‘No Leaders, Please’ Is An Exploration Of The Fluid And Shapeshifting Nature Of Identity

Oscar-winning animator Joan Gratz’s take on a Charles Bukowski poem has just landed online.

Ironically beginning with a leader countdown, Gratz’s No Leaders, Please (2020) feels at first like a call to eradicate the madness that governs our world. In reality, it’s an exploration of identity — its fluidity and shapeshifting nature. Bukowski, through Gratz’s lens, seems to plead that we resist the pull of the average and the mediocre. Too often we treat identity as something fixed, when in fact it’s constantly evolving, shaped not only by time and place, but by ourselves. Like directors (or mini‑gods), we can mold, tear down, and re-create who we are at will.

It’s our life, our show, and yet too many of us let external forces write the script. Along the way, Gratz invokes transformative artists such as Banksy, Basquiat, Haring, and Ai Weiwei to remind us that any of us can exercise this creative power. We are all artists. That’s how we grow; that’s how our world advances.

At its core, No Leaders, Please is a punk-ish manifesto urging us to seize control of our choices and our paths, rather than letting societal systems and made‑up rules deaden us. The only leaders in our lives should be ourselves — granted, that can slide into solipsism and mirror the self‑absorption of modern society, but you get the idea.

Visually, Gratz’s signature clay animation is the perfect foil for an ever‑shifting theme of metamorphosis.

Gratz won the Oscar in 1993 for her short film Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase and is known for her pioneering the technique of ‘claypainting.’ She creates seamless animated images by applying clay, blending colors, and etching fine lines directly before the camera. She developed her unique style while studying architecture at the University of Oregon, later shifting from paint to clay at Will Vinton Studios.