Childhood in Animation

This book aims to position screened animated childhoods within a historic, sociological, and political context, with its approach being structural, narrative, psychoanalytical, and, again, historic. Through this context and approach, it aims to better understand the representations of animated children in film and television. We will consider questions such as what is childhood, what does it represent and what space does it occupy? The book is fundamentally formed of different methodologies suitable for a study of screened animated childhoods. Textual analysis of theorists’ views of children in society, in a political landscape and representations of real children in film and television will also be included in the book, as a foundation of how we can begin to look at the animated child on screen.

Archival research has been enabled through the successful application of a British Academy grant that enabled the author to visit the Margaret Powell Research Centre at the University of California, Lose Angeles (UCLA), as well as the British Film Institute archives, in order to explore the fascinating history of screened documentary and animation archival collections. The author was able to present a paper as part of a childhood panel at BAFTSS 2023 on these research findings, pertaining to the secret space occupied by children and the question of truth through performance in archived films and documentaries. This archive research forms part of chapter five. 

Finally, this book will include interviews with an animation film director and a children’s animator. Robin Shaw, director of The Tiger Who Came To Tea, Mog’s Christmas and co-director of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, has shared his valuable insights into the creation of child characters on screen. Will Wivell is a children’s television animator and has worked on The Cuphead Show, Zig and Zag, and Rick and Morty. These interviews, included in chapter 5, will strengthen the book’s discussion of the making of screened childhoods, from concept to process to today’s child audience.