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"This is clearly one of the year's best films. Every time an animated film is successful, you have to read all over again about how animation isn't "just for children" but "for the whole family," and "even for adults going on their own." No kidding!" — Roger Ebert on Ratatouille.
"Grownups — and this includes those of you who work as film critics — must stop watching children's movies and pronouncing them entertaining for adults as well." — Daniel B. Kline, on Pixar's Up. Thankfully, this has not passed without comment here in Troperville (including this very article).
Animation is often seen as a frivolous medium suitable primarily for children's entertainment. Though most of the world has some degree of this, it is an attitude that prevails primarily in the United States.
This wasn't always so. In the Golden Age of Hollywood, cartoons were as much for adults as anything else was. So, what happened? Limited animation, the fall of the studio system and advances in color film technology. In the age of black and white film, shooting live action in technicolor was a complex and expensive process, however making color animation was simpler in comparison and proved just as much of a draw. By The Fifties live action color films (and even television) were common place, negating the Wow Factor of animation. Moreover, without the studio system to ensure shorts would be bundled with features, the market for shorts eventually crumbled and that crippled all theatrical film shorts. Due to its focus on long-format pieces only one studio, Disney, was left in the American animation business, and in The Fifties and The Sixties it was entering a period of being aggressively family-friendly. (True, their family friendly isn't always ours, but it's the idea that creates the ghetto.)
Due to the lack of a theatrical venue short-form cartoons were only viable on television. Worse, full quality animation was severely labour intensive and involved protracted development cycles. Given the technology available only limited animation methods could achieve the required output of 10-20 shows per season at reasonable cost. Soon it was noticed that cartoons made with limited animation could be cheaper than live-action. A few did make primetime early on (see The Flintstones, season 1); but many of them went to children's programming because children were not as sensitive to the quality issues and cartoons were cheaper and more reliable than the sort of live-action shows that get aimed at children. There are no last-minute bloopers with animation, no need to control live untrained children, and less pay (and often less credit) for the people who do do the work.
Animation also lends itself more to light entertainment than serious drama or comedy due to the relaxed constraints of a constructed reality. Moreover, even tho the quality of animation has drastically improved, it is still, more often than not, highly stylized due to the high costs and technical limitations to produce fully realistic animation. As stylization can often break many people's Willing Suspension Of Disbelief any "serious" animated work tends to require fully rendered environments and captured human performances. Unfortunately at that point it is usually cheaper just use REAL environments and REAL actors. Therefore it is almost nature for animation to focus on demographics with low expectations of quality and low belief thresholds.
Once animation became associated with children, at least in America, the Moral Guardians began to actively enforce this trope where and when they could out of a need to Think Of The Children. The only sure way to keep networks executives from editing a work to fit into the ghetto is to make a work that is impossible to edit that way — a Dead Baby Comedy or outright cartoon porn. It is difficult to find airtime for such works. It isn't always easy to get such a work into a theater, or to get viewers to come once they realize it is that kind of work. Soon the pipeline of new animators had never known anything but the confines of the ghetto, which served to entrench it.
There is also the problem that animation that doesn't fit in the ghetto isn't as profitable as animation that does. If it's considered safe for children, then you can license merchandise to children from the shows and be reasonably sure that someone will buy them. You can even make them 30-minute commercials, FCC permitting. Older demographics aren't as profitable, in part because of the ghetto — it's just not cool to be carrying around merchandise with random cartoon characters. Children can do it without shame.
Another factor in the problem is the lack of a coherent opposition: while there are people pointing the way to animation for adults, the trouble is that they're pointing in different directions. For example, many in the animation community point to the works of Jan Svankmajer, the Brothers Quay and Emily Hubley as how animation should be if it is to be taken seriously by an adult audience. The trouble with this is that the animation produced by these filmmakers is so resolutely non-mainstream that its chances of reaching a large audience are limited to say the least. On the other end of the scale are the people who point to the likes of Gargoyles and Batman The Animated Series as examples of cartoons that aren't for kids, apparently oblivious to the fact that these cartoons are, in fact, for kids. We can hardly be surprised if people from outside the animation community are sometimes confused.
On the other hand, the existence of the ghetto has led viewers and execs to believe that an animated work will fit there unless demonstrated otherwise. Thus, these works tend to have a lot of Getting Crap Past The Radar — sometimes on purpose, sometimes because something was stuffed into the ghetto retroactively and had its subtleties missed.
