girls gettin stuff done

 So I have found the last few classes to be totally enlightening. Although some people might not agree with me, I personally have really enjoyed what we've been watching and discussing. It was supes interesting to me today to look into women in animation. (Seeing as I'm a woman... wanting to go into animation...). 

ANYWAY but really though women's roles in the film and animation industries have been seriously lacking. In 2013, only 6% of films were directed by women, and that number has actually been decreasing. And according to other research, women are more likely to work in drama, comedy, and documentaries, but are least likely to work on sci-fi and horror, or any animation at all. From what I saw today, women have something that they bring to the table that men don't typically bring. Like Leeper pointed out, a lot of the films made by Leaf and Tilby just have this sense of connectedness and a deeper sense of relationships and emotions. I'm not like against anyone or any gender here, it's just simply the way it is: that women just get that emotional stuff and portray it on a deeper level. And that's just what some films need sometimes: a deep story with characters you can feel for and relate to, and women bring that. And hey, without women in film, we wouldn't have the Mean Girls we all know and love. In my little research session I found that the most popular films with the most women working on it were Mean Girls, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and Honey. The work force for these movies were just about 40% women.

Though we may be lacking in some areas today, women have come a long way. I don't know if you guys have ever heard about this, but back in the day, Walt Disney Animation Studios didn't even hire women to animate: the only thing they could do there was paint and ink. This letter written in 1938 is proof of that. It wasn't saying that women couldn't draw, it was more reflecting women's role in society and their limitations because of the glass ceiling. However, slowly but surely after this rejection letter, women made their way into the studio and made some major influences on character styles and stories. Women have made leaps and bounds in art and film and the workforce in general, (as seen in the films we watched today) and I think our future in the industry looks bright. :)