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Soul Prequel, “22 vs. Earth” Coming to Disney+

A new animated short film is coming to Disney+ on April 30. Titled 22 vs. Earth, the prequel short animation film how 22 from the movie Soul came to be so skeptical of life on Earth.

22 vs Earth

The film is to be set earlier than the animation film "Soul" voiced by Tina Fey, long before she met Soul protagonist Joe Gardner voiced by Jamie Foxx. The unique short film is directed by Kevin Nolting.

“While making Soul, we talked about the why of a new soul not wanting to live on Earth, however, it didn’t, in the end, belong in that movie,” stated Nolting. “22 vs. Earth was a chance to explore a number of the unanswered questions we had about why 22 was so cynical. As a fairly cynical person myself, it felt like perfect material.”

22 and the 5 other new souls

In the animation film, 22 will defy the guidelines of The Great Before and refuses to go to Earth, enlisting a gang of 5 other new souls in her attempt at rebellion. However, as her cohorts’ activities lead to unexpected results, 22’s subversive plot may simply result in a shocking revelation about the meaning of existence

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The Appearance of Blackfaces in The Animation Industry

If you don’t know what a blackface means, it is defined as dark makeup, which is used to imitate the appearance of Blacks, especially to ridicule or sham Blacks. It is difficult to talk about this subject, because its history is too sad, and there isn't talked about enough.

Tom and Jerry in "Plane Dumb" (1932)

As of today, I discovered that there has been the Van Beuren Tom and Jerry, not the well-known cat and mouse, this is a human duo that was on-air TV between 1931 and 1933. It’s defined that the duo is going to Africa through an airplane. But being white guys they're concerned they won't be safe, in order for them to feel safe they placed a blackface to fit in. Once they're carrying it, they undertake black dialect and completely inhabit their new characters. They crash into the sea and use the wing of the aircraft as a raft. Before achieving land, they go through the advances of an over-affectionate octopus and greater extreme chance from sharks, a swordfish, and a whale. Once on land, they're worried about the aid of using notable creatures and duck right into a cave. Inside it's even worse after they come across residing skeletons in blackface. And upon exiting the cave, matters are even worse than that after they may be observed with the aid of cannibals.

1933 Mickey Mickey's Mellerdrammer

The tale starts with the creation of the characters. The video is very hard to find because it has been taken down everywhere but it shows Mickey in the dressing room, putting on a blackface. Mickey looks withinside the reflection after his racist change and states "Mammy," copying the Al Jolson song. surprisingly enough, that identical racial things are used time and again once more in Disney short animation films of that period. Anytime a character installed blackface, you could be confident it will likely be observed with the song "Mammy".The animation scene shifts to the middle level in which Mickey's represented a character named "Topsy" that is known for blackface in 1923. The animation continues with stereotypical characters, representing slaves, and singing withinside the background.

Scrub me Mamma with a Boogie Beat (1941)

The storyline in this short animation song is representing Black residents that live in a so-called “Lazy Town”  that one day they’re bored until an “attractive” light-skinned woman shows up to teach them what rhythm is. The more I watched the more scenes I see that portray offensive, negative, and unacceptable content that promotes negative stereotypes of Black people in America. 

Angel Puss (1944)

Angel Puss is a short caricature written by Lou Lilly in 1944, animated by Ken Harris, and directed through Chuck Jones. It was launched by Warner Bros. Pictures on June 3, 1944, as a part of their Looney Tunes series. If you see the short film is about an American boy who carries a sack to a river and regrets agreeing to drown a cat. While the kid looks at the water, the cat slips out of the bag and fills it with bricks ... Since the animation film includes racist depictions of people of color, it's far now not to be had in a licensed model and belongs to the institution of arguable cartoons that Animation enthusiasts refer to as "Censored Eleven". Angel Puss is the only Chuck Jones animation film and the only Looney Tunes launch on the list.

