Rather than focussing on a particular animator or studio, I chose to instead look at the representation of Transgender, Non-Binary and Gender Non-conforming people in animation both in terms of present day and in the history of the industry.
I chose to do this as this is really the aspect of animation that inspires me, the impact it can have on societal change.
The animations that I love are ones that push forward representation and cultural progression and I wanted to look at how people who don’t fit into easy categories of cis-male and cis-male are both represented narratively, but also how they are designed. It’s an area that is very new in terms of responsible discussion and not a lot of research has been done on the subject matter.
From the research I did, a lot of writing on the matter is about how bad trans, NB and GNC representation was in past media, especially in early animation. How the reductive and over simplification of gender identity and expression was harmful in a society that already demonised and dehumanised anyone who identified outside of the binary and examples of what not to do.
Another matter that came up often was the idea of covert vs overt representation. Shows and creators that explicitly say how characters identify within the canonical narrative of the show in comparison to characters that are retroactively confirmed to be trans, queer or otherwise by creators and artists on external media. Whilst in the current climate of shows there is an argument for any representation is better than none, it is important that all people see themselves front and centre and in no certain terms. By being relegated to a fan theory, a tweet confirmation or simply a plot device, people who don’t identify as cis-gendered are reduced and othered in no uncertain terms, they are explicitly told they are less-than, not worthy of focus or attention.
In my research I focussed primarily on Hamish Steele’s Dead End Paranormal Park, a show on Netflix based on a web series and graphic novel, previously titled DeadEndia. I chose Dead End as it is a show that has uncomplicated and responsible representation across the board in terms of gender, sexuality, race and faith, it also was the only show I knew that had a queer trans-masc protagonist at the forefront. The character of Barney is a gay, Jewish, trans man in a story that doesn’t run away from this but also doesn’t make this his only facet. His transness, his queerness, alongside everything else informs his personality and his arc but it doesn’t define him.
I reached out to Hamish Steele, the shows creator (and creator of the original graphic novel and web-series) who was kind enough to sit down with me over a zoom call and talk about the show, the process of creating it and Barney as a character. We spoke for almost two hours and covered many topics from the processes of design, the pitching process, the behaviours and expectations of commercial studios and a lot more. He was incredibly insightful and humble about his experience and expertise but very clear on his expectations of the industry and how we are all responsible for doing better and must progress the industry with any work that we do. Something that stuck with me was how he said that even if every project he worked on for the rest of his life, had a queer protagonist it would still not be anywhere near enough. This was an important thing to acknowledge and really made me consider what sort of projects I wanted to work on in the future.