I'd like to write an PhD thesis on animation, particularly Disney and Disney/Pixar. What could be the thesis?

Question

I want to write an PhD thesis on animated feature-length films starting with Disney's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', and then through the whole history of animation, concentrating on animated feature-length films from Disney, Disney/Pixar, DreamWorks, Aardman, and so on. I would like to concentrate on various aspects of animation, e.g. language and its impact on children (but not only), or methodology (how to use animated feature-length films to teach English to foreigners). Can anyone please suggest a reasonable title of such thesis and/or any ideas concerning my field of research?

Answer 1

If I were to do the paper myself, I think I'd title it "Product Life Cycle Analysis of Film Animation Techniques". It is already widely understood that many products go through definite stages, from concept to development to manufacture, with initial advertising and marketing. The product is first "new", requiring a period of market penetration, then it enters a maturing stage well it's well received by the people, and there is almost always an aging stage where people simply get tired of it, and demand drops. In the history of film animation, while animation itself as cinema still holds its market power, nonetheless certain breakthroughs in animation technology has gone through their own product life cycles. For example, when screen animation first appeared in the early 1900s, animation tended to focus on "tricks" which seemed physically improbable, but excited early movie audiences who had never seen such things. After a while, the story line and more realistic renderings became more important. Walt Disney took hand rendered animation art to its zenith with such animation classics as Fantasia and Snow White, but it's been in decline since because the audience wanted something different. Today, Pixar, along with Dreamworks, Aardman, et al, have pioneered a boom in full-length computer animation movies, a departure from the past (which is the reason why Disney has been firing a lot of former animators because their hand rendered works have fallen out of favor). However, it would be shortsighted to believe that this boom would last without concommitant new directions in animation art and technology. But where can it go, after the Pixar successes? Wait and see.

Answer 2

One point you could touch on, and it would fill a lot of pages in your thesis, could be about how the majority of Disney movies portray a negative image to little girls. Many of the films are very outdated and most of them have a similar theme; a motherless girl who's greatest advisory is another woman who sees her as a rival.
I won't go on about this, there is a TON of info on the web and it is quite a hot topic, but it is something to think about if you are going to talk about the social impact of these films in your thesis.

Answer 3

I always thought it would be interesting to do a study of how animation has developed in terms of being considered a children's genre versus an adult's genre- with relation to current adult animation series (like Family Guy). If you're only focusing on Disney, it might work to talk about adult-related humor in recent Disney movies, and to what extent are they made specifically to appeal to adults as well.

Answer 4

"You are a toy, T-O-Y, toy."

From toy story...something that makes people want to read the thesis, and in this title, it uses spelling to teach language...

Answer 5

"Good, Evil and Hyperbole in Animated Film"