In the 1930s and ’40s, if an aspiring female animator wanted to work at Disney — then one of the few games in town — she would find herself relegated to the studio’s ink and paint department, where she would be limited to tracing and coloring the work of an all-male animation team. “Women,” reads one rejection letter from the time, “do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen.
Years later, in 1961, Walt Disney co-founded California Institute of the Arts, a school intended to be a feeder to Disney and the industry. In the 1970s and ’80s, CalArts went on to attract some of animation’s most influential names. There were Tim Burton and Brad Bird , Henry Selick and John Lasseter, chief creative officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. Annie Leibovitz memorialized them in a 2014 photo for— 17 men in all.
Thinkers at CalArts aren’t stopping at numerical equity, though; they’re calling out the industry’s worst offenses at the school’s annual symposium on gender bias in animation, “The Animated Woman.” Originated by Erica Larsen-Dockray, a professor in the experimental animation program, the conference grew out of her class of the same name, where students discuss everything from the narrow range of female cartoon characters to unrealistic body types.
One solution that Larsen-Dockray is advocating may sound familiar: Build a more diverse workplace. CalArts is uniquely positioned to help do just that. TV and film execs regularly attend student screenings and “portfolio days” at the school; connections also come through faculty members, several of whom are in the business. Chapman, who appeared in thatphoto, became the first woman to win a Best Animated Feature Oscar for her work on Pixar’s.
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Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »