Yes, it is ...
Showing posts with label Alexandra Bowman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexandra Bowman. Show all posts
Friday, June 28, 2024
Wednesday, May 01, 2024
Announcing the new John Locher Memorial Fellowship winner Alexandra Bowman
Announcing the new John Locher Memorial Fellowship
by JP Trostle
For 35 years, the AAEC's John Locher Memorial Award spotlighted college-age and early-career cartoonists across North America. Named after the late son of Dick and Mary Locher, the AAEC created the award to help discover young cartoonists and encourage interest in editorial cartooning among students — and it worked.
Over a dozen winners of the annual contest went on to staff jobs at daily newspapers, and three eventually won the Pulitzer Prize. As the landscape for political cartooning shifted, the award expanded in 2015 to recognize a variety of new approaches to the form, from animated political cartoons to graphic journalism, and comics essays on history and current events.
In recent years, the Locher team continued to look for ways to evolve to best support budding cartoonists, including options other than a contest format. After a gap year, and discussions among the Locher Advisory Committee and the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists is happy to announce the first John Locher Memorial Fellowship.
This year's recipient is Alexandra Bowman.
Bowman is a political cartoonist, journalist, and satirist based in Washington, DC. She served as the editorial cartoonist for the political action committee The Lincoln Project during the 2020 election, and later drew for the John Kerry and John Kasich-founded environmental organization World War Zero. Her cartoons been published by BBC News, the National Wildlife Federation, and Penguin Random House UK. She also works as a costume designer and arts and culture writer.
More of Alex's work can be found here: https://www.alexandrabowmanart.com/
Kevin Necessary, the new Locher Fellowship manger, said, "The Fellowship shares much of the same framework as the Award — an all-expenses-paid trip to a cartoonist convention, a cash prize, and the support and mentoring from fellow cartoonists — but removes the contest element and changes the destination to the annual Cartoon Crossroads Columbus Festival."
The Locher Fellow will be a guest of the CXC Festival, held every fall in September or October, and will receive a one-year Regular membership in the AAEC. They will also have the opportunity to meet with AAEC cartoonists during the year of the Fellowship for portfolio reviews and career advice.
JP Trostle, the Minister of Information for the AAEC, noted, "Much of the language of the structure of the new Fellowship came from Paul Tarr, a current AAEC Director and the second winner of the Locher Award back in 1988, which gave the process a feeling of coming full circle."
Alexandra Bowman will be at the CXC Festival in Columbus, Ohio, September 26-29. Complete details about the new Fellowship can be found at https://locheraward.org/ For questions, contact Kevin Necessary at kev.necessary@gmail.com.
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Meet an Icelandic cartoonist: A Chat with Animator Gísli Darri Halldórsson, part 2
(continued from part 1)
Alexandra Bowman: So what do you hope that people come away from this film thinking? How do you hope that their daily lives change?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: I hope people will look at their own life and their daily life, you know? That's why I've made this film for myself. Somebody told me, and I really took that comment kindly, is that somebody said that the film had just felt like a hug.
Alexandra Bowman: I was looking at the comments on YouTube and the comments are beautiful. You should read them, if you haven't already. Someone said, “This really hit me hard. I feel this is what life is. We're a bunch of lonely people who are just trying to get along together. And this film kind of shows that amidst all the sadness we're going to keep progressing.”
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: It's funny because it seems like nothing's going on, but somebody said there's a lot of movies about Marvel superheroes saving the world but it feels like this is the battle of the everyday people, just people, who have normal jobs. And this is the biggest thing, how do I make life a bit more meaningful?
Alexandra Bowman: Realistically, like these are the battles we’re all are going to be fighting. There's so many definitions and concepts of what it means to see yourself on screen, but this is very much a way for everyday people to see things that they might not expect to be cinema-worthy on screen, in terms of “Wow, this is something that other people are dealing with and these are interesting kind of conflicts all their own as well.” How did you develop the humor in this film? Because there are a couple moments that are pretty dang funny.
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: I don't know how to answer that…
Alexandra Bowman: Did you get it instantly or did you have to like think it through?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Some of them, some of those things have happened. I've seen a moment. I've seen an old man break wind and his wife go “Eww.” I knew I definitely wanted to have it light because I knew it was a really dull subject matter and it was going to be not very exciting. I was trying to go for the silent film format where you don't cut a lot. You don't have that relief, because that didn't seem right with that subject matter. [The film has] one still camera and it doesn't move or anything. So I knew it needed to be light. In fact, during the writing process, my grandparents died and they came into the story. When people die, you just suddenly see the big picture of their life as well. That's kind of what really inspired me about their life - they were married for 65 years or so. I know they got on each other's nerves and stuff like that, but they just had this unbelievable way to turn something into a game, or just make a life out of things. I guess maybe that's what you learn over time, kind of rebelling against the mundaneness. I don't know…
Alexandra Bowman: Rebelling against it, but almost reveling in it and seeing the beauty in it at the same time, maybe rebelling against thinking about the mundane is mundane.
