Manifestations of Otherness in Audiovisual Products

Abstract

The present study intended to develop and test a model to study the manifestations of Otherness in animations. To this end, three existing models—Di Giovanni (2007) and Bosinelli, Di Giovanni and Torresi (2005), Di Giovanni (2003) and Lippi-Green (1997)—were modified and integrated. The developed model was then tested with a corpus of nine American animated movies with multicultural setting/characters. Based on the findings of the corpus analysis and the identification of cases that were not subsumed under any category of the model, the model was further developed into a comprehensive one. The study revealed that American film industry benefits from dichotomizing Self and Other and stereotyping the Other in animations.