The Black Lives Matter movement is revealing to North American nations all the general racism, police brutality, and racism that has enclosed us for these years. This has sparked the motivation for individuals to begin creating real changes.

Mike Henry,

Voice actor Mike Henry, of Cleveland Brown on the Family Guy show, decided to no longer play his voice as this character.

Hank Azaria

Who played Apu in The Simpsons, will also retire from playing that character. He has voiced for the Indian shopkeeper for 30 years, and his role was criticized in the 2017 documentary "The Problem with Apu". In the documentary, comedian Hari Kondabolu studied why the character is problematic and stereotyped.

These two are clearly not the only companies making changes, however it's good to envision that they're turning into more sensitive to stereotypes and racism within the animation industry. It's exhausting seeing individuals of color being delineated through the eyes of somebody that hasn't walked a day in someone else's life. once a white person plays a Black cartoon character, it takes away their voices, economic opportunities, and racial equality. 

I’m reaching for change in the industry, and I hope for things to get better with time.

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Noggin, Learning Service for Children

Noggin, a Nickelodeon learning service for children, has Launched “Big Heart World”, a Social multi-platform campaign where the services are intended to help kids meet challenges. The service is developed for social and emotional skills, important to get kids ready to learn about me, you, and us. In Noggin's “Big Heart World”, there will be learning videos, songs, and interactive games, as well as “Sparkler” learning family activities and parent and educator guides. It seems that every month will be different themes, and this month’s theme is about “All About Me” where kids will learn about building self-confidence, be knowledgeable of the amazing things they are capable of doing, and feel a judgment of belonging among their family, friends, and community.

The Noggin app is currently available for iOS, Android, Amazon Kindle as well as supported Roku, Android, Fire, and Apple TV devices. You can also subscribe to the Noggin Channel through Amazon’s Prime Video App, the Roku Channel, Apple TV, Dish, and Sling, and will also be available on Nick Jr. and the Nick Jr. YouTube channel. For more information on how to access the service content, please check here for more details.

As of 2021, I believe we are doing great when it comes to the representation of people of color in Nick Jr Noggin. The more I scrolled through the website that there’s a representation of everyone in almost each of their shows. Noggin host Emmanuel Carter is a black man who uses his passion for learning, dancing, and singing to guide kids through a series of themed lessons, alongside their favorite Nick Jr. characters. This is something I love and enjoy seeing, they have many characters of representation like “Dora the Explorer” an adventurous bi-lingual girl, and many more others that represent different cultures.

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At what age did you start drawing and sketching?

at the age of 12, but always love art.

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The Animation Studios and Issues

Sadly In February 2021, Disney stated that Blue Sky studios would be shut down. In April 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic indeed slowed down a lot of companies, and the studio announced that it would be closed down as of April 7, 2021. If you don’t know who they are, the studio created 13 movies including the “ICE AGE”, “RIO” and “ROBOTS” franchises, which Disney now owns. There’s no deep reason why the studio was shut down but it was even cited by a studio spokesperson that the “current economic realities,” likely indicating to COVID-19, which has hit a lot of the movie industry in a number of ways and caused delays on the productions.

Blue Sky Studios popular movies

Did you know that there’s a huge lack of women of color in the animation industry especially when it comes to the studios? According to one of the studies of WIA (Women In Animation), there were 197 directors on the top 120 animated films from 2007-2018 and just four of them were women. Four! From the same report, In TV, just 13% of the top animated shows episodes or 1st segments coded were directed by women. Only 2% percent were managed by women of color.

The report, “Increasing Inclusion in Animation,” examines the presence of women on-screen, behind-the-scenes...

According to the WIA research, women of color who work in the animation industry tend to be of Asian descent. “Women from a variety of racial/ethnic backgrounds were not working as directors across film or TV,” said Inclusion Initiative founder/director Dr. Stacy L. Smith.

Dr. Stacy L. Smith.