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: It's just like a twist in attitude. This person may annoy me, but we can have fun. I don't know, that's not the right way to say it.
Alexandra Bowman: This is in a way, even though it's so “every day,” and even though it seems boring and unexciting and regular at the time, there a beauty in it, and it probably is different, in terms of what that beauty is for everybody. But there is beauty there.
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Yes, a little bit refusing to take part in this everyday-ness, you know, without having fun, your own fun, something like that. So I'm really happy because I did, even though the characters aren't really them, the energy between them is from my grandparents really.
Alexandra Bowman: So what will you be doing on Oscar night?
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Gísli Darri Halldórsson: I'll be in LA. I'm going to LA soon and we'll be quarantining until the ceremony. So I'm looking forward to that. Obviously if I'm COVID positive, I won't be going. [laughs]
Alexandra Bowman: So you're going to be in the Oscar auditorium then. When your film gets nominated, what does that look like? Do you get an email or…
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: I just have to watch the live show and then you get an email later after that.
Alexandra Bowman: You don't get anything in advance? You find out that your film got nominated at the same time as the rest of the world?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Yeah. Also when it was shortlisted, it was the same. I heard they I think I have Price Waterhouse Cooper to hold the envelope of the results, so nobody knows apparently who wins and stuff.
Alexandra Bowman: How do you submit a film to the Oscars?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Well, it has to be eligible, so they have a rigorous process. You have to go through to make it eligible. And to be honest, I have to say, I was just happy that it was eligible. That was my peak. And then I got nominated and I'm on cloud nine.
Alexandra Bowman: What makes a film eligible? Is it length requirements or what does that look like?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Yeah, a lot of requirements. It has to win in a certain film festival or be screened in a major city for a week in the cinema. Some other ones - obviously the year counts as well.
Alexandra Bowman: What do you hope wins the best animated feature Oscar? Do you have preference for those?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: I've seen Soul. It's beautiful. I really like it. I have a three-year old, so I haven't been able to see a movie in a long time. I managed squeezing Soul there, but I'm hoping to use the time in quarantine to see them. Cartoon Saloon did WolfWalkers. I'm always a fan of them. I went to the same college as the founders of that studio.
Alexandra Bowman: Speaking of filmmaking, what is your
next project?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Oh, I have a few. I'm not sure which one is next. I think after this Oscar discotheque I'll know better, but I have a book that I want to do that’s almost ready. And I have a TV series and a live-action film and an animated film.
Alexandra Bowman: Any sneak peaks or into what they're about?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: No. I burned myself on this before, about revealing something too soon that takes a bit of the edge in your head about it. I've learned that hard lesson before, but believe me, I want to say it…
Alexandra Bowman: Do you have anything else that you want to say to the masses about filmmaking or inspiration or art, creativity, any of that?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: I don't know. I don't think so. Probably when I'm in bed tonight, I’ll go “Aha! I have this golden nugget that I could have shared.”
[End part 2, as the conversation turns to Georgetown University and basketball…]
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Meet an Icelandic cartoonist: A Chat with Animator Gísli Darri Halldórsson, part 1
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Georgetown University student Bowman interviewed the Icelandic cartoonist Gísli Darri Halldórsson as his short movie Yes-People is nominated for an Academy Award (it's online at the New Yorker's site). They spoke via Zoom for the Hilltop Show on April 12, 2021 (and the video will be appearing there soon) and the edited transcript follows the press release background information (so we don’t have to rephrase all of the information on Halldórsson’s career.)
Gísli Darri Halldórsson’s animated short film YES-PEOPLE shares a story about an eclectic mix of people finding a way to cope with life’s daily struggles. After premiering at the Minimalen Short Film Festival in Norway, the film went on to win numerous awards and has just been Oscar® Nominated for the 93rd Academy Awards® in the Animated Short Film category. Icelandic Animator and storyteller Gísli Darri Halldórsson graduated with a BA (hons) from the Irish School of Animation (Dublin). He has been a professional animator since 2007. Notable films he worked on include the Oscar nominated short GRANNY O’GRIMM’S SLEEPING BEAUTY, the Oscar nominated short THE ROOM ON THE BROOM and Bafta award winning TV-series THE AMAZING WORLD OF GUMBALL.
