Drawn (to) independence: female showrunners in contemporary American TV animation

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on three showrunners: Natasha Allegri (Bee and PuppyCat), Shadi Petosky (Danger & Eggs, co-created with Mike Owens), and Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe). It outlines the ways in which these women—who share a background in independent comics and online art—have taken advantage of emergent online distribution and funding models and the rising influence of fragmented audiences and online fan communities in the post-network era in order to make space for diverse, feminist, and LGBTQ-inclusive narratives and aesthetics. Combining an industry studies approach to the three showrunners’ career trajectories with close analysis of their shows, this article offers insight into a distinctive form of independent female production that thrives at the intersection of twenty-first century television marketing, funding, and distribution strategies and contemporary online fan discourses and practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Animation
• comics
• lgbtq
• online platforms
• crowdfunding

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jason Mittell and the second peer reviewer for their constructive feedback. I am also grateful to Melissa Phruksachart and Matthew Noble-Olson, as well as my colleagues in the Michigan Society of Fellows, especially Blake Gutt and Benjamin Mangrum.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mihaela Mihailova

Mihaela Mihailova is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan Society of Fellows, with a joint appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Media. She has published in animation: an interdisciplinary journal, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, and Kino Kultura. She has also contributed chapters to the edited volumes Animating Film Theory (with John MacKay), Animated Landscapes: History, Form, and Function, The Animation Studies Reader, and Drawn from Life: Issues and Themes in Animated Documentary Cinema. E-mail: [email protected].