Female-led Popular Animated Feature Films of the 21st Century

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My PhD research focuses on contemporary representations and intends to offer an updated perspective on the subject. So, using IMDb , we listed all animated movies that fit the following criteria: • fully animated feature-length films that were released between January 1st 2001 and April 1st 2022; we excluded any film that had live-action footage to avoid hybrid films that could have animated characters interacting with live actors, thus going beyond the scope of our research; • movies that had at least ten thousand on their IMDb page, to assure a minimum amount of viewership and popularity; an important factor since this research is focused on popular movies that may have a global impact. We arrived at a list of 260 movies. In a previous study, we concluded that only 20% of these movies had a female protagonist and only 30% passed the Bechdel-Wallace test (Sá et al, 2023), which proved the underrepresentation of female characters in this context. Due to the lack of female characters in animated movies, we decided to apply further selecting criteria to our list to find a relevant sample for the present study, which aims at analyzing female character design and archetypal meanings. The added filters made sure the movies had: · more than 30.000 IMDb votes, which shows significant engagement from the public on the movies’ pages; · an IMDb rating equal or greater than 7, since it was important that the movies were liked and well received by the public; · a Rotten Tomatoes score equal or greater than 60%, both by the critics and by the public; · a female protagonist; · and undoubtedly passed the Bechdel-Wallace test. We arrived at a list comprised of 30 movies, that represented a relevant sample for the study of female character design trends in the context of popular and contemporary animated feature films. References: Sá, G., Tavares, P. & Alvelos, H. (2023). Where are the Women? An Overview of Female Representation in Popular Contemporary Animation Feature Films. In Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave (Eds.), CONFIA - 10th International Conference on Illustration and Animation (93-102). Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave. ISBN: 978-989-54939-9-9.

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