Gísli has also worked in live-action doing storyboards for Nordic noir series TRAPPED (Series 1) and Icelandic feature films such as VULTURES and I REMEMBER YOU. His narrative music videos such as WHATEVER by Leaves, received a nomination for best music video at the EDDA Awards (The Icelandic Film & TV Academy) and THE GREAT UNREST by Mugison received best music video of the year at the Icelandic Music Awards.
Just some of the accolades YES-PEOPLE has received include the Best European Short Film at the Wierd International Animation Film Festival in Spain, the Children's Choice Award Nordic Youth Category at Nordisk Panorama in Sweden, the Best Nordic-Baltic Short Film at the Frederikstad Animation Festival in Norway, the Audience Award at Uppsala Short Film Festival in Sweden and many more.
YES-PEOPLE was written and directed by Gísli Darri Halldórsson produced by Arnar Gunnarsson as well as Halldórsson for the production companies CAOZ and Hólamói. Just some of Gunnarsson’s work includes the animated TV Series’ TREASURE TREKKERS, TALKING TOM AND FRIENDS, ELISA: RESCUE TEAM ADVENTURES, the animated feature LEGENDS OF VALHALLA and more. International sales are being handled by Magnetfilm. The film was supported by the Icelandic Film Centre.
Alexandra Bowman: I am sitting down today with filmmaker Gísli Darri Halldórsson, the director of the animated short film, Yes-People which has just been nominated for best animated short film at the Oscars, the 93rd Academy awards. Thank you so much for sitting down with me. I'm so excited to hear from you about how this film was made.
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Alexandra Bowman: How did you develop the concept for this film - in which the idea is that people use one word, a minimum amount of communication to go about their daily lives, and express a whole range of emotions and feelings and situations to each other?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: So a long time ago I was talking to my Irish friends and I was explaining to them this concept of the Icelandic “Yes” which is “Já,” and how it's ridiculous how often it’s used in Icelandic everyday speech to the point where our neighbors and Faroe islands call us the Yes people. They were just laughing at it, and it just got me thinking about a film with only one word. And then I started thinking about the semi-silent film format, which is I'm sure it has been done before, but I really wanted to pursue that. Animation is a performance that has a lot of gestures, and you control over every single pixel, so you can really be pretty polished with the performance. At the same time, I was also obsessed with routines and habits and I was sort of terrified about living my life in a loop and not growing at all. I kind of married those two ideas together. I thought it would help to have characters who are living their life in a loop and they can only say one word as well. So it was a marriage of the two ideas. I feel like the yes thing is like butter and the habit routine thing is like the bread underneath.
Alexandra Bowman: Did you start making this before or after March 20,20? When did you start making it?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: The seed, the conversation with my friends was in 2012. So yeah, in2013 I started writing and designing the thing, but yeah, there was like a five-year period of just finding tiny pockets of time between freelance jobs to work on it. I got a production grant from the Icelandic film center and worked on it until the end of 2019. Yeah. So it was completely a coincidence that it kind of fits with the COVID situation. I think it has another level maybe that was not planned.
Alexandra Bowman: It's interesting to hear you talk about it in terms of the loop, because for me, at least living at home has really showed me the little habits and ruts that I tend to get into. The pandemic emphasized all the little things in life that you might not notice when you're kind of stuck in your own world. What have you been doing over the last year and how has it helped your creative process?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: I was following the film and it did really well in film festivals. It’s gone into a lot of lovely festivals, but I didn't manage to see it at all with an audience except in Iceland, which was a lovely experience. And yeah, that's a lot of work. I think there's probably more work doing the online … the COVID festival work. I don't know. It seems like it seems like more work somehow. But, I was working also offsite for a London based animation studio called Blue Zoo on show called Paddington …
Alexandra Bowman: Paddington! Are you serious? Oh, I'm a big fan. Big fan. Big. I have a plush Paddington right here…
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: It’s a lovely show from Nickelodeon. They're doing a really good job. Now I'm on another show, but I guess that's, that's been the benefit for me in the COVID situation. Remote work has been more for me, because I live in Iceland and there's not a lot of animation work on offer. I was kind of living my life in a bubble, like in the COVID situation, because I was working a lot from home before, even as early as 2009. So maybe that's why I started thinking about this because there was a lot of just being in the house, working.
