Animated Film and Disability: Cripping Spectatorship

While many live-action films portray disability as a spectacle crip animation (a genre of animated films that celebrates disabled peoples lived experiences) uses a variety of techniques like clay animation puppets pixilation and computer-generated animation to represent the inner worlds of people with disabilities. Crip animation has the potential to challenge the ableist gaze and immerse viewers in an alternative bodily experience.In Animated Film and Disability Slava Greenberganalyzes over 30 animated works about disabilities including Rocks in My Pockets An Eyeful of Soundand A Shift in Perception. He considers the ableism of live-action cinematography the involvement of filmmakers with disabilities in the production process and the evocation of the spectators senses of sight and hearing consequently subverting traditional spectatorship and listenership hierarchies. In addition Greenberg explores physical and sensory accessibility in theaters and suggests new ways to accommodate cinematic screenings.Offering an introduction to disability studies and crip theory for film media and animation scholars Animated Film and Disability demonstrates that crip animation has the power to breach the spectators comfort evoking awareness of their own bodies and in certain cases their social privileges.