In a Heartbeat

"In a Heartbeat" is an animated short film that went viral in summer 2017. It had about 12 million views in just 72 hours and has more than 32 million now. The film was produced by Esteban Bravo and Beth David, two computer animation majors at Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida. It tells the story of a boy named Sherwin who has fallen in love with his classmate Jonathan and his risk of being outed by his own heart (via).



"From a business standpoint, it makes sense why studios are afraid to portray LGBT characters, just because there’s still part of the population that’s not accepting. But as leaders of children’s content, it’s really important for them to represent these people because not showing LGBT characters leads to a lot of internalized confusion as kids grow up."
Esteban David

"There was a part of us that was aware this could potentially be a baby-step towards normalizing LGBT romance and, hopefully, toward larger productions and studios doing something like this. I do think this kind of entertainment is wanted on a pretty broad scale."
Beth David



image via