Alexandra Bowman: Because you have been doing this longer than any of us, you gave us a preview of what it would look like. How do you typically look for inspiration for your work? What gives you the creative spark?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: I feel like inspiration just happens. Something comes in front of me and I go, “Wow.” I think for this film, it was a very long time project. You know, if you have an inspiration to do a film, you can you can lose momentum. And I think a lot of films end up that way; it becomes a chore. I think there's a lot of unfinished films and books and all that, but I think what helped me is obsession. Finding an obsession and an inspiration, because there you have a natural tendency of the brain to go somewhere and it seems unresolved. So far that's my wisdom.
Alexandra Bowman: Because you're already thinking about something so much. You probably dwell on it a lot and explore it and think about the nooks and crannies and the ideas. So it would be easy to go and make a whole movie about it. What did you consider while designing the characters in this film? Because they have that kind of beautiful rubber-hose stylized look, but they're also in a hyper realistically-rendered world. And I always think that juxtaposition is really interesting.
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: So actually, the world is photographs. It's animated against photographs, but I know what you mean. It looks almost unreal because I took [out] all the color and I recolored them, which makes them slightly less like photographs. And there are some props in there that are 3D, but the reason I chose that style is that I wanted to have that feeling of… there's something about those sort of caricatures that for me, they're like interpretations of a spirit as well. It’s almost like the spirit version of a person. And I just wanted to have that sort of characters that seem to have a lot of potential and they're stuck in this real world. So that was the idea - to emphasize their stuckness. They don't quite sit in their world.
Alexandra Bowman: Right, you want stylistic contrast between the people and then the world that they're living in? What did the process look like as you developed the characters from like beginning to end? Does it start with a sketch maybe?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Some of the characters that are
based on people that I know. And I think a few of them have realized this, but
they're not completely the character, sometimes it's just the look and the
person[ality] might come from someone else. I tried to avoid arbitrary
designing. I tried to have something as an anchor. So for instance, the bitter
alcoholic lady, she has a huge hairstyle. I started off from, “Oh yeah, I want
this person to be kind of like living in a dark cloud so big that, you know,
nobody can approach her really, unless she has her hair in her curlers.” Then
there was the music teacher who was based on a bird, like this idea of somebody
who likes to sing naturally. Those sort of just little things. There was always
one idea, just as a starting point.
Alexandra Bowman: How many drafts do you usually go through for one character?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: I can't say. Some were really easy. The music teacher was really quick and really hit and there was one character, the old man, he was too similar to the fat person in the film. I didn't want people to go like, “Oh, who's this guy?” I also tried to make them a different color or different from each other, so you just immediately know, so I had to redesign him quite a bit. And so I can't really say how long it takes; it's such a hard thing to measure that nebulous five-year period where I was just working. Sometimes I was working for nine months and I couldn't do anything on the film, and then I'd get like a month to work on it, so it was hard to say.
Alexandra Bowman: My vantage point as a 21-year-old, currently taking some animation classes, might be hard for people like myself who are used to the social media model of “you produce something, you post it, you produce something, you post it” kind of like feeding the beast, feeding the algorithm. Do you have to fight that in yourself? I finished a little short film a while back, but it was tough for me to work on something for that several month-long period of time.
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Absolutely. It is tough. I'd say
I came from the blog generation, so I was posting drawings and stuff on my
blog, and there was no “likes” or stuff like that. It wasn't as addictive in
terms of, “Oh, how are people liking this one?” Right. But still you check the
weekly hits and stuff, so I definitely know exactly what you're talking about.
I really thought, “I really enjoy doing this blog. It's great for my visual
development and my thinking, but I'd really like to do a long-term [piece]. All
the work that's gone into this blog could have been a film as well.” I think
really the key was finding the inspiration in the obsession. I just remember
thinking, “I know it's going to take a long time to make the film. I really
need to find something or work with something that I know is going to have the
oil to last.” And it was hard. It was a hard film to finish, but I think the
key for me was I always had a sense of meaning, because I was working on
something that was quite close to me and something that I was concerned with,
and interested in.
Alexandra Bowman: What would be your words of advice to a college student or recent graduate who has always been interested in filmmaking, but hasn't quite gotten the boost to go make their own film? What would you say to them to help get them off the couch and into their little studio?
