Entertainment or Critique?
I like writing about questions that were posed in class, because I often find myself thinking about them afterwards. Last week's and today's class we have been watching and discussing "animation not for children". There was a question that came up... is it pure entertainment or a critique? In short: I thin that some adult animation is a political critique of modern day society, made into entertainment. Animators use "cartoons" to amp up the comedy within their works of art. What I mean by this is that since so many people still believe that animation is for kids, the animators can use this to their advantage. This has to do with the identity crisis of animation. Back to the question before, people find it hilarious to see "cartoons" speak about society's problems because we almost have this sense of "how do they know about that??". It's like seeing people (or other things) from an outside world talk about the problems we are faced with daily. It is funny because our modern day society has gone so down hill that the situations the characters are in seem so outrageous. Yet, we realize that we humans are actually living those outrageous situations. It's like laughing at ourselves almost. This critique of society is used as entertainment which is why I believe that adult animation often uses critiques as entertainment.
I agree with the sentiment that one of the greatest strengths of "animation not for children" is the fact that people still see animation as a kid's medium. This works exceptionally well for comedy, as it's bizarre and funny to see cartoon characters swear, bleed, or have sex. On top of this, I agree with the idea that having animated characters talk about adult situations can bring a fresh perspective on things. However, sometimes, because of the stigma that "animation is for kids" I find that it can be hard to get adults to take serious animated films seriously. There have been several times where I've explained the plot of a film to my father and he's said "oh, that sounds exciting", only to the lose interest when he finds out the movie's animated.
ReplyDeleteSo, I would definitely agree that some animation (specifically adult) is a political critique of modern day society. This is tough because many adults don't take animation seriously since it's "cartoons" and expect only children to watch animation. Personally, I like when animation addresses real world problems because it feels a more lighthearted.
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