A press release expanded in detail, “The lack of Black or African American women, Hispanic/Latina women, Native women, or women from the Middle East/North African communities, multi-racial, or other groups means that the voices and stories of animated films and programs reflect a very narrow demographic of storytellers.”

As of April 11, 2021, WIA hasn’t posted any updates when it comes to women in the animation industry, if you would like to learn more about them please check their website at https://womeninanimation.org/

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Is there Hope in the Animation Industry?

Fun fact! Did you know that history’s first recorded animator is Pygmalion of Greek and Roman mythology? The sculptor created a figure of a woman so perfect that he fell in love with her and begged Venus to bring her to life. I learned that in an article called “Nontraditional forms” by Dave Kehr. 

Pygmalion of Greek and Roman mythology

Today is the day of hope and we need to have hope in the animation industry, especially when it comes to the lack of representation of people. On July 13, 2020, Los Angeles Times published an article titled “Black animators demanded change for years. Now they have Hollywood’s attention” by Tracy Brown. The article mentions in late June of 2020, a lot of animated TV shows announced that white actors would no longer be voicing nonwhite characters. This meant that Jenny Slate and Kristen Bell no longer voiced biracial characters on Big Mouth and Central Park.

Jenny Slate and Kristen Bell

When it comes to giving diverse representation in the animation industry, the main character story with the character being different is Cartoon Network! They’re one of the first Cartoon television networks that would support the LGBTQ community by having cartoons like Steven Universe, where Ruby and Sapphire, a lesbian couple that proposes and got married on a children's show, and there’s character name garnet that’s a great representation of a Black Women. On Adventure Time, Princess Bubblegum, and Marceline the Vampire Queen kissed, and in another show called Clarence was a kid named Jeff who has two moms! On their most reason cartoons, there’s Craig of the Creek, a simple show that follows a young black boy, named Craig, and his two friends, Kelsey and JP, as they go on adventures within a world of untamed, kid-dominated wilderness in the creek. Simple, but there’s so much diversity in this show that there’s still hope that we can get more animations like this so kids understand that it is okay to be who they are. 

Craig of the Creek 

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Is the Animation Industry Taboo?

The animation industry is something that hasn’t been spoken about enough, it’s like a taboo subject or something similar to it. Over the years there has been a lack of diversity in the animation industry, in cartoons, anime, animation films, and animators. Émile Cohl was considered to be the first animator in history, the animated film that debuted in 1908 mostly consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, and like seeing an elephant turn into a house.

Surprisingly after that film, a lot of animators came into the industry over the years, and they all created beautiful artwork of arts. Even J. Stuart Blackton’s “The Father of American Animation” was inspired, a British filmmaker who created the first animated film in America. I do respect all my artists but after waiting for a long time, Walt Disney Company hired Floyd Norman as an animator in 1956, making him the first African American to work in the animation industry and the start of opportunity for other black animators.

If you would like to learn more about him there’s a documentary “Floyd Norman: An Animated Life.” now on Netflix. In the film, Norman shares his involvement in the animation industry as a black man and mentions how often he was abused in the industry due to his skin complexion and how hard it was for him.

We skip to the 1970s and ’80s where black people have some type of representation in cartoons, Bill Cosby brought “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” know as a series that aired from 1972 till 1985 and was considered one of the greatest because of the diversity and uniqueness the characters had. This cartoon was something a lot of people appreciated during that time because it felt like “Hey, that person's look like me” or “Wow, I can be cool like them”.

We cannot forget about our women! The first black woman I saw as a cartoon character was in Tom and Jerry, but she’s only represented as someone who takes care of the house in which Tom and Jerry lived in and it was never clear if she was a housemaid or the owner of the house.

Her name is Manny Two shoes, and she is the fictional character in MGM's Tom and Jerry cartoons, and the way she was shown in the cartoon was more of a poor person rather than wealthy. I’m glad we have come to better times now where black women are better represented and have leadership roles in a lot of animation films and cartoons like Tiana “the first black Disney princess” from Princess and The Frog and Storm “the powerful superhero in Marvel Comics” from the X-men.