The ghetto is not as strong as it was. Cartoons that are not on broadcast networks can defy it as much as their mission statements allow. (No matter what, the Cartoon Network can defy it more effectively than Nickelodeon). And the concept of the Parental Bonus has returned to cartoons — after enough PSAs on parents needing to know what their kids are watching, the networks finally figured out that they are also a demographic. But enough parents grew up under the ghetto, and are willing to enforce it, that cartoons for thinking adults are still rare in America. There is no cartoon version of Oscar Bait, and with the exceptions of Beauty And The Beast and Up, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seems determined to keep it that way — they effectively ghettoized animated feature films by making a separate category for them.
Japan, on the other hand, doesn't have as many or as strong preconceptions of animation. First because the different cultural view of the art, that see even the low budget animations as a respectable achievement. Also they don't have the comic code that forbidden comics to have more mature themes and grow older with the readers. Principally because at time Japan don't have money or resources to match the american tv series, principally in adventure and science fiction. Animation became the only way to some writers see their work in the screen, principally because the western influence most of the early Japanese animations are western adventures with caucasian heroes like Princess Knight and science fictions in the future as Astro Boy.
The 60's childrens, grow old with anime and the young adult of the 80's accepted that animation and comics became so mature as well. So the animated shows in Japan became to be viewed as just as "respectable" as live-action extravaganzas would be in America and other western nations. And so profitable as the western childrens oriented animations.
Curiously Japan has made a lot of childrens shows with low budge productions and special fx.
See also What Do You Mean, It's Not For Kids?, Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch, Public Medium Ignorance, R Rated Opening, The Dark Age Of Animation and All Animation Is Disney.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- In an extreme example, there have been cases where comic book specialty stores which had separate adult sections have been prosecuted for corrupting minors, even though children weren't allowed into those areas of the store. The basis of the case is that if it is cartoon art, then it must be for children.
- Not just prosecuted, convicted. As recently as 2000, in that case, with the appeals lasting through 2003 (and failing). Oh, and even Scott McCloud came in to testify on behalf of the defense... didn't help.
- Oh, and by "convicted," we don't just mean "forced to pay a fine and stop doing it." Some of the defendants in "obscene comic book" cases have been forced to (1) undergo psychological counseling, (2) undergo "journalistic ethics" courses, (3) avoid contact with minors, and/or (4) be subject to unannounced raids of their houses to check to see if they're in possession of or in the process of creating "obscenity". First Amendment rights, anyone? Maybe it's time for you to go donate to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
- Partial example - Apparently some libraries put When The Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs in the children's section. It's a graphic novel in the same style as his books for children, but... it ends with the main characters dying horribly of radiation sickness.
- In an unusual case of this, Robert Crumb, practically the patron saint of adult-oriented underground cartooning (and oh lawdy not at all for kids!), is somewhat cynical about the wave of "artistic" comic books and (I'm paraphrasing here) thinks comics should stick to their more proletarian roots.
- While not exactly being a What Do You Mean Its Not For Kids like the rest of the examples given, The Adventures Of Tintin was commonly aired in a timeslot and on networks where children would see it, and the comics are commonly placed in the Children's Section of the library before some started to put them in the Graphic Novels section. (Which is kind of what they are anyways) They weren't exactly violent, gruesome, or sexy or anything but they contained a lot of stuff that children just wouldn't really understand, namely the political satire. Still though, kids would find appeal in Tintin cartoons and comics. How many cartoons are actually about drug smuggling?
Film
- The mere existence of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature speaks volumes of the prevalence of this trope: "If we stick all the cartoons in here, we can keep Best Picture clear for grown-ups." The category was introduced after Chicken Run—The Great Escape ON A FARM!—failed to gain a Best Picture nod. The only animated feature to earn a nomination for Best Picture prior to that was Beauty And The Beast. With the addition of the animated feature award, it's not likely to happen again. Officially, any film submitted for consideration for Best Animated Feature can be considered for Best Picture, too; but that's probably never going to happen... Then again, the same can be said about foreign language films and feature documentaries, since they have their own Oscars as well.
- The Screen Actors Guild might have had a say in this. Animated movies don't need to hire extras, and if they have flexible enough voice actors, then they don't even need a large main cast.
- Plus, you can switch voice actors halfway through production, and no one will be able to tell the diddly-ifference. Overall, there are a lot of reasons for actors to hate animation.
- Er, no, it's not as obvious, but you definitely can tell. Or some people can, anyway.
