Identifying a Field of Enquiry or Context

Field of enquiry:

I'm developing an animated short film depicting multiple transgender/nonbinary/gender transgressive characters. As a nonbinary person myself I have some lived experience to provide, but if I were to depict a character affected by transmisogyny, my experiences fall short. How do I ensure that I'm representing them in a respectful manner that doesn't play on stereotypes and caricature.
A similar question emerges as I consider race, ability and class in my work. I don't want my work to be exclusively about white trans people, but I don't want to tokenise or stereotype any other minorities for my own conscience. 

Question:

How are trans and nonbinary characters/narratives represented in children's animation?
How are minorities represented in a respectful way?
How to avoid caricature and stereotyping?

Context:

Representation in media. Intersectionality. Film studies. Transgender studies. Queer theory. Race theory. Disability theory. Class theory.  

Method:

Theoretical research - interpreting theory.
Practical research - developing my own characters, writing fiction. Consulting sensitivity readers to review my writing for any unconscious biases. 

Sources to assist this research:
Books:

Halberstam, J. J. (2005) In A Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press. 

Halberstam, J. J. (2011) The Queer Art of Failure London: Duke University Press.

Peele, T. (2007) Queer Popular Culture: Literature, Media, Film, and Television. New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Pullen C. (2014) Queer Youth and Media Cultures. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Rich, B. R. (2013) New Queer Cinema: The Director’s Cut. London: Duke University Press

Sammond, N. (2015) Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation. USA: Duke University Press. 

Journal Articles:

Moore, M. E. (2019) 'Future Visions: Queer Utopia in Steven Universe', Research on Diversity in Youth Literature,  Vol. 2 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. Available at: http://sophia.stkate.edu/rdyl/vol2/iss1/5.

Chapters In Edited Books:

Enke, A. F. "Stick Figures and Little Bits: Toward a Nonbinary Pedagogy"  Trans Studies. Ed. Martinez-San Miguel, Y. and Tobias, S. USA: Rutgers University Press, 2016. pp 215-229. Digital, available at: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.36019/9780813576435-015/html.

Theses/Dissertations:

Vogt, O. M. (2019) (De)Constructed Gender And Romance In Steven Universe: A Queer 

Analysis. MSc Thesis. North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Science. (Accessed: 16 October 2021). Link

Videos:

Stuart Hall - Representation and the Media, 1997 link

Jessie Earl - Sia's Music: The Trap of Symbolic Autistic Representation, 2021. link

Popular Culture:

Cartoon Network, Steven Universe, 2013-2019. (Multiple nonbinary characters)

Dreamworks, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, 2018-2020. (Character Double Trouble)

Dreamworks, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, 2020. (Character Asher)

Themes:

Representation should not try to depict everything about a whole group at once. A "variety of characters" (Earl, 2021), or a "diversity of images" (Hall, 1997) is needed when representing marginalised groups. 

Childrens media that attempts to represent LGBT+ themes tends to get censored (Moore, 2019). 

"Doubling" is an effective method of representing multiple characters within an identity group, showcasing two or more possible ways these identities can manifest and affect a person's life, experience of the world and interaction with other people. (Halberstam, 2005). 

Growing tendency to hire nonbinary voice actors in nonbinary roles. Shep in Steven Universe is voiced by Indya Moore, a nonbinary actor and model. Double Trouble in She-Ra is voiced by Jacob Tobia, a nonbinary activist and creative.

Experimentation: Developing Scenarios and Thumnails

The task: 

Step 1: Write five very short scenarios for a very short animation from memory or personal experience. This could be a brief interaction, an observation, an overheard conversation, it could be people, nature, light, shadow, sound...

Step 2: Go out into the world and observe, find, uncover five more scenarios for a very short animation. Write them down.

Step 3: Create thumbnails, storyboards or visualisations for two of these scenarios.

Scenarios from memory:

1. Age 19, going to the park to swing on the swings with my friend. Feeling so free flying through the air. 

2. Age 6-7, my mom's in hospital. She wrote me a letter that she folded up into a heart, and where it joins there's a drawing of a heart so I know how to refold it. The letter talks about how proud she is of me for learning to read at school, and asking about what books I'm reading. 

3. Someone misgendered me in a group chat. As I was typing out my correction, someone else came through and corrected them for me, taking the weight of the interaction off my shoulders. 

4. Being 15, in cosplay at an anime convention and hearing someone yell out my character's name. I felt so excited to meet someone new who also liked the thing I liked. We talked for a while, but my friends wanted to leave. I never saw them again. 

5. It was the middle of summer. My long-distance partner was visiting. We took the picnic blanket into the garden at night because it was warm enough to do so. We were stargazing and enjoying the evening, and suddenly shooting stars began across the sky. We had been lucky enough to catch the Perseid meteor shower in action, without planning for it. 

Scenarios from life:

6. Mom with her toddler at the park shouting at two youths, throws a tennis ball at the youths, who visibly recoil. 

7. Walking to uni, saw a cat on the pavement. Called out to the cat. They watched me for a bit and jumped over a low wall. They stared at me for a bit and then ran away. 

8. Every day at the same spot in city centre, outside Sainsburys, a large crowd of pigeons gathers to eat food that people throw to them. 

9. Helped a fly escape a spider web using a pencil. The web kept sticking to the pencil, and he kept trying to fly off but was tethered. Eventually I got it loose, but his back legs were still stuck together, but I watched him fly off. I hope he can get his legs free. 

10. A lot of fireworks went off on a Friday night and it felt like the whole world was exploding. I thought about all the scared animals. 

Thumbnails:

Story 3: Someone misgendered me in a group chat. As I was typing out my correction, someone else came through and corrected them for me, taking the weight of the interaction off my shoulders. 

Story 7: Walking to uni, saw a cat on the pavement. Called out to the cat. They watched me for a bit and jumped over a low wall. They stared at me for a bit and then ran away. 

Thanks for reading!

Research: Story and Character Development for Animation

Still from Story and Character Development for Animation by Andrew Gordon and Nathan Stanton

This 15 minute course on LinkedIn Learning shows how a Pixar Story Artist, Nathan Stanton, and Directing Animator, Andrew Gordon, work together to storyboard an animated short. They show their research process in developing a film noir style story about animals in a pet shop taking on a gangster. Together they watch some films to study the style, character designs, behaviour and composition, and visit a pet store to study the behaviour of the animals and interact with them in person. 

This is an interesting approach to research, looking both at primary sources and the real world to gather inspiration and knowledge. 

Current and Future Animation Practice