April theme: Animating Food

Deadline: April 7, 2023

From the Crème de la Crème à la Edgard in The AristoCats (1970) to the delicacies prepared by Remy in Ratatouille (2007), from the doughnuts of which Homer Simpson from The Simpsons (1989-present) is avid to the variety of meat and fish depicted in Spirited Away (2001), food is often featured in animated films and tv series, at times even acquiring a key role within the narrative. Moreover, within the nonfiction context, across the decades, animation has been employed to tackle and explain a rich variety of food- and eating-related issues, including food rationing during World War II, farming techniques, eating disorders and, more recently, the impact of climate change on food production and consumption.

Yet, to date, the relationship between food and animation remains undertheorized. To start bridging this gap, for our next theme, we invite posts from practitioners and theorists alike addressing the ways in which food is and has been employed and represented in animated works from any perspective.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Animating culinary identities;
• The narrative role of food in animated works;
• Animated food as metaphor;
• Food and culinary traditions in animated documentaries;
• The animation techniques employed for bringing food to life;
• The representation of food in animation and its evolutions across the decades;
• Animation and the consequences of climate change on food production and consumption.

Posts of between 600 and 900 words, which discuss any aspect of the above topic are welcome. Contributors are encouraged to include clips and at least one image (less than 2MB in size) to support their posts. Please also include a short bio (100 words max) and 3 keywords. All permissions are the responsibility of the contributor. Please contact editor Carmen Hannibal (carmen.hannibal@network.rca.ac.uk) and managing editor Cristina Formenti (cristina.formenti@uniud.it) with submissions or questions.