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Parce qu’ils sont les premiers à avoir réalisé un long métrage en images de synthèse, Toy Story, dont le succès artistique et populaire – qui ne se dément pas - a été le déclencheur d’un nouveau cycle de films d’animation, les studios d’animation Pixar occupent une place importante dans le paysage culturel actuel, et représentent une bonne opportunité d’étudier la manière dont les objets des industries culturelles sont créés et consommés. Au travers d’une étude du dessin animé américain, abordé du point de vue historique et esthétique, il s’agit tout d’abord de déterminer l’évolution du système de production et des techniques, qui sont en lien avec les évolutions stylistiques, pour comprendre dans quel système émergent puis s’établissent les films d’animation Pixar. Alors que la manière dont les films sont faits et dont ils sont vus a changé à la fin du XXe siècle, la trilogie Toy Story sera l’objet privilégié d’une étude des mutations du cinéma, et des usages qui en sont faits. Par le statut culturel élevé spécifique à Pixar, par l’ambiguïté textuelle qui les caractérisent et qui sont l’occasion d’interprétation très variées, ou grâce aux nouveaux modèles de féminité et de masculinité qu’ils proposent, les films d’animation tendent à devenir des films "comme les autres", laissant aux spectateurs la possibilité de les appréhender comme ils le veulent. / As the first studio to have created a CGI animated feature film, Toy Story, whose success initiated a new era in animation production, Pixar Animation Studios occupy a significant position in the actual cultural landscape, and present a great opportunity to study the ways in which objects from cultural industries are produced and consumed. By examining the animated cartoon, from historic and aesthetic perspectives, I intend to determine the evolution of the production system and of the technics, which are related to stylistic changes as well. This study will help us understand the studio system in which Pixar’s movies have taken place. While the ways films are made and seen changed at the end of the last century, Toy Story’s films are the privileged object for an analysis of the transformations of cinema and its uses. By Pixar’s high cultural status, by the textual ambiguity that characterized them or the new representations of masculinity and femininity that they share, animated feature films tend to become "ordinary films", letting viewers grasp them as they want.

Pixar’s Toy Story (John Lassiter, 1995) is not just a story about toys and the children that play with them, but a demonstration of how we interact with the world. This thesis looks at the way in which both main children, Andy and Sid, interact with their toys and how this interaction is one that is structured by way of what Martin Heidegger calls “Enframing.” In this modality of playing, toys and other things and entities in the world, and the world itself, appear to the children as on-hand resources for use at any time and can be molded, as if plastic, to fit their needs. I problematize this way of interacting with the world by looking at not only it manifests in Toy Story, but also in the process of the film’s production, Silicon Valley aesthetics, our reliance upon plastics, neoliberal capital in light of the “1099 economy,” and ecological ramifications of these practices as seen in the ecological registers. Through these metaphysics, we seek to mold the world in accordance with human-centered interests as we play within the world. My thesis also turns to understand how metaphysics has transformed over time so that we can work towards bringing forth a different way of relating to the world that is sustainable, ethical, and one of care. I argue for an understanding of things in the world likened to an interconnected and interdependent network that we are always connected to, and in an “interplay” with. I conclude the project by arguing for a possible turn to the writings of Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, and other philosophers who work in process metaphysics for a possible reinvigoration of “apparatus theory,” which has lost favor with many film scholars since the 1970s/1980s. I argue that a process framework could provide fresh light on the cinematic apparatus in light of digital at-home streaming services, as well as work towards revealing stronger interlinked connections between media, economics, ecology, geopolitics, etc.

In this thesis, I analyze the Minions from Universal Pictures' Despicable Me franchise (2010-2020), Olaf from Disney's Frozen franchise (2013-2019), and Ducky and Bunny from Pixar's Toy Story 4 (2019). Although these characters are not intended to represent human beings but are fictional nonhuman species, examining them through the lens of racialization defamiliarizes them and reveals how children's media not only perpetuates specific caricatures of people of color but subtly naturalizes what race is as an assemblage of visual, verbal, performative, and affective components. While scholars studying racial representations in children's animated films often focus on how animated characters speak in non-white dialects, engage in stereotypes, and reproduce visual aspects of race, this interpretive framework does not address the ways in which race goes beyond the surface, nor does it address complex interactions between race, gender, and sexuality. Rather than asserting that nonhuman animated characters are certain races, my term "submerged racialization" suggests that animated characters are not direct representations of "real" non-white bodies but are aggregates of what it is to be racialized in historically specific ways that are co-constitutive with gender and sexuality. These features dwell beneath the surface like a skeleton, overdetermining how the characters perform without necessarily influencing their outward appearance in easily recognizable ways. In the first chapter, I analyze how the Minions enact a multi-layered submerged racialization as Black, Asian American, and indigenous beings. The second chapter discusses how Olaf's racialization shifts across different objects in the Frozen franchise, addressing his relationship to Blackness and Hawaiianness in the first film, the featurette, "pull apart" plush toys, and Hula Olaf figures. Finally, in my third chapter, I show how Ducky and Bunny fulfil roles as Black comedic sidekicks and demonstrate how Black men have been constructed as aggressive, hypersexual threats. By uncovering the submerged racialization underlying today's most popular children's franchises, I stress that race is reproduced and reinvented in the seemingly innocent intimate spaces around us. / Master of Arts / What race are the Minions? While this may seem a strange question, scholars of children's animated films have often described the race of nonhuman animated characters based on whether they speak in non-white dialects, engage in stereotypes, and reproduce certain visual characteristics, such as black skin. However, I argue that the Minions from Universal Pictures' Despicable Me franchise (2010-2020), Olaf from Disney's Frozen franchise (2013-2019), and Ducky and Bunny from Pixar's Toy Story 4 (2019) are "submerged racialized figures" and not direct representations of "real" non-white bodies. These characters demonstrate what it means to be racialized in historically specific ways that intersect with their gender and sexuality. Their racial features dwell beneath the surface like a skeleton, affecting their representation without necessarily influencing their outward appearance in easily recognizable ways. In the first chapter, I analyze how the Minions demonstrate a multi-layered submerged racialization throughout the franchise as Black, Asian American, and indigenous beings. The second chapter discusses how Olaf's racialization shifts across different objects in the Frozen franchise, changing his relationship to Blackness and Hawaiianness in the first film, the featurette, "pull apart" plush toys, and Hula Olaf figures. Finally, in my third chapter, I show how Ducky and Bunny fulfil roles as Black comedic sidekicks and demonstrate how Black men have been constructed as aggressive, hypersexual threats. By uncovering the submerged racialization within today's most popular children's franchises, I demonstrate how race is reproduced and reinvented in the seemingly innocent intimate spaces around us.