THE
IMPORTANCE OF REPRESENTATION IN ANIMATION

With a focus on Latin American Women

Simultaneous to the production of my short film I wrote a reaserch thesis. This essay allowed me to delve more deeply into the themes which inspired me to create Tonalli: Representation in animated movies and its effects on identity construction - focusing in Latin American women.

​

I was born and raised in Mexico, and as a child most of the media that I consumed portrayed a reality which was very different from my own. I was intrigued by folklore stories and fairy tales. I devoured books by the Grimm brothers and H.C. Andersen, fascinated by the combination of beautiful and sinister elements. It was not something I was aware of at the time, but all those tales belonged to landscapes I hadn’t seen, flavors I hadn’t tasted, stories which were far away from my world.

It was not until university that I started to reflect upon this, and realized that while I was growing up, I experienced an allienation with my surroundings, my culture, and ultimately my identity.

I became aware of how little I knew of Latin American tales; and how rarely these were represented in popular culture and animation. This triggered a search for my own identity which happened at the same time as left my home, at the age of sixteen. What do I feel identified with? What does culture mean to me? How can I express this identity through storytelling? These were questions that began (and are still) luring my thoughts.

We now live in a world which is constantly presenting stories through various types of media. As audiences, we can be deeply affected by what we see in TV series, magazines, and media in general. The types of bodies shown, or the cultural practices and behaviors we see become an ideal. Not seeing my culture represented made it undesirable rather than something to be proud of.  In a way, it made me reject and look down upon my roots.

Years later, I was able to look into this situation under a critical lens. As an animator I feel the urge to create films which broaden the types of representations available. How can I create films which will have positive impact in younger generations? How can representation be portrayed in order to expand the role models of children and teenagers? What are the mistakes which have been made when aiming to broaden representation?