week 8: stereotype and the ethics of representation

As an animation student, the stereotype is definitely a serious problem we need to deal with. Since the target group for animated films is always normal people who don't understand how to design a character, it is very hard to not only avoid stereotypes but also make them understand. For example, if I need a ballet dancer in my animation, the first character design I can think about is a skinny blond white girl wearing a ballet dress. This is definitely a stereotype, but this is also the character design most people will understand. Because normal people usually don't understand ballet dancers. They don't know dancers need a lot of muscles and they don't know when they practice, they actually wear soft pants. It is the filmmaker's and animators' duty to explain this to the audience. So if you want to avoid stereotypes, you could design a muscular black dancer, but you need to set up the story and give it a good reason. You need to teach the audience about that. However, there are many animation shorts, which don't have enough time to do the explanation. For them, using stereotypes is actually a good idea.

For myself, I am always affected by stereotypes. For example, people still think Asian parents are very strict about grades. I think that's true. Most Asian parents are strict and that is a huge problem all Asian kids have. So I actually don't consider it is a bad stereotype. I think as long as you do some research and understand what the truth is, it is okay to have stereotypes.