- One wonders about the headaches resulting at the Academy as films such as Beowulf and A Scanner Darkly get made more frequently, and a really good movie filled with only Serkis Folk is inevitable.
- So far, people have been treating Beowulf, A Scanner Darkly, and 300 as live-action films despite the sheer amount of animation in them. One can argue that A Scanner Darkly is a 100% rotoscoped film, but so far no one seems to have.
- Avatar's Best Picture Drama win at the 2010 Golden Globes should have been a breakthrough here — but Avatar is not an animated film. Because James Cameron says it isn't. Oh.
- On the other hand, the fact the Academy of Arts and Sciences was forced to acknowledge a need for Best Animated Film (when before Beauty And The Beast, they were never nominated at all) may be a good sign. One step at a time. Just getting the Academy to agree animation deserves recognition is monumental. Hopefully the rest will come with time.
- They did come under some heavy fire over rumors about them not allowing WALL-E a nomination of Best Picture.
- The Academy is taking fire from all places for choosing movies that only played in a few locations that, when you finally see them, aren't that good. Blockbuster movies can be well-crafted, too. WALL-E should have been nominated, though, based upon the sheer depth yet simplicity of the film. Fans have clearly identified no less than five completely different themes.
- This all changed with Up; check a little further down.
- In Finland, while the channels that air The Simpsons treat it like an adult show and subtitle it, The Simpsons Movie was rated +7 and dubbed. The visual contents were left intact. Yeah, the film has Bart drunk and animals tearing Marge's clothes, but it must be for kids.
- Then again, most film theatres screened the original version of the film with subtitles, though there were some screenings for the dubbed one. An article in NYT also featured an interview of Homer's Finnish voice actor calling the dubbed version a travesty.
- Many of Ralph Bakshi's films were poorly received because of this, such as Fire And Ice. Others, such as Cool World, became the victims of Executive Meddling. Meanwhile, The Lord Of The Rings... just wasn't very good... But, since it is a cartoon, it was some people's first introduction to the general story.
- One major complaint that was made when Watchmen came out was that it was far too graphic for a superhero movie, despite being rated R and the original comic also being directed at adults. Even the trailer made it clear that this was not Satuday Morning Watchmen. People saw the masks and the capes and automatically assumed it was a kid-friendly film, so they were quite surprised to see attempted rape, blood and gore, dark themes, and Dr. Manhattan's cerulean penis waving about.
- This was especially hilarious when one would see eight year-olds leaving a screening of the film with thousand-yard stares.
- Don Bluth holds the philosophy that animation cam be both dark and lighthearted at the same time, and that children can handle more than most adults believe, just as long as you gave them a (relatively) happy ending; The Secret Of NIMH is probably the shining example of that philosophy. Needless to say, studio executives don't feel the same way, which is why Executive Meddling forced him to essentially abandon this philosophy not long after An American Tail; in fact, Bluth wanted to add darker elements to Rock A Doodle and The Pebble and the Penguin, but the studios wouldn't let him because they wanted the films to appeal more to kids.
- As said by a talking cotton ball in a Don Hertzfeldt short, the intro for the theatrical touring festival The Animation Show:
Talking Cotton Ball 1: "An animated film is not just a random series of mindless, self-indulging, violent cartoon images meant only to be enjoyed by young children or people with mental handicaps, but is a serious, valid art medium all unto itself which the artist is free to explore the purity of the film medium, down to each and every single frame. The animated arts are—"
Talking Cotton Ball 2: *pointing* "Roboooooooots!"
- The animated movie Heavy Metal was ridiculously, obviously not for kids. Extremes of violence and sex were fairly common in the short, rock music-based vignettes that made up the original. In the flop sequel years later, the vignettes and much of the music were done away with, and most of the violence and sex were removed, toned down to something in the general vicinity of a PG-13 movie, maybe pushing R at best. It seems that even when making a sequel to a blatantly adult animated movie, you still need to make it not too adult.
- Maybe it would have been different if the original movie hadn't been perceived as being about nothing but violence and sex... and if it had had a better script...
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit: "I'm a cartoon! My only purpose in life is to make people laugh!"
- The above line is from a movie including cute little toons being slowly dissolved alive and screaming, a cigar-smoking baby, complete with diaper jokes, and Roger's own wife, voted sexiest cartoon character in history. Though the line may not be a case of Hypocritical Humor, as Roger himself seems to live up to it, even if other toons don't. When asked why she married him, Jessica said "He makes me laugh".