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Modern tennis balls are usually made of a hollow rubber core, covered in wool which is known as the nap. The pressurized air inside the rubber core makes the ball bounce. Workers who cut or shave the wool of the sheep are often paid by how much they can get, workers do the job as fast as possible, meaning that a lot of the time sheep and lambs get hurt.

Sheep that are used for their wool often have holes punched in their ears and their tails are cut off, WITHOUT PAINKILLERS. Sheep who are bred for their wool is not allowed to live out their days in the pasture. After a few years, is known that the wool production declines and it’s no longer deemed profitable to care for the older sheep. So, it resembles that the sheep get slaughtered for meat.

Sheep can't go too long without being shorn, and that could cause a problem. It can cause the sheep to become overheated and even die. Sheep shouldn’t be used to create a tennis ball that could be creative with other things.

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Sheep’s the tennis organization that’s dedicated to ending animal suffering

Sheep’s is an activist organization that’s on a mission to make tennis vegan. The organization's goal is about building awareness about the condition of sheep and replacing the wool in tennis balls with alternative materials that resemble a cruelty-free and high-performing tennis ball suitable for competitive play.

The team has been on the work for the production of their own "Sheep’s certified-vegan tennis balls". Though, because the U.S. needs the capacity for tennis ball production, this work requires complex and time-consuming coordination with overseas companies can accomplish. 

On Sheep's website, they mention "if Wilson, Penn, Babolat, Dunlop, or other company commits to solely producing vegan tennis balls. Thereby rendering Sheep’s balls unnecessary, we will gladly channel our energy into other projects like developing a biodegradable tennis ball, certified-vegan tennis shoes, and vegan gear for other sports". 

The company has been running a petition to ask the CEOs of Wilson, Penn, Babolat, and Dunlop to make vegan tennis balls. That would mean the stop of animal cruelty when it comes to creating tennis balls. 

Animals already have suffered enough, it may sound surprising, but as of 2019 animal cruelty is only just recently becoming a federal crime. All animals feel pain. It’s clear they think and feel, as well. Please go to the link and sign the petition https://www.change.org/p/make-tennis-vegan do it for the love of animals. It shouldn’t take any more than 2 minutes.

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The Wool Industry

The wool industry has a few secrets, they do things that a lot of the public doesn’t know much about. One of the secrets is that live sheep are usually shipped across countries by ship. Once the sheep are no longer needed, they may be sent overseas to be killed.

The shearing job seems cruel, normally, lambs get hurt too. Many lambs are forced to endure a gruesome procedure called “mulesing”, in which huge chunks of skin and flesh are cut from their backsides, often without painkillers. After being mulesed, the wounds often become infected or fly struck. Many sheep and lambs who have undergone the mulesing mutilation still suffer slow, painful deaths from flystrike.

Sheep are genetically manipulated to produce more wool. During the gene manipulation, sheep transgenesis gives chances of getting the connection within wool keratin proetid production and fiber composition and properties and of introducing new changes to fiber properties and growth rates. This unnatural quantity of wool they produce causes many sheep to suffer and even die from heat exhaustion.

Not a fun fact, but shearers are paid by volume, not by the hour. Hasty and reckless shearing leads to frequent injuries, strips of skin, and even parts of teats, tails, and ears can be cut or shaved off during shearing. sheep are often wounded. During shearing, sheep can incur large gashes, which are sewn upright on the shed floor, usually without any pain relief.

Still as of 2020 drugs are used excessively in shearing sheds. The Australian workers union (AWU) admits that drug has been a problem in the shearing industry since the 1980s and that it’s getting worse and this was announced in 2016.

Some shearers are so disgusted by the abuse they have witnesses that they quit the industry. We can’t continue this; we have to stop this industry. We need to bring them down!