Animating Race The Production and Ascription of Asian-ness in the Animation of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra Francis M. Agnoli Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of East Anglia School of Art, Media and American Studies April 2020 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. 2 Abstract How and by what means is race ascribed to an animated body? My thesis addresses this question by reconstructing the production narratives around the Nickelodeon television series Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-08) and its sequel The Legend of Korra (2012-14). Through original and preexisting interviews, I determine how the ascription of race occurs at every stage of production. To do so, I triangulate theories related to race as a social construct, using a definition composed by sociologists Matthew Desmond and Mustafa Emirbayer; re-presentations of the body in animation, drawing upon art historian Nicholas Mirzoeff’s concept of the bodyscape; and the cinematic voice as described by film scholars Rick Altman, Mary Ann Doane, Michel Chion, and Gianluca Sergi. Even production processes not directly related to character design, animation, or performance contribute to the ascription of race. Therefore, this thesis also references writings on culture, such as those on cultural appropriation, cultural flow/traffic, and transculturation; fantasy, an impulse to break away from mimesis; and realist animation conventions, which relates to Paul Wells’ concept of hyper-realism. These factors contribute to world-building and the construction of cultural signifiers, which in turn can project identities onto animated bodyscapes. This thesis is structured around stages of production, including art design, writing, storyboarding and directing, martial arts choreography, music and sound design, voice casting and acting, and outsourcing final animation. At each stage, below-the-line personnel make creative decisions that result in the ascription of race. My findings challenge John T. Caldwell’s conceptualization of how production cultures operate, identifying multiple interlinked groups instead of just one. They expand upon the concept of the bodyscape to account for aural components in the construction of a racial identity. Finally, they build upon Maureen Furniss’ definition of animation as a continuum between mimesis and abstraction to incorporate the impulse toward fantasy. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 5 Introduction 6 Key Concepts: Defining Animation, Race, Asian-ness, and the Bodyscape 8 Transnational Threads: American Television, Nickelodeon, and the Anime Boom 14 Methodology: (Re)Constructing Production Narratives via Production Studies 20 Chapter Breakdown: Constructing and Ascribing Race to the Animated Bodyscape 29 Summary 34 Literature Review – Race, Body, Voice 35 Race/Body: Physiological, Artistic, and Animated 35 Body/Voice: Physiological, Cinematic, and Animated 44 Voice/Race: Accents and Mimicries 49 Through the Lenses of Culture, Mimesis, Fantasy, and Abstraction 53 Summary: A Triangulation of Theories and Defining the Animated Bodyscape 59 Chapter One – Building the World of Avatar and Korra: The Negotiation of Mimesis, Fantasy, and Abstraction 61 Creating Backgrounds: Transforming Real-world Referents into the Fantastical 62 Creating Props: Different Methods for Amplifying Cultural Signifiers 75 Creating Languages: Cultural Signifiers, Mixing, and Flattening 81 Summary: Projecting Identities onto Animated Bodyscapes 86 Chapter Two – Scripting the Stories of Avatar and Korra: Adaptation, Collaboration, and Language in the Writing Process 88 The “Lens of Inspiration”: Fantastical Distancing and Mimetic Authenticity 89 Constructing a Collaborative Environment and Its Impact on Signifying Identity 97 “They Don’t Call It Na Sing Se”: An Anglophonic Centering 102 Summary: Constructing Identities and Constructing Production Cultures 105 4 Chapter Three – Rendering the Characters of Avatar and Korra: Intersections of Racial and Cultural Signs in the Animated Bodyscape 107 Character Design: Iconicity, Cultural and Racial Markers, Referents and Models 108 Storyboarding: Plasmaticity, (Re)Interpretations, and Referencing Anime 114 Color and the Animated Bodyscape: Iconicity, Plasmaticity, and Race 120 Summary: Understanding the Animated Bodyscape and Ascribing of Asian-ness to It 124 Chapter Four – Choreographing Movement in Avatar and Korra: Martial Arts Inspirations and Executions 126 Appropriating Referents: Archival Authenticity and Fantastical Distancing 127 Producing Animatics: Corporeal Authenticity and Production Cultures 