- This is only a half-example. Roger seems a bit eager to ghettoize animation to the ranks of comedy, but not to the ranks of kids-only; in fact, the only people we see him entertain are a bunch of drunken reprobates — all grown-ups.
- One of Roger Rabbit's best aspects is that it's entertaining no matter what age you are. Roger is a very comedic character, and his day-job is starring in funny cartoons, so he views making people laugh as his job, like how a professional comedian might. If anything, the scene where he says that line is an aversion to this Trope, since he was just entertaining a bar filled with adults (and not a kid in sight) with his usual cartoon antics. Roger's justification was that the people in the bar needed to laugh since many were depressed, not because they were children. The subject of their age never even came up, and didn't even seem important.
- This is the number one reason for Watership Down's reputation as Nightmare Fuel. Hey, it's just rabbits, right? Cute fluffy widdle bunnies. We can let our children watch it alone. WRONG.
- Plague Dogs (from the same team) has less of a problem because "plague" is in the title of the movie.
- One DVD of The Last Unicorn included commercials for shows targeted at young children (such as "The Wiggles"). Yes, it's a cartoon movie about a unicorn, but it's no My Little Pony. (...Then again, the older My Little Pony cartoons weren't 100% kid-friendly, either.)
- An odd example was a reviewer's quote on the Rotten Tomatoes entry for Princess Mononoke: "It's just right for the 9-year-old looking to while away a long afternoon in escapist storytelling." Which makes you wonder if he even watched the movie containing several decapitations, severed limbs, and zombie boars spewing blood before he wrote that.
- One of the reasons Akira was such a groundbreaking film was that it helped Anime break out of this, at least in the West. It was by no means the first mature anime, but it was the first to receive enough attention outside of Japan to help subvert this on a larger scale. These days, a lot of Western people view or even expect ''all'' anime as being on that end of the maturity scale, though.
- Still, Akira may be found on display in some stores at the 'Kids' segment, right next to SpongeBob SquarePants.
- If the stores are staffed by people with no clear grasp of the English language, then sure.
- Or if the stores are staffed with people who don't bother to read the back of any box that has a cartoony animee picture on the front.
- The Brave Little Toaster: a great movie, but it does have some powerful images if you let yourself think about them. Mortality, finding God, salvation, self-sacrifice, the soullessness of modern culture...
- The "Worthless" sequence in the junkyard still gives me the creeps.
- There's also a Musical Age Ghetto. Apparently, if half of the performance is songs, then it's automatically like Beauty And The Beast or Aladdin, and therefore for kids. Yeah. Sure. Tell that to these five.
- A "recent" New York Times article decried Pixar's Up for not pushing enough merchandise. Notwithstanding the bad research (they get the domestic box office numbers wrong and flat out ignored the worldwide totals, and then claim that Ratatouille and WALL-E were Pixar's least successful films financially when they made more money than the first Toy Story and A Bugs Life) and the criticism against Pete Docter for his remark that they "make the movies for themselves", the entire article is under the assumption that an animated film must have tie-in toys for the children.
- Which is nothing compared to this abomination of an article.
- The movie eventually broke out of the Ghetto big-time; it was one of the most well-reviewed films of 2009, with critics and moviegoers alike raving about it. In 2010, the Academy Awards recognized that the Ghetto couldn't contain it - Up became the first fully-CGI film and only the second animated film to be nominated for Best Picture. (Though this might be in response to the WALL-E award snubbing — see below)
- If the trailer for Battle for Terra is any indication, the film's intent is to take this trope, break it, stomp on it, and shatter it to pieces underfoot by way of bright and colorful Dinosaur-esque CG animation and a very serious storyline about humanity being on the verge of extinction and deciding to take a peaceful inhabited planet by way of hostile conquest. There will probably be some difficulty.
- Titan AE. Part of the reason that movie flopped was because the filmmakers didn't know whether to market it towards children or towards teenaged Sci-Fi fans.
- One of the very earliest animated films was Winsor McCay's The Sinking of the Lusitania. The kiddies must have flocked to it back in 1918.
- Coraline. Yes, it's for kids and rated PG. Yes, it features eye mutilation. No, some countries would not have an animated movie being shown in the theatres if it's not kid-friendly enough. You're welcome.
- A ton of reports from fans of 9 have come in involving seeing young children at the theater for it. Those poor kids. Apparently PG-13 means nothing to a good amount of parents if it's not live action.
