Gender equality in animated film. Breaking the glass ceiling in the audiovisual sector

Abstract

Animated cinema still suffers from an excessive presence of men, which has traditionally relegated women to near invisibility, leaving them, even today, in an uphill struggle to reaffirm their talent in Spanish filmmaking. Only four women have appeared in the credits in Animation Directing. In many other categories that make up the framework of any film production, lighting technicians, directors, directors, producers, photographers, editors, digital effects directors, costume designers, make up a scandalously low number. This article aims at reflecting and shedding light on this situation by trying to answer some of the recurrent and necessary questions regarding the need to open up the field and opportunities for an immense amount of talent that is so lacking in our cinema and which, as far as women are concerned, has been invisible and hidden for decades. The evolution of the role of women and animated film is based on an investigation that began twenty years ago with Animated cinema in Spain (Yébenes, 2002) and has continued showing the different contrasted data of the national animation productions that have been generated in 100 years of animation, art and technology (Yébenes, 2017). The MIA 2021 report integrated by the research team of women in the animation industry represents a social research with a gender perspective that completes our voices that aim to project reality by showing the results of the representation of our work in animation today. This article is therefore based on questions developed strictly to broaden social sensitivity in this field.