This week, we explored animated documentry and politics in animation.
One of the animation documentaries that stood out to me was A is for Autism (1992).
This was a really creative way to express autism and the animation created a revenue for visual learners to imagine what it must be like for the autistic people narrating the video.
I would say this still counts as a documentary because it is informative, non fictional and made for learning. These characteristics to me apply to documentaries regardless if the visual aspect of the video is animated or not, and if anything, the animation, for me, helped me understand the message better. and didn’t take away from the realism.
Taxonomy of animated documentary says an animated documentary “is about the world rather than a world wholly imagined by its creator”. This applies to this documentary because autism and it’s characteristics are present in the real world, and these are real experiences, not made up.
Christina Formenti and Bill Nichols argue animated documetaries should be based on the autenticity of the images presented, and that there is a lack of objectivity to these, therefore it should be classed as a ‘docu-fiction’. I don’t think this argument alters my opinion due to the fact the animations on screen don’t take away from the informative aspect documentaries should have, and this is what makes a documentary a documentary to me.