Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture (PhD)
Administrative Home Department
Department of Humanities
Advisor 1
Stefka Hristova
Committee Member 1
Sue Collins
Committee Member 2
Richard Canevez
Committee Member 3
Valoree Gagnon
Abstract
This project critiques the historical and contemporary relationships between the U.S., Japan, and marginalized groups through the lens of animation. The U.S. and Japan share a complex history, from the opening of Japan during the Edo period to events like Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombings, which shaped their present-day alliance. Furthermore, the U.S. and Japan are the central nodes in flows of animation, where both nation states have dominated the global market at various points in animation’s history. Today, Japan's soft power in media is significant, and the flow of power between these nations has influenced media forms and depictions of marginalized groups. In this dissertation, I trace the flows of the medium of animation from its inception in the United States, to its rise in Japan to understand and intervene in the representations of stereotyped groups. Using the dual concepts of the crystal-image from Gilles Deleuze, and visual dualisms from Michelle Raheja, within the framework of the virtual reservation, I analyze two specific case studies of stereotyped groups within global flows of animation: North American Indigenous peoples, and Asian peoples. Especially with the rise of new technologies which shape animation production, and the flow of images within the medium of animation, such as artificial intelligence, these flows become dislocated from space and time. I argue that this disruption of flow, and the un-anchoring to geopolitical contexts and national cinemas, creates a crisis of the time-image, under which the crystal-image operates.
The project explores five key areas: the evolution of animation as a medium; the U.S.-Japan historical relationship; how the Hollywood Western's portrayal of Indigenous people influenced Japanese media; the portrayal of Asian and Asian-American groups in U.S. adult animation as "model minorities"; and the Space Western genre in anime, which offers hopeful visions of interstellar frontiers.[1] [2] [3] By beginning with an understanding of the medium as it is deeply connected to factors of space, time, and material, we can in turn examine how flows of images within the medium are produced, consumed, disrupted, and redirected. The project then argues that media depictions of Indigenous and Asian groups have been historically harmful and hegemonic. Transnational media flows have perpetuated stereotypes, but the potential for adaptation and transformation in genres like animation can offer more hopeful representations. In the end, the final chapter of the project seeks to offer an understanding of frontiers, on the virtual reservation, such that dislocations from space and time may be constructive components of image-production, rather than negative and harmful ones. The project concludes that we are experiencing a "time-image crisis," with the rise of artificial intelligence and new media forms reshaping how we perceive and construct worlds, moving away from traditional geopolitical narratives toward image production and consumption which is becoming unanchored by space and time. This project asks how can we understand the time-image crisis in the wake of stereotyping AI-generated images through the tracing of historical, transnational flows of animation between the U.S. and Japan from World War II to the present day?
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Belopavlovich, Kendall, "THE ANIMATED FRONTIER: FLUCTUATIONS OF POWER ACROSS TIME AND SPACE IN FLOWS OF U.S. AND JAPANESE ANIMATED MEDIA", Open Access Dissertation, Michigan Technological University, 2025.