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International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

Racial Representation in Western Animation: A Media Influenced By History and Society

Nur Liana Mohd Redzuan Roy, Nora Edrina Sahharil

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v10-i12/8355

Open access

In this essay, I explore the history behind racial representation in Western animation and how the flow of time and the people behind these portrayals have brought change into these representations. My argument is that history has influenced the racial representations and perception of society towards people of colour and modern animation and animators have changes these representations drastically. The focus of the argument has been to analyse prior animators’ works in the past that have led to unsavoury representations, changes taken by modern animators to change these representations and the importance behind having both the older portrayals and newer portrayals in western animation history. The method I use in this essay is a close reading of historical agendas in relation to the past’s representations and current representations, and an analysis of these animations’ portrayals of racial characters. I employ historical and sociological criticism as a framework to the analysis. The reading offered in this essay also highlights the importance of having every type of representations as each of them plays an important role in the development of future representations in western animation.