Rise Up Animation for Animators of People of Color

Sep 30, Michael Elias

I am not done with my posts about injustice in America. In fact, I am not even done with the entertainment industry. This time, I am leaning away from the live film production side and discussing the injustice of representation of POC and minority representation in animation.

I was not always aware of this injustice growing up watching Disney and Pixar films, but the racism has become much more apparent as I have grown older. Besides the fact that white characters are always the main characters in shows, there are even problems in shows where the characters portray POC and minorities! These types of films are typically written and directed by a mostly white board of executives, and it shows in every. Single. Movie.

If you give me any movie that positively portrays minorities or POC in a positive light, I am almost certain that I can find something wrong about it. And to be completely honest, I still greatly enjoy most if not all of these movies, but for the culture they represent the board of executives can and should do a much more careful job. I will give a few examples. Moana? A mish-mash of many different Polynesian legends with a marketing scheme that falsely made many believe the legends were about ancient Hawaiian lore and not Polynesian. Princess and the Frog? The 2 African American characters, the princess and the prince, are seen as frogs for most of the movie! Soul? ANOTHER case where a Black jazz musician is in a different form for most of the movie (I assume as it is not out yet but the trailers make this seem to be the case). And there are many other examples.

One problem with this is how white industries feel the need to capitalize off other cultures to find stories. The truth is that white culture is imperialism and stealing other people's cultures. Disney is the greatest evidence of all of this. That is why we have movies where the plot is much more nuanced and original for white characters, but for minority characters, the plot almost always revolves around their culture. This of course is not a bad thing, but the execution leaves much to be desired. The one few good “prime” examples in my mind is Mulan where they actually have a strong, female protagonist (not a man) take the lead and actually redefine societal norms in Chinese and even American culture. The execution and design of the characters are near flawless and the songs appeal to young children and inspire them from a young age. The only downside to this movie is that it was also inspired by the tale of Mulan from Chinese culture, which further cements the idea that Disney cannot make anything truly original. (Pixar actually is mostly original on the counter-side, but they have their own problems with portrayal and execution as seen in Soul). But admittedly, Pixar is much better than Disney and I have long admired them for it.

Now that I have provided context to the injustices found in the animation industry, I will now discuss my chosen agency for this article. This past spring, during the Black Lives Matter protests following the innocent death of George Floyd, some famous animators in the industry got together and made the agency Rise Up Animation for POC to get into the animation industry with some extra help from mentors. This agency was started by Bobby Pontillas, Frank Abney, and Trent Correy, all famous animators in the animation industry.