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: First of all, I would say not everybody needs to make a film. I think it's also finding your voice. What do you really want to do? I think a lot of artists, really talented artists, they think about their ideal self and think, “Oh, I should do a film,” but try first, listen to your real self. What do you really want? It's really hard, because our environment is constantly telling us what we should do. There's so many little systems that are tricking us and seducing us into this. But a part of, you know, the subject matter of the film is talking about what do you do with your every day? It's like looking at a huge painting that's either beautiful or sad or horrific, but if you go zoom in on a tiny square, it's completely meaningless and it's ugly, or it's dull and it doesn't have any meaning. But if you know the big picture, it is actually a really important part of that picture obviously, and that's how I think I view habits and routines. T might be helpful for younger people or anybody actually, who wants to do something over a long period. I read a book, I I'm sorry, I can't remember the name, but it was some reporter or journalist who had gathered all these habits and routines of politicians and scientists and artists. It was just like a little book like that. And it was super interesting to see their day-to-day life. It was really dull, but the work that these people produced! It was all the big artists such as Picasso and all these people had some really funny routines. Gertrude Stein apparently liked to go every morning with her girlfriends to the countryside to sit in front of a cow and write.
Alexandra Bowman: (laughing) They're serene. They are inspirational. I aspire to that level of peace.
Alexandra Bowman: Last year at the start of quarantine, I challenged myself to draw one cat every day in April. And just because I would feel bad for skipping a year, I'm doing that again this year. Even after a week, I feel like I've improved and I already draw most days. But for some reason, focusing deeply on something over the long term or doing something little every day helps add up.
Gísli Darri Halldórsson: Your mental health is just also for your happiness, to have meaning in your life. There's nothing sadder than just thinking, “What did I do last week? Like what was I doing?” and there's nothing, you know?
Alexandra Bowman: Yeah. I kind of enjoy looking back at my Instagram and what I've drawn and thought, “This is evidence that I existed, just to myself. Maybe it probably won't be remembered in 50 years or whatever, but at least I know that I was alive and I was thinking and creative and used this time.” I think that's really interesting.
(continued in part 2)
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
July 23: Clay Jones on Hilltop Show crowdcast
Townhall On The Hilltopby clayjonz |
I'm taking part in a podcast tomorrow on Facebook with the Hilltop Show from Georgetown University. It's titled: A Townhall on Free Speech and Expression in America. It's hosted by my friend Alexandra Bowman and the other guest is Georgetown associate professor Christine Fair. If you visit the link and click the "Going" button tabby thingy, I'll love you forever ever.
Saturday, July 04, 2020
Alexandra Bowman talks to India's "Wade" animation directors
"Wade" Co-Directors on Discussing Climate Change Through 2D Animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nNKLXQZkK4&t=1s
"Wade" Co-Directors on Animation Inspiration, Production, and Self-Distribution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWWjJfPMxlk&t=2s
"Ghost Animation" Co-Founders on Creating an Animation Studio, and Animating for Amazon and Google https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13X3_mGkGI8&t=2s
From the press release -
Upamanyu Bhattacharyya and Kalp Sanghvi's 'Wade' addresses the dangerous sea rising levels in Kolkata, India
Upamanyu Bhattacharyya and Kalp Sanghvi's Wade addresses the importance of climate change by focusing on the dangerous sea rising levels in India. This stunning animation will be screening online as part of Annecy International Animated Film Festival in June and Palm Springs International Shortfest also in June where it will be competing for the Best of the Festival Award and Best Animated Short.
In an imagined future where Kolkata is rendered unlivable by rising sea level, things take a dark turn when a family of climate change refugees are ambushed by a tiger in the flooded streets.
Co-director Upamanyu Bhattacharyya is an animator, filmmaker, comic artist and illustrator. Upamanyu co-directed the highly acclaimed short film Wade with Kalp Sanghvi. As a founding partner of Ghost Animation in Kolkata, he has worked on a wide range of animation and illustration projects for clients including Google, Amazon, and Penguin. Bhattacharyya worked on the title sequence for acclaimed director Mani Ratnam's film OK Kanmani, storyboarded his other film Kaatru Veliyidai and has also worked with Academy Award winning composer A.R. Rahman to create storyboards for his VR project Le Musk. Currently, he is finishing his work on his next solo animated short Ten, a dark comedy about the mass exodus from Bangladesh in 1971 and is developing his animated feature City of Threads, set in Ahmedabad in the 1960's.
Co-director Kalp Sanghvi is also an animation filmmaker and illustrator who co-founded Ghost Animation in Kolkata in 2015. He has worked on various animation and illustration projects for clients including Amazon and Sony Entertainment India. Kalp has worked on title sequences for feature films including acclaimed director Umesh Shukla's 102 Not Out, featuring Amitabh Bachchan & Rishi Kapoor. He is developing his first animated series Rajbari: The Ancestral House, a fantasy family drama set in Kolkata and working on an animated short film about tiger conservation in collaboration with the Wildlife Trust of India called Remains.
Wade has currently applied to over 60 festivals and its selections so far include Palm Springs International Short Fest, Brooklyn Film Festival (Best Film, Audience Award), ITFS Stuttgart, Krakow Film Festival, Animayo Film Festival (Best Art Direction) and OFF Odense International Film Festival.
