Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains how the social organizing of specific themes in identity become drivers within animation. These themes include the Body, Gender, Self, Difference, Place and Culture, and the chapter applies these to both the classic and contemporary eras of animation, to characters such as Betty Boop, Bugs Bunny, the Disney princess, Wallace and Gromit, Harvie Krumpet, Beryl, Lilo and Stitch, Miyazaki's Shojo girls and WALL-E, among others. It explores animation characters and studios/artists to seek an answer to the question of how identity is established and how the animated form challenges concepts of 'self' to form different meanings. The book includes primary interviews with industry animators and directors to discover how the notions of identity work within their own cinema.