In A Heartbeat Sparknotes

In A Heartbeat is an animated short film produced at Ringling College of Art & Design. The short follows the protagonist, Sherwin, a middle school boy who is struggling to come to terms with his crush on Jonathan, one of the most popular boys in his grade.
As Selena Gomez once said “The Heart Wants What It Wants,” but I think Sherwin’s heart took it a bit too seriously as it literally leaped out of his chest chasing down the ‘boy of his dreams’ thus forcing him to chase after it in order to prevent it from revealing his true feelings to Jonathan, and ultimately the entire student body.

The purpose of the short is to bring to light a subject that is rarely explored in animation and in more specific computer animation. The animator’s intentions are for people to be a little bit more understanding and aware of what the experience of being gay is like through an animated short that is sweet and light-hearted and with In A Heartbeat they wanted to challenge the preconceived notion that LGBTQ content is not appropriate or suitable for younger audiences.

The filmmakers had two audiences they were targeting, they were primarily targeting the Hollywood film studios to challenge the preconceived notion that LGBTQ content is not appropriate or suitable for younger audiences, and
Their reactions were those among the lines of distaste and disapproval. The short film furthermore received a significant amount of hate by anti-gay people whom justified their distaste for the it by saying “kids should not be shown this kind of content at such a young age” but I believe that it’s really important for the to representation of LGBT characters because their ignorance and non-inclusion leads to a lot of internalized confusion as child matures, and this can be seen with how the previous generation had been brought