140 Summary: A New Set of Signs for the Animated Bodyscape 144 Chapter Five – Composing the Music and Sound Effects of Avatar and Korra: Mimesis, Fantasy, and Abstraction in the Soundscape 146 Composing the Music: Instruments, Instrumentations, and Performers 147 Constructing Sound Effects: False Mimesis and Tethering the Fantastical to Reality 158 Summary: Aural Signs, Agents of Mimesis, and Affecting Ascriptions of Asian-ness 164 Chapter Six – Producing the Vocal Performances of Avatar and Korra: The Synchronization of Race, the Body, and the Voice 167 The Casting Process: Mimesis, Physiological Bodies, and Race 168 The Recording Process: The Voice Director and Generating Aural Building Blocks 174 The Editing Process: Technological Mediation, Suturing, and Recognizing Voices 182 Summary: Completing Construction of the Animated Bodyscape 186 Conclusion: Avatar, Korra, and Ascribing Asian-ness 188 Modeling Production Cultures: Continents, Satellites, and Lunar Bodies 189 Constructing the Animated Bodyscape: Visual, Aural, and Narrative Components 191 Projecting Identity through World-building: Mimesis, Fantasy, and Abstraction 194 Producing Final Animation: Outsourcing and Asian-ness 198 Summary: Going Forward 207 Appendix 208 References 252 5 Acknowledgments As I near the end of this journey, I look back at the many people without whom I would have been lost. To my supervisors, Dr. Rayna Denison and Dr. Frederik Bryn Køhlert, thank you for pushing me farther than I thought I could go, for recognizing in me the potential I did not always see in myself. I will always strive to meet your expectations and will be better for it. To faculty at this and other universities, organizers of and attendees at various conferences and symposia, thank you for welcoming me into your world. To Dr. Eylem Atakav, thank you for your guidance as I adjusted to UK teaching, for continuing to help me long after you were obligated to do so. To Dr. Christopher Holliday, thank you for co-editing my first publication, for your continued support, and for always ensuring that I felt like I belonged. To my fellow PGR students, to Dean Bowman, Duncan Breeze, Tanja Jurkovic, Zahra Khosroshahi, James Mclean, and Stewart Williams, thank you for the past three years of friendship, of long writing sessions, delicious meals, and memorable movie nights. And to those I did not have the pleasure of knowing for as long or as well, thank you. A PhD can be a lonely task. You all made it less so. Finally, to my family, thank you for helping me on this journey, for supporting me and inspiring me, for being my constants as the rest of my world drastically changes. I never could have done this without all of you. And to anyone I forgot to name, know that your omission will haunt me until my dying days. 6 Introduction Race does not exist in animation. It must instead be ascribed. A gap exists in animation studies for how we can and should address racial representation within the medium. This thesis seeks to remedy that lacuna by using the U.S. television series Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-08) and its sequel The Legend of Korra (2012-14) as case studies.1 In this polarized moment in history, it is apparent that we do not live in some sort of post-racial society where race can be treated as a thought experiment. How we define this symbolic category remains a vital subject of study. Due to its illusory and constructed nature, animation affords untapped opportunities to approach this topic. Therefore, I ask: How and by what means is race produced and ascribed to animated bodies? By extension, how can animation scholars begin to answer this question? How can we determine which production processes are involved? How can we identify which other factors are at play? This line of inquiry provides a blueprint not only for additional studies of race in animation but also of other types of identities in different kinds of mediums. The most direct way to answer these questions is to ask those responsible. For this project, I conducted interviews with above- and below-the-line personnel involved in every stage of production. Doing so places an emphasis on the individual artists, their creative decisions, and their actions. Their testimonies are complemented by additional sources. This approach is not quite production studies, although it is influenced by writings from that field.2 Historically minded scholarship, especially regarding television animation, is more applicable.3 By building on these types of works, I formulated a 1 Henceforth, the titles of these two shows will be abbreviated as Avatar and Korra, respectively. 2 John T.