COP2 Weekly Update (Week Commencing: 18/11/19)

At the beginning of the week, I had a one to one with my lecturer.

Later on in the week, I worked on expanding my essay, by triangulating some primary and secondary research. One being a film I watched at MAF and the other, a blog I came across while researching my topic.


Recently, Netflix released a Christmas film titled 'Klaus' (2019) which is one of the brilliant examples of varied character design from this decade. Each female design is unique; it doesn't suffer from "sameface syndrome" which many films released within this generation have done, including those produced by highly respected corporations such as Disney. Every design in 'Klaus' is distinctive and provides an insight into the character's personality. This extra context helps the audience to understand each character's motives, backgrounds and actions better, and also provides a refreshing adaptation of a story the audience should be familiar with. While the designs are all varied in regards to: body types, face shapes, ages, etc. this doesn't stunt the viewer's enjoyment of the film. On the contrary, the style suits the tone of the story perfectly and every character is still aesthetically pleasing to look at.

While 'Klaus' demonstrates an understanding of the importance of representing a variety of body types and face shapes, alternatively, there are still major films that do not. Tumblr user Turbomun was shocked and disappointed after finding out the posters that were released for 'Frozen' (2013) were official, after being convinced that they were fake, "I seriously believed that someone […] had photomanipulated some screenshots of Rapunzel and tried to pass them off as the official Frozen designs". They argued that the female characters in Disney's recent cache of films such as 'Frozen' (2013) and 'Tangled' (2010) all had the exact same features, "the same facial structure, the same eyes, the same nose, the same mouth... and while we're at it, the same body too" and this became even more discouraging after seeing how much potential the original concept art had to offer.

They criticised this trend, calling it "disturbing" and argued that it is more prevalent when analysing female designs than the male counterparts. They do note however that designing a character that is skinny and/or pretty isn't where the issue lies, as it's an artist's job to exaggerate certain features that represent certain traits. The aim isn't to eradicate stereotypically pretty designs all together, but there is a problem when films, particularly those that are directed at a young and impressionable audience, continuously, and arguably subconsciously, promote an unrealistic and unhealthy body image as the most desirable while always depicting the evil characters as fat and ugly, "the problem doesn't occur when a character is given a small waist or large head, it occurs when design after design after design portrays these traits as the height of beauty".

Compare this recent trend of character designs to that of the 1980s. Has there been an evolution or are we still producing the same results?


Bibliography:

Klaus (2019) Directed by S. Pablos [Film]. Spain: Sergio Pablos Animation Studios.


I also collected the results of my survey.

Then, I typed up my conclusion.

Throughout the week, I continued to work on some paintings in my sketchbook.