What Lies Beyond Their Hurting: Representations of Female Pain and Personhood in Animation

Abstract

The representation of women in art is a fraught one. This article analyzes the relationship American society has to female pain, using four cartoon series as case studies to argue that cultural perceptions around women’s suffering are shifting towards viewing women as more than the sum total of their pain. The methodology of this analysis relies on Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex and Leslie Jamison’s “Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain” as a theoretical framework that illuminates cultural manifestations of female pain and the stereotypes that perpetuate these models, specifically applying them to female characters in Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and Steven Universe. Animation analysis demonstrates how portrayals of women in media have evolved, yet continue to rely on female pain as a plot device for character development and plot progression. This analysis throws into relief the concept of the “post-wounded woman,” a modern opposition to the “wounded woman” trope that asserts societal notions of female pain have rendered women’s relationship to their emotions full of disadvantage as they must yield control over how they are perceived. Emotions such as rage and anger are deemed impermissible by society because they challenge essentialist notions of the female condition. However, new female archetypes are appearing in animation alongside classical depictions, placing the medium ahead of traditional sexist societal views in this respect.