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Children's Animated Film Analysis

782 Words4 Pages

Introduction
Many children’s animated films are set in mystical kingdoms or foreign places. It is therefore not surprising that a multitude of accents is used in such films. It is, however, surprising how most foreign-accented characters are portrayed. Previous research has shown that the use of accents in children’s animated films teaches them how to discriminate (Lippi-Green 1997). Lippi-Green (1997) discovered that the racial stereotypes in these features serve a crucial role in teaching children about dichotomies, such as good and evil. Nonetheless, this didactic process is certainly not positive. Still, ethnic stereotypes have become a given in most Disney films; which means that not only important lessons about life, but also instructions …show more content…

However, these portrayals seem to have been firmly rooted in the animation industry (DaCosta 2007) . Therefore, the question remains whether there are actually any significant differences between the stereotypical portrayal of foreign-accented characters from the 21st century, and those which Lippi-Green has analysed. Are there systematic patterns between accent usage and stereotyping of ethnically different …show more content…

McClintock highlights the growing importance of VRGP by noting that “[VRPG] has increased its financing facility from $900 million to $1.4 billion, aiming to significantly increase the number of films it turns out with longtime partner Warner Bros. and other studios [sic].”
Another purpose of this research was to find out whether there are any striking differences in character portrayal and accent usage between the two animation corporations. For this reason, both Happy Feet Two (VRPG-Warner Bros) and Ratatouille (Disney-Pixar) were selected.

The selection process
In order to investigate the effects of the progressive mindset of the 21st century, two contemporary animated films, with a total of 52 characters, were chosen to be analysed using the factors that constitute character portrayal. Every character that produced at least one full sentence was included in the analysis. Because the present work is an extension of the work reported earlier by Lippi-Green (1997), only fully animated, full-length features, were critically examined. Under those circumstances, an accurate replication of Lippi-Green’s (1997) methodology was conducted for the purposes of this

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