- It didn't help that the trailers shown before the film were for more family friendly movies.
- Likewise, as with Battle for Terra, the critics did not think much of it.
- WALL-E was a heartwarming romance that had adults tearing up over the utter power of the emotions the film evoked. With the possible exception of The Dark Knight, it was the best-reviewed film released in 2008. Of course, with two exceptions, the Oscars are specifically rigged to exclude "cartoons" from even being CONSIDERED for a Best Picture Oscar. The Dark Knight was similarly denied a Best Picture nomination (replace "cartoons" with "superhero movies" here), despite all sorts of critical acclaim (and being the second-highest-grossing film ever).
- Similarly, it seems that comedy is considered the first and foremost quality for an animated film according to the academy. As such, Wallace And Gromit beat Howl's Moving Castle for best animated film (thats not to say Wallace and Gromit'' was a funnier movie).
- But then, that's hardly an outrageous choice. Plenty of open-minded people in the animation community simply preferred Wererabbit to Howl. It's also hardly unheard of for a non-comedy film to win the Oscar for Best Animated Short.
- Yes, but when was the last time you saw a comedy win Best Picture?
- Live action comedies generally aren't so technically progressive as Pixar or Aardman films.
- Your Mileage May Vary with your last comment. La Maison en Petits Cubes won Best Animated Short in 2009, even beating Pixar's hilarious short Presto.
- Most would agree that Wallace and Gromit are fine films, but Miyazaki's work is highly praised within the industry itself, so it is understandable that some would fine that choice odd. Given the animation quality and the excellent voice acting Howl does seem superior at least in technical merits, and Howl is certainly more popular worldwide.
- Ironically enough, it may have been those two glaring omissions in the Best Picture category in the 2009 Oscars - and the crap everyone flung the Academy's way for said omissions - that resulted in the category gaining an extra five nomination slots for the 2010 show.
- Second to Dark Knight nothing. It was the best critically acclaimed wide release of the year according to Rotten Tomatoes (including limited releases, the best reviewed was Man On Wire)
- The Black Cauldron. Who knew that Disney intentionally made it to appeal to teenaged fans of fantasy novels in the 80s and that they were actually afraid that it would be rated "PG-13" or even "R". An "R" rated cartoon?! NEVER!!!!
- Maybe it's more of an R rated Disney production thing they worried about. it's not exactly the image disney is shooting for.
Live Action TV
- Bottom's Up features an inversion of this trope. Richie joins Eddie, who is watching a film. Richie comments about the cute furry anthropomorphic animated critters on screen all with Species Surname "It isn't very sexy, is it." This is proof that Eddie accepts that cartoons aren't just for kids as he was expecting something closer to X-Rated from the title 'The Furry Honey-Pot Adventure'. The only clue Eddie gets that no sex scenes will begin is because the caption 'The End' appears on-screen.
- He was equally disappointed with his purchase of 'Big Jugs', which turned out just to be a history of pottery.
Eddie: Well this ones got to be a sure fire hit: 'Swedish Lesbians in Blackcurant Jam'!
Richie: Yabba-dabba-doo! No, Eddie it's 'Swedish LEGENDS in Blackcurant Jam MAKING'!
Eddie: Aww, come on, it's got to be dirty it says 'Swedish' on it!
Music
- The video for Streetlight Mainfesto's Would You Be Impressed. Has the band represented as animals too! So it must be for kids.
Real Life
- This — not the expected copyright issues — is the basis for nearly any and all controversy over art exhibitions that depict subversions of classic cartoons, such as "Animatus" and "Splatter". With that in mind, see the very first line in this typical report on the latter.
- This one is even stranger: "unrelenting acts of blood and discomfort never previously witnessed on the Cartoon Network". Remember, this is after Metalocalypse, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and other graphic shows were already on Cartoon Network.
- It's a British newspaper's website writing about an exhibition in London; none of those shows showed on Cartoon Network here, so the statement makes sense.
Soviet Animation
- Sometimes avoided in Soviet Union animations: while many cartoons were aimed for children, there were numerous cartoons with much more mature themes like war, regret, death, tragedy, lies, ignorance, human feelings and so on. This is one of the kindest examples.
- That's what happens when Communism meets animation. Stalin's Disney, so to speak.
