{"id":150298,"date":"2025-10-28T22:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T22:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/150298\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T22:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T22:00:11","slug":"women-lead-more-animated-features-but-fight-for-equality-isnt-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/150298\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Lead More Animated Features, but Fight for Equality Isn’t Over"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWithin the last handful of years, animation<\/a> has earned a new level of respect. So many animated films check all of the boxes, from good story, good voice casting, they look beautiful, there\u2019s a message behind them. They make you laugh, cry and, frequently, make you sing along. But there is one other noticeable similarity \u2014 it\u2019s women executives in leadership positions who are pushing these animated juggernauts forward.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhether we\u2019re talking about live action or animation, I think there\u2019s a reason that there are so many successful female executives and there are a lot of successful female producers,\u201d says Kristine Belson, president, features & series, Sony Pictures Animation. She adds that progress is happening \u2014 but it\u2019s not happening fast enough. \u201cIn certain areas of animation filmmaking, women are well-represented. But I\u2019m not as encouraged as I\u2019d like to be. There\u2019s still a very big discrepancy between how many female directors are working today versus male directors in animation. And until that shift happens, and there are as many women directors as male directors, well, the job\u2019s not done. \u2026 Listen, progress is happening for sure, but it\u2019s not happening fast enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNotes Ramsey Naito, president, Paramount Animation: \u201cWomen are bringing fresh perspectives, a collaborative approach and a focus on inclusion, which helps bring teams together and strengthens company culture,\u201d adding that at Paramount and Nickelodeon, they\u2019re also focused on mentorship and retention. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about getting women in the door \u2014 it\u2019s about building a clear career path to grow into leadership roles with support every step of the way. It\u2019s important for us to make sure women have every opportunity to grow and lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year, animated feature Oscar contenders such as \u201cKPop Demon Hunters<\/a>\u201d (co-directed by Maggie Kang, the film is from Netflix, whose animation division is run by Hannah Minghella),\u00a0 \u201cLittle Am\u00e9lie or the Character of Rain\u201d (Ma\u00eflys Vallade) and \u201cElio\u201d (Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi) all have female co-directors.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tTwo female directors were behind \u201cElio.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMindy Johnson, CalArts professor and author of the upcoming book \u201cThe Only Woman Animator,\u201d says that women have always \u201cbeen in the room\u201d and contributed more to the medium than people thought or were given credit for. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just faceless, nameless women who traced and colored in animation cels, producing the brilliant artistry we see on screen. But out of that exceptional, extraordinary work, a range of trailblazing women emerged and have always been there from the very beginning,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cWe\u2019ve failed as a society, as a culture, as an industry to tell their stories. We\u2019ve all missed out collectively on the other half of our collective animated experience. We have a lot of catching up to do, and we\u2019re getting there today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat renaissance of the medium that began in the 1990s through the 2000s, when we had Ariel singing \u201cPart of Your World\u201d in \u201cThe Little Mermaid\u201d and other animated heroines like Belle (\u201cBeauty and the Beast\u201d), Jasmine (\u201cAladdin\u201d), along with \u201cPocahontas\u201d and \u201cMulan.\u201d Johnson says, \u201cWe have a generation growing up falling in love with animation and then saying, \u2018Hey, I wanna do that!\u2019 We noticed a trend with young women about 20, 25 years ago where new programs were just beginning for animation in campuses and schools. CalArts has always been there and is still the creme de la creme. There was a rising trend, and now every major campus, every minor campus, has animation programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\u201cThe Bad Guys 2\u201d is from woman-led DreamWorks Animation.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson says the huge gender disparity of some 10 to 15 years ago has \u201cshifted. We\u2019re closer to parity. I think we\u2019re still under in a lot of ways, but the industry is undergoing some kind of rumblings and shifts at the moment. \u2026 I just beam seeing the presence of women and their voices, their ideas, their characters. We\u2019ve got women finally telling their stories without having to be the only woman in the room. They\u2019re in a more supported and recognized place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHolly Edwards, president of Skydance Animation notes, \u201cIt\u2019s fantastic that the animation industry is now led by so many incredible women. There has certainly been a shift over the years with many more women in leadership roles, both creatively leading projects as well as in decision-making positions. I feel very lucky to have had incredible female mentors and colleagues throughout my career and know that environments thrive when they include people from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. It truly makes a huge difference for the better for the stories we\u2019re telling.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\u201cLittle Am\u00e9lie or the Character of Rain,\u201d co-directed by Ma\u00eflys Vallade, is one of the animated features vying for an Oscar nomination.<\/p>\n

\n\tCommenting on animation still not being taken as seriously as live action features, DreamWorks Animation president Margie Cohn pauses and says, almost reluctantly, \u201cI think \u2014 and this is going to be incredibly unpopular \u2014 but a lot of people pigeonhole animation as kids\u2019 programming, and maybe they feel that\u2019s a safe place for women to be. And then we surprise them with how large our skill set is \u2026 we can actually manage successfully and be competitive with the men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the business of making an animated film is a long, complex process, typically taking four to seven years from concept to completion. \u201cYes, there have been movements towards promoting women into more leadership positions, but the thing with animation is, it just takes so long to create these that even though we\u2019re making steps now and strides, we\u2019re not gonna see that for a few years,\u201d Kang points out. \u201cThere\u2019s already kind of this desire to promote women in leadership positions, and there have been kind of active initiatives to do that. I do think what we\u2019re still lacking is the right training and mentorship. I\u2019d like to see more of that. And I\u2019d like to try to contribute as much as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tDreamWorks Animation, led by Margie Cohn, released \u201cDog Man\u201d earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the goal is to create a quality feature with great storytelling that will appeal to all age groups. \u201cYou can make movies that are entertaining and funny, or you could make things that will live with a person from childhood through adulthood, where they can watch it over and over and over again, and different things come out in the storytelling and they understand it in a different way,\u201d Cohn says.<\/p>\n

\n\tBelson adds: \u201cThese movies, they can be entertaining for 5-year-olds, but also deeply engaging for adults. I want to keep seeing movies that engage me. I just want to be surprised, and I want to laugh, and I want to be deeply moved. I think that\u2019s what we all want. I want to see animation keep evolving and get the respect that it deserves. It gets it in the marketplace \u2014 we get great box office results \u2014 but I would like animation to continue to get recognized in our industry and with the Academy for being the incredible creative achievements that they are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Within the last handful of years, animation has earned a new level of respect. So many animated films…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[746,18,117,19,17,4923,327,88198],"class_list":{"0":"post-150298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-animation","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-kpop-demon-hunters","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-women-in-animation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115454045491298911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}