Latino animators break through at the Oscars. They hope change is just beginning

Phil Lord, an Oscar winner for “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” produced this year’s animated feature nominee “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” released by Netflix.

(Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)

Since the 2009 release of his directorial debut, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” — alongside longtime creative partner Chris Miller, who had also collaborated on the MTV series “Clone High” — Lord has established himself as a nearly infallible force in animation.

The Miami native, who grew up in the 1980s, has cherished memories of waking up before dawn on Saturday mornings to watch the “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero” and “Pac-Man” animated series with his younger sister. Though their artistic quality, he now thinks, was questionable, they complemented a media diet that featured famed astrologer Walter Mercado, the Univision variety show “Sábado Gigante” and the Cuban talk show “La Mesa Redonda.”

“I grew up on some of the worst animation, but I couldn’t stop looking. I was always fascinated,” he said.

A turning point came years later in the form of the International Tournée of Animation, a showcase of animated shorts from around the globe that screened across the country, including an art house theater near the University of Miami. “I would get one of my parents to drag me down there. That’s how I was first introduced to ‘The Simpsons,’ Bill Plympton, the Brothers Quay and all the Eastern European animators,” he said.

Moving to Los Angeles after college, Lord and Miller began writing on comedy shows until their own projects came to fruition. They’ve directed “The Lego Movie” and the live action “21 Jump Street” franchise, and produced “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” and previous animated feature Oscar winner “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” The latter, where the hero, Afro-Latino teen Miles Morales, speaks English and Spanish, remains a uniquely proud project for the creator.

“One of the luckiest chances I’ve ever gotten was to be able to write the ‘Spider-Verse’ movie and to take my experiences of growing up in two cultures and try to write a little bit of that for Miles,” said Lord. ”I had something from my life experience to apply to that, and it made it come to life for a lot of people that watched that movie.”

Abbi Jacobson voices Katie Mitchell, far left, the heroine of “The Mitchells vs the Machines.”

(Netflix/Sony Pictures Animation)

On “The Mitchells,” the lead character, Katie Mitchell, is the first queer protagonist in a studio animated feature. Lord hopes that such groundbreaking feats become obsolete as representation on-screen catches on with the real world. “What can be so powerful about inclusion is that you’re not otherizing anybody, you are just saying that this is what some people are like, this is what a protagonist can be,” he added.

Having participated in countless panels on inclusion in the entertainment industry, Lord believes there are two questions that people in positions of power should ask themselves if they are serious about change: “Are we doing a good enough job finding people, grown-ups who are ready to work, and inviting them onto these productions? And are we doing a good enough job training the next generation of people?”

With that in mind, supporting organizations like LatinX in Animation, a group that operates across multiple studios to highlight emerging talent in this subset of the industry, has become a priority for Lord. “I realized that there were a limited number of people who were in the position that I’m in, where you have a chance to hire people, or to speak in front of others and have them want to hear what I have to say.” Other key positions on “The Mitchells” were also occupied by Latinos, most notably production designer and lead character designer Lindsey Olivares and head of story Guillermo Martinez.

Reflecting on his 2019 Oscar win for “Spider-Verse,” Lord describes the euphoric moment as a tribute to his Cuban family. “The only time I really got emotional that night was when my little cousin sent me the video of the whole family, 25 of us in one room, reacting to the win,” he recalled. “I watched that video and I started to cry, because I thought about everything everyone had gone through to start over in a new country.”

As a Cuban American, Lord is conscious of the class barriers that keep people from entering this field and of his own economic privilege. That his Cuban mother earned a PhD in psychology enabled him to pursue a career in film. Immigrants from most countries, and their children, don’t often benefit from similar opportunities.

“Cubans are really lucky; when my mother came to this country, she got a grant to go to college. She got legal status. She was considered a refugee from communism. She was welcomed, and those advantages have benefited our family. Not every immigrant has those advantages, and I think about how much better this country that I love would be if we welcomed everybody who came here the same way.”