"The denigrated status of animation studies is largely due to the belief held in many countries that animation is not a 'real' art form because it is too popular, too commercialised, or too closely associated with 'fandom' or youth audiences to be taken seriously by scholars. This impression is faulty"
Furniss, in this opening chapter to her book, discusses the scope of animation studies and the place it occupies in the modern academic world. Once a previously marginalised art form, animation has recently been increasingly legitimised.
One of the concerns that has resurfaced periodically in animation scholarship relates to defining what is covered in the realm of 'animation'? What are its defining parameters? Some, such as Small and Levinson (1989) claim it to be 'the technique of single-frame cinematography.'
Solomon (1988) tries to define it at something in which the 'imagery is recorded frame-by-frame' and 'the illusion of motion is created, rather than recorded.' McLaren stated 'animation is the art of manipulating the invisible interstices that lie between the frames.' Furniss comes upon the conclusion that rather than a definition, we must work on a continuum approach to discuss animation without precisely defining it in to categories.
'To fully understand the aesthetics of a single art work or a group of works, it is necessary to know something about the production context - the historical, economic, social, technological, industrial and other influences upon any work at the time of its making. Understanding production context helps to situate a work as a product of its time, and provides more objectivity in discussing sensitive subjects such as racial representation or sexism; or dated approaches such as computer effects which do not meet the standards set today.' Understanding a work contextually helps us to avoid judging it unnecessarily harshly, providing perspective. This methodology is primarily historical.
