I got to know the artists and animators better, and I got to know and enjoy Disney’s animation products more.
After reading this book, I want to read the stories of those princesses again: Cinderella, The Little Mermaid , Aladdin , Pocahontas , Mulan , Brave , Frozen . I wanted to reflect on how the women in these cartoons set an example for me as a child. I also want to pay tribute to the women artists who made them through these beautiful works. (Finish)
About the author｜ Xu Jingfang (from Kaohsiung, writer, academic worker. Currently an assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration, National Jinan University, Ph.D. , Democratic transformation and authoritarian regime. Author of Chinese essay collections “Taipei Girls”, “Willing to Bloom”, “Birth of the Epidemic”. Books and cultural reviews are scattered by reporters, Duan Media, Independent Review@Tianxia, Key Reviews, OKAPI, OpenBook.)
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