This film screened online as part of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 15th to June 30th and won the "City of Annecy" Award and at Palm Springs International ShortFest on June 16th to June 22nd.
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Please Don't Cancel Zootopia: An Editorial
In light of the renewed conversation about racism in our country after the death of George Floyd, another sub-discussion has emerged. Works of art, films, and media properties with subjects relevant to the events of the past few weeks are being reexamined--and the 2016 Disney film Zootopia has once again become a topic of discussion.
The film famously attempted to tackle about 45 social and political issues. It seems, at first glance, that racism is the one central issue to the film, but closer analysis of the filmmakers’ intentions and the film’s storyline itself prove that the film is not centrally anti-racist, but anti-bias. And the reason for this, as I’ll explain, is to help explain bias to children from a bird’s-eye view, and should not be condemned for its mission--to help teach the very young to seek out and eliminate prejudice within themselves.
“You certainly look at the world through a different lens after telling a story like this… Maybe I can do better. Maybe I’m looking at things the wrong way. I’ve been thinking about how to have those conversations [about bias] with my kids… the process of the movie has already changed how I talk to them, and how I want them to hopefully perceive the world differently,” stated co-director Jared Bush.
“I think in my own family. When I look at my little boy, I see a very Asian face. I first and foremost want to instill that he should be proud of who he is no matter what. You know, this world, it’s not easy to not be white. So, as much kind of inner strength and inner confidence and belief that he can do anything is what I want to instill. I hope this movie is part of that,“ says co-head of Story Josie Trinidad.
While some may argue that what the filmmakers intended to do doesn’t matter, and that the thing they ultimately created speaks for itself while their motives in creating the film are of little-to-no relevance, given that recent attacks on Zootopia have been leveled toward its creators--attacks that accuse them of being insensitive in their discussion of complex issues within the film and putting forth a sloppy, incomplete product--it is important that these creators’ intentions be publicized. According to their words, they intended to create a piece of popular art encouraging tolerance.
When talking about Zootopia in 2020, in light of new and complex conversations about racism, we have to realize what Zootopia is.
In Part Three of the behind-the-scenes featurettes, the filmmakers speak about and show clips from an ABC documentary released in 1970, called The Eye of the Storm, in which a teacher of a class of white children conducts a social experiment with her students. She has half of her students put on small black collars. The teacher immediately set rules and limitations for those children to abide by that were intended to be perceived instantly as unfair. Later that day, the teacher gave students an academic test, and the students who wore collars performed significantly worse having been told that they were inferior. Some students even broke down crying over their new inferior social status.
The teacher states in the documentary that she hoped to teach these children about the arbitrariness of racism. The filmmakers explain that this documentary was deeply influential for them in creating the film, not only for themselves in thinking about that arbitrariness of societally-imposed labels, but also with regard to the impact that can come from teaching young children about bias in ways they can understand.
The filmmakers were inspired by the problem of racism to create a film about bias. They did not, however, seek to create a film about racism, nor to create a film explaining it.
Bias is just one element of racism, and racism is just one kind of bias. Zootopia is ambitious to a fault, seemingly attempting to tackle tokenism, police brutality, regionalism, sexism, racial slurs, and racism more broadly. These are all issues and behaviors that result from the problem of bias. Racism is, of course, incredibly complex, and so is bias. But the concept at the center of bias--assuming something about someone based on their appearance or observable traits, is slightly easier to boil down for the sake of a kids’ film.
Producer Clark Spencer spoke about the need to simplify, which came with an enormous sense of responsibility. “On this film more than any other, this has been a very difficult story to nail down,” he said. “We were dealing with this important topic, and it needed to be told in a very elegant way… it’s a responsibility. They shouldn’t all be enormous ideas, but there should be something very optimistic and very hopeful in our storytelling that allows kids, teenagers, adults, to relate to that story and makes them think about something.”
This is a movie intended to teach children about loving your neighbor and being able to recognize bias in yourself. It is about avoiding relying on generalizations about the many that will cause you to create conclusions about the individual. It is not, at least directly, about racism.
“In this world, predator and prey have figured out a way to coexist in the same city. But what we’re going to find out is that coexistence isn’t as utopian as you might think. There is truly a problem in the city And that is the fundamental part that gets to the idea of bias, about two groups that assume something about somebody else,” says Spencer.
Exactly. Zootopia creates a problem in a fictional world--that predator and prey animals must now live together in coexistence, and it isn’t working as well as the city’s Thomas More-derived name would suggest, as the film quickly demonstrates. Then it uses that very fictional problem--that revolves around, remember, talking animals not getting along--to allude to macrocosmic issues plaguing the human world today.
