Tragic Story with a Happy Ending

Creating a Feminist Experience in Animation

Abstract

Animation is a space of wonder and magic, and it can also be a place of political resistance and social awareness. Animation can be all these places simultaneously and by doing so it opens doors to different understandings of reality and an alternative consciousness of the world. This paper aims to analyze the animated short film Tragic Story with Happy Ending (2007), directed by Regina Pessoa, as a figurative path to reflect about the intersection between animation and feminism. The construction of a feminist experience in contemporary animation, specifically in Portuguese animation, is analyzed while considering a compendium of essays on women animators edited by Jane Pilling, Women & Animation (1992), and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s thoughts on Feminism. The animated space in which the woman’s voice is acknowledged is also reflected upon based on the concept of “Speaking Nearby” by Trinh T. Minh-ha (1992). Tragic Story with Happy Ending does not have an explicit approach to Feminism but by revealing a wide consciousness of human nature and subtly reflecting about what it means to be a woman, a socio- political dimension and feminist experience emerge from its core.