Thot or Not – An Interview with Dylan Glynn

‘Thot or Not’ is a witty take on modern influencer culture and the latest animated micro-short film from illustrator Dylan Glynn. Short film programmer David Llewellyn caught up with them to talk about the film, their influences and future projects.
David: Thot or Not is just the tip of the iceberg of your extensive career as an artist, animator and writer. What prompted this take on Queer influencer culture?
Dylan: Thot or Not is the product of a period in my life where I was binge watching Sex and the City and having gossipy conversations with my boyfriend and about hot people in our local community. My very short film is basically the average of these two things.
David: Your animation work covers a wide range of styles and subject matter, some of it quite dark and expressionistic, other works gloriously colourful. Who were the animators who influenced you as you realised this was going to be a major part of your artistic practice?
Dylan: Reza Riahi and Phoung Mai Nguyen are directors/ animators whose emotionally evocative and artistically expressive animation styles really resonated with me and inspired me to follow my own aesthetic instincts and personal voice in the medium of animation. I think being exposed to their work showed me their were very artistic alternative styles to the highly clean mainstream animation I had seen on TV and in American movies. The NFB catalog was always very inspiring to me for the same general reasons as this is an institution that regards animation as an art form first an foremost as opposed to a commercial commodity.
David:  And following that, who were the writers and artists whose work you admire, past and present?
Dylan: Right now I’m particularly obsessed with the writing of Kai Cheng Thom. She is a Chinese Canadian trans writer who wrote “I Hope We Choose Live” and “Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars”. At the risk of over-hyping the material I feel the latter is a masterpiece in storytelling. Thom is a total virtuoso in her writing, simultaneously; grandiose, self aware/ ironic, sincere, poetic, hilarious, compelling, heartfelt and even spiritual. I don’t know of another work that so multifaceted, concise and entertaining. I definitely have her writing in mind as I write new material these days.  
David Lastly, what’s next, after Thot or Not?

Right now I’m developing a new short film with the National Film Board which is a series of interconnected vignettes about the/my gay community. In some ways the ilm is a spiritual successor to Thot or Not in the sense that it will retain a certain gay gossipy tone. However I hope to incorporate a bit more depth and poetry into this more expanded story. For now the working title is Knowing Gaze.

Thot or Not is screening as part of Programme 2 - Becoming

All images - © Dylan Glynn - www.dylanglynn.com