- Stalin was a film buff, but he wasn't interested in animation. It traditionally had seen much less regulation than the other media. Soviet toons had another problem — despite a significant number of adult-oriented ones, they were mostly shorts. Feature-length ones were almost nonexistent, and series were few and far between, being either a features broken into 10-15 min shorts, or just separate shorts about the same characters, which might be separated by years.
- Not necessarily a bad thing - you could make a strong case for shorts being the ideal format for animation, as they suffer less from the watering-down that tends to accompany longer formats.
Videogames
- Media hatred is Nigh Invulnerable. In Spain, it has recently concentrated into videogame hate... with similar arguments to the ones displayed in this trope. One would think they simply erased every mention of "cartoon" and replaced it with "videogame" in their declarations. Sigh.
- The entire justification by Micheal Atkinson for why Australia doesn't have an R rating available for videogames. Much to the quite vocal objections by the hundreds of thousands of gamers in Australia....
- Germany has even proposed legislation which would prosecute violence against 'human-like' characters as if they were real people, applicable to publishers and players alike.
- In Brazil and most of Latin America the Animation Age Ghetto still goes very strong with nearly no sign of change. It's horrifying that the DVD of Dead Space: Downfall (a prequel to a video game that everyone knows isn't for kids) was in the Children section of a regional Blockbuster, with a severed arm in space just at eye height... to a five years old. Also noticed the same in other rental stores. Although the Brazilian rating system is very competent compared to most, being somewhat more strict but also more critic (the movie was correctly rated 18+ in a large black label, regardless of it being an animation, for "Murder, Mutilation and Cruelty", although forgetting foul language and moral issues as well, but I guess it didn't have the space), most stores and consumers outright ignore it exists, and the ones who does blindly goes with it as a religion, forgetting it is just an advice.
- Gaia Online, being primarily an anime fansite, gets this a lot, despite having several measures to prevent under-thirteens from getting on the site. As a result, they frequently have to deal with parents upset that Li'l Precious has a half-naked succubus draped on their avatar.
Western Animation
- Swat Kats jumps to mind. Running from 1993 to 1995, It was the earliest western attempt at breaking the ghetto, and, in spite of the numerous problems that popped up because of that, the series went on to become a hit and garnered high ratings. However, Ted Turner, owner of Hanna Barbera, single-handedly forced its cancellation against outraged fan protests - for the sole reason that he personally disliked the show's Darker And Edgier content.
- Anybody else miss those GREAT AND INTELLIGENT cartoons MTV used to air? Stuff like Aeon Flux, Daria, Liquid Television, The Maxx and The Head?
- On the other hand... The Brothers Grunt.
- South Park is a potential subversion. On the one hand, it definitely helped convince the North American animation industry that Adult animation CAN be a mainstream success; on the other hand, they think that ONLY Adult Comedy animation can be a mainstream success.
- Not strictly an adult cartoon however, as many of the series' biggest fans probably began watching when they were (or even are now) in junior high.
- Periphery Demographic.
- The cartoon adaptation of Spawn can be considered a glimpse of what animation would be like if the ghetto never existed. Not only is it a remarkably high quality production, but one that states very clearly that it wants nothing to do with children. It has violence, death, gore, decapitation, torture, High Octane Nightmare Fuel, and much more, but it never deploys this in excess. It is Darker And Edgier, but it also takes itself very seriously. It has an engaging plot, good characterization, and probably the best voice acting ever seen in an animated production. Sadly, it was short-lived (only eighteen episodes produced); nothing like it has ever been seen again.
- Though how it happened is... let's just say sad, it's also amusingly ironic that the only animated shows on FOX that survive are comedies aimed at the older crowd.
- In Italy, if it's cartoon art, then it must be targeted to children. Bloody battles, dismemberment and sexual innuendo notwithstanding.
- Which is weird, considering how established the Italian market for adult comic books is.
- The case in Spain was, until recently, much like what the previous editor mentions about this thing in Italy. However, thanks to a very vocal community and a growing comic industry, this is happily starting to diminish - though there is still a ways to go before a teen watching a non-Simpsons cartoon doesn't get any funny looks.
- The censor board from France, before the 1990's, just automatically flagged animation for kids without even watching a single episode. To this day, we still don't know why.
- Invasion America, the only primetime animated drama produced in the United States, folded after one season without any plot resolution.
- This may be justified: When Batman The Animated Series was released, critics praised the mature storytelling and vibrant art style, saying it was "wasted on weekday afternoons." They thought it could easily grab the attention of a more adult audience. When Fