Animator Lotte Reiniger: The Elimination Of Gender Stereotypes

When it comes to establishing a career, men have always had the upper hand in terms of being able to find work without dealing with issues such as discrimination hindering them from achieving their goals. For much of modern history, if it was a Caucasian, heterosexual man looking for work in the same field as, a white woman with the same qualifications, the man would – more often than not – be chosen for the job. This is largely based on long held sexist notion that women are somehow inferior to men, even when they hold the same formal qualifications needed to fulfil a specific position. This idea that women should even be permitted to be members of workforce is still a relatively new concept. Luckily this concept of women as an active

She “was one of only three women to direct a feature film in Weimar Germany” and is even speculated to be the creator of possibly “the earliest surviving animated feature” thanks to her feature length independent animated film entitled “Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed” . Reiniger’s feature length masterpiece is thought to be among the first, if not, the very first feature length animated film as it “was first exhibited in 1926” . As such her film preceded the infamous “Walt Disney’s 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” by nearly a decade. The minimization of women’s; roles and importance created by the society’s sexist views resulted in the minimization of her role. History has not corrected this oversight and Lotte Reiniger’s name is not as well known by the general public. She was not and is not given the homage, recognition and deference for the genius she was as an independent

Even though the male animators received more praise and credit for their work at the time, “it was the unsung women in Ink and Paint who also played an invaluable role in the creation of those early animated films.” While the animators create the line work on the sketches that became the main animated sequences of the film, the women working in studio were responsible for bringing it to life through colouring the sketches as the final step for the animation process at the time. In other words, “Every drawing produced by the animators and intended for film eventually found its way to the hands of these talented “girls,” as they were often referred to” ; which made the women in the animation studios of the time the live action production equivalent of the set and costume designers of a live action production. Without the women employed at these studios and their unmatched ability to match colours exactly just by sight and references as well as their amazing ability to “apply color exactly within the lines traced by the inkers and work quickly so the paint didn’t leave streaks” , the drawings which the male animators created in the first place would be nothing other than dull, one