Tang Cheng: The first female animation screenwriter and director in the People’s Republic of China

Abstract

Tang Cheng (唐澄) (1919–86) was one of the most accomplished and versatile animation practitioners in the history of Chinese animation and the first female animation scriptwriter and director in the People’s Republic of China (PRC, 1949–present). Animation in the PRC was once famous for its ‘Chinese school’ aesthetics, in which female professionals influenced all dimensions of the form, from animation techniques to aspects of narration and artistic style. Tang Cheng was best known for directing or co-directing representative Chinese school animated films. However, her early career in animation screenwriting has been largely forgotten. This article not only highlights her role as a scenarist commissioned to write the screenplays of the didactic fairy tales Old Lady’s Jujube Tree (1958) and Radish Is Back (1959) but also analyses how the spirit of collectivism and childlike simplicity revealed in her screenwriting affected her later directorial productions such as Little Tadpoles Looking for Mother (1961), Havoc in Heaven (1961, 1964) and The Deer Bell (1982).