The conflict within Zootopia’s story alludes to the problem of racism, but any direct ties between Zootopia’s story about bias and the ongoing problem of racism in the United States are overextrapolations. Zootopia does not appear to stake its plot on the delineations between individual animal species--it draws its main distinctions between predators and prey. If the filmmakers sought to make a film with direct, literal statements about race to be carried literally into our human, 21st-century lives, they will have made a film that suggests there are only two races of human beings. It feels safe to assume that, if someone managed to work their way up to the best animation studio in the world, this is not something they believe.
Jared Bush comments on this universality in Part Three of the documentary. “I think that’s one of the biggest things for us. It’s not a specific group it’s not a specific race, it’s not a gender, it’s none of those things. It’s simply two groups that do not get along, and one group that’s feeling lesser than… For me, in thinking about what are we trying to say--it should feel universal.”
Ultimately, the people who made Zootopia set out to tell a basic animal fable about bias, are following in the steps of a tradition as old as Aesop. It is unreasonable to throw out a film, or no longer be willing to learn from it or be entertained by it holistically as a work of art, because it doesn’t perfectly accomplish its many goals.
Zootopia is not intended to teach about racism specifically, but if a parent wants to use the film in a dinner conversation with young children about events going on in the United States right now, it is certainly a good introduction for very young children to these profound struggles and issues plaguing our world. And Zootopia should not by any means be the only thing a parent shows their child to teach them about racism.
And for those of us who are no longer children living in this complex world, Zootopia is an entertaining film that reminds us to be tolerant of those who are different from us, who we might expect to be one way but are in reality another.
“In this world of animals, where the animals are so different from one another, those things that are common are where they find that connection, and realize, ‘You’re not so different from me,’” stated Howard. “You may look different from me, you were brought up differently, but in the end, we all care about the same things. And we all deserve the respect that we want from each other. We all deserve to be happy in our lives. We deserve love, we deserve equality. And that’s why I think these movies are so powerful, because they are modern fables. We’re able to talk about things that are very very difficult, and we’re able to bring into conversation things that are kind of awkward to talk about. But that’s what the film is about.”
It is also unreasonable to expect Disney to set out to make a film under the umbrella of the Aesop’s Fable model and capture every piece of nuance regarding one of the biggest social issues plaguing our world today. No filmmaker would walk into creating a movie with the intent of “explaining racism.” It would be wrong of their audience to accuse them of doing so. Further, to say that the filmmakers failed to create a way to explain racism to children is to assume “explaining racism” what they sought out to do.
If Zootopia wanted to perhaps shield itself from the critique that it oversimplifies—a critique that, perhaps surprisingly, only one Rotten Tomatoes reviewer leveled upon the film’s release in 2016—it could have put an explanatory statement before its opening scene. Dreamworks’ 1998 film The Prince of Egypt, opened with a black title card and the following in white text:
“The motion picture you are about to see is an adaptation of the Exodus story. While artistic and historical license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values, and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. The biblical story of Moses can be found in the book of Exodus.”
Zootopia could have said something that would convey the following, “This is a family movie about a complex issue. We took artistic license—not only to make the story more entertaining when adapted into a film, but also to keep that film to a 90-minute runtime. This film is about a serious subject that is foundational to the lives of millions, but we believe this captures the ESSENCE of, or an introduction to, the story we want to tell.”
However, the film’s unspoken premise arguably serves in place of that statement. Zootopia is a Disney film, about talking animals, descended from the Aesop’s fable, intended for children. Animal fables have been used for centuries--think Aesop telling “The Fox and the Grapes” in the sixth century BCE--to simplify issues to teach children moral lessons. By definition, a fable is a simplification of an idea, simplified for the benefit of children who come of age in a complex world and must gradually come to understand complex ideas.
Clark Spencer mentions in Part Three of the documentary that the Disney team actually hired Dr. Shakti Butler, President and Founder of World Trust Educational Services, as a diversity consultant and advisor. Butler speaks about what she hoped Zootopia would accomplish with its immense reach as a Disney film:
“Disney’s role in creating culture is profound,” says Butler. “Culture teaches you who you are, where your place is in the world. And a lot of it is implicit. So if I go to school, and I see all the former principals are all white and they’re all male, I’m learning about power. If you’re going to create a society that’s equitable, you can’t do it without changing culture. And so when we shift culture, and children can see themselves inside of a story, and that they can play all different kinds of roles. That degree of flexibility is very important. Prejudice, of course, is something that everybody has. But where does prejudice come from? It comes from the ways that we are taught to be biased. And those two elements are linked together. And they’re also linked to the larger system of inequity.”
