Comparative Analysis Of The Character Design And Animation Style Effect On The Portrayal Of Women In Three Animated Films
I will be comparing how the character design and animation style affects the portrayal of women in three animated films - while two of these are produced by the same studio, they were directed and animated by different artists. Due to interest, I decided to pursue two films by Studio Ghibli since it introduced me to Japanese entertainment. I selected my earliest experience, "Howl's Moving Castle" and chose to analyze Sophie Hatter, the main female character, and a fairly recent one "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" where I will analyze Princess Kaguya. Due to childhood preference, I chose the Pixar film "Toy Story 3" where I will be analyzing Barbie.
Based on the British novel by Diana Wynne Jones, “Howl’s Moving Castle” is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film directed and animated by Hayao Miyazaki, one of the founders of Studio Ghibli. The movie was released in the midst of the 2003 Iraq War - a war which Miyazaki had a strong distaste for towards the Americans due to a speech by US President George W. Bush. Additionally, Miyazaki’s interest in the military, the film incorporates anti-war themes such as pacifism, emotional honesty, and maturity - these sentiments are all manifested within the characters. I will be analyzing both the animation style and character design of the main female character in the movie - Sophie Hatter.
Sophie Hatter is the main protagonist in the movie adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle. She and her family run the hat shop in their town and live quite a mundane life. Created during a time of war, this situation is depicted in the movie as well. The two kingdoms in this fictional world are at war with each other but Sophie, resembling something of a shut-in, doesn’t concern herself with the war and focuses on herself. Akimoto (2014) analyzes Sophie to believe in absolute pacifism (always avoiding war), this theory could be the basis for why she decides to live a mundane life and adopt a rather plain appearance (this is further elaborated on in the ‘visual analysis’ portion of this essay). However, her life takes a drastic turn when she is cursed with a spell that turns her into an old woman. Instead of feeling burdened by her situation, she feels as if she is freer to speak her mind and gains even more confidence throughout the film. This is reflected in a visual way as her appearance literally changes as she goes through emotional maturity and development.
“The Tale of Princess Kaguya” is a 2013 Japanese animated fantasy film directed and animated by Isao Takahata, one of the co-founders of Studio Ghibli, this was Takahata’s last directed film before he died in April 2018. The film is a modern retelling based on the 10th-century Japanese folk story The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Essentially, the narrative consists of a poor old couple who finds a girl, of believed divine descent, in a forest whom they decide to raise as a princess. Contrary to the 3D and computer dominated animation world we now live in, Takahata takes on a different yet astonishing art style. Claimed as “A visionary tour-de-force” by Variety, the film is illustrated in seemingly rough hand-drawn charcoal lines with an evocative watercolor palette, giving the film a literal picturesque feel. Unlike the Western-inspired style seen in Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle, Takahata illustrates this Japanese folktale in a way that gives its viewers the sense that they are watching a moving Japanese painting.
In an interview, Takahata states that “This technique of giving expression to the line and leaving blank spaces so that the entire surface of the painting is not filled, which engages the viewer’s imagination, is one that holds an important place not only in traditional paintings of China and Japan but also in sketches in Western drawings. What I have done is to attempt to bring this technique to animation. ” This animation style seems to hold a parallelism to the traditional Japanese paintings which is why this deviation from modern anime conventions could be perceived as a call for animators to revisit their cultural roots. While the film is visually beautiful, there is an implicit meaning that Takahata aims to reveal to the viewers.
In an interview with Film4, Takahata explains his reasoning behind his choice to pursue this innovative animation style, he states that “. . . things have progressed more and more toward the 3D format, and I still think that it’s very worthy to have hand-drawn lines. Of course, I think there are very good works that are done in 3D such as Toy Story 1 and 2, which I think are wonderfully done, but I really dislike 3D movement, so I wanted to focus on the lines. ” In the film, while Princess Kaguya is constantly presented and mentioned as beautiful, she is never drawn in explicit detail - leaving the audience the freedom to fantasize while also emphasizing the film’s motif of simplicity.
“Toy Story 3” is the third installment of Pixar and Walt Disney’s “Toy Story”. It is an American 3D computer-animated comedy-drama released in 2010. With Toy Story’s release in 1995 as the first-ever fully computer-generated film, its successors had quite a reputation to uphold. They (Pixar) wanted to create a third movie that would not only continue the story but a film that would create an emotional attachment to its viewers and push themselves to do even better.
Similar to other Pixar films such as The Incredibles, Cars, Wall-E, Monsters Inc. , etc. Toy Story 3 centers on a majority of male characters which is why I wanted to analyze a female character: Barbie. Stereotypically, she is thought of to be an air-head as she adheres to the ‘dumb blonde’ aesthetic that is further intensified by her love of fashion and her hyper-feminine representation. In the movie, she is one of the toys that Andy’s sister no longer wants. When the toys are donated to the Sunnyside Daycare, she immediately falls in love with Ken who reciprocates.
Barbie has a very minimal role in the film, as said earlier the movie heavily centers around male characters such as Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Mr. Potato Head (while Mrs. Potato Head is also present in the movie, she undeniably has less screen time than her male counterpart). Technology-wise, Pixar tackled a lot of other films such as Monsters Inc, where they had to computer-generated fur, Finding Nemo, where they had to create water, and Up, where they had to create realistic humans. By the time Toy Story 3 was being made, Pixar and Lee Unkrich, its director, had gone through a lot and had the goal to create everything as realistically as possible.