The way the film works with the image of the police force is certainly up for debate. It is at least worth noting that the filmmakers made the issue of bias central to its look at the police as well. Judy Hopps begins the film with the explicit goal of “wanting to make the world a better place” while not realizing her own bias, and then spends the rest of the movie realizing it in the context of her role as a police officer, and helps the rest of the force realize their own prejudice. At a minimum, this is a good step. After all, isn’t that one of the ultimate goals of the current conversation about policing in this country? To help officers realize bias within themselves and manage it?
Some have argued that Zootopia paints an entirely positive picture of police--which ignores Judy’s character arc and key moments in the storyline. In the middle of the film, Chief Bogo, a water buffalo (i.e. prey animal), says of Nick Wilde as a potential witness in an investigative case, “you think I’m going to believe a fox?” After Judy teaches Chief Bogo that, as he spells it out, “that the world has always been broken and that’s why we need good cops,” Bogo is later shown welcoming Nick to the police force.
It is probably clear that I am not dealing with the kind of suffering so many are during this time. It is a privilege to be able to sit and write out and publish an op-ed defending a Disney movie amidst an ongoing crisis of racial injustice and police brutality in this country.
I think that the question of whether this film is culturally renounced (or “canceled,” as the young’uns are calling it now) is not unimportant.
Back in 2015, I had just finished a tough freshman year of high school. Having transferred to a different high school for sophomore year, I had to rebuild myself--to find something that I was good at, that I would stand out for. I loved popular culture and literature, particularly The Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who, but I couldn’t quite place why. I knew I loved these series’ ethical and emotional depth, but I hadn’t yet mentally grasped what about that depth appealed to me. Going into my sophomore year of high school, I began to work with my interests in illustration and literature, and had begun working towards understanding my goals as a student and person in the world.
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| Nick Wilde by Alex Bowman, April 2016 |
Zootopia helped me to, even as a 16-year-old, start to wrap my head around the issue of tolerance, and how even those who consider themselves tolerant are likely to have seeds of bias, and even bigotry, inside them.
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| photo by Bruce Guthrie |
If Zootopia is somehow “cancelled,” or made socially or culturally unacceptable to enjoy, generations of children will miss the chance to not only learn about the basics of tolerance--and perhaps even realize within themselves the potential of film to touch future generations. I hope that Zootopia can remain a beloved modern classic that will stay alive to do so.
Alexandra Bowman is a freelance illustrator, political cartoonist, and fine artist from Washington, D.C. She serves as the Editorial Political Cartoonist for Our Daily Planet, a climate news platform. She serves as an in-house illustrator for Georgetown University’s Office of Communications.
Alex is a member of the National Cartoonists Society and the Cartoonists Club of Great Britain, and is the youngest current member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. She also currently serves as the Satire Correspondent on The Economist's Kevin "Kal" Kallaugher's webseries, "Satire Can Save Us All." During the Summer of 2020, she is interning for Voice of America, for whom she will be creating illustrations to be published across VOA's social media platforms.
Alex is also the creator of “The Hilltop Show,” Georgetown University’s political comedy show, which seeks to present campus, national, and international news to a wide audience in an entertaining package. More information about the show can be found at hilltopshow.com.
Alex has illustrated three children's books and has had work published by BBC News, BBC Books, Puffin Books, the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service, and Penguin Random House UK. Her work has been featured by a variety of groups on social media, including Disney XD and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Alexandra Bowman is a freelance illustrator, political cartoonist, and fine artist from Washington, D.C. She serves as the Editorial Political Cartoonist for Our Daily Planet, a climate news platform. She serves as an in-house illustrator for Georgetown University’s Office of Communications.
Alex is a member of the National Cartoonists Society and the Cartoonists Club of Great Britain, and is the youngest current member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. She also currently serves as the Satire Correspondent on The Economist's Kevin "Kal" Kallaugher's webseries, "Satire Can Save Us All." During the Summer of 2020, she is interning for Voice of America, for whom she will be creating illustrations to be published across VOA's social media platforms.
Alex is also the creator of “The Hilltop Show,” Georgetown University’s political comedy show, which seeks to present campus, national, and international news to a wide audience in an entertaining package. More information about the show can be found at hilltopshow.com.
Alex has illustrated three children's books and has had work published by BBC News, BBC Books, Puffin Books, the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service, and Penguin Random House UK. Her work has been featured by a variety of groups on social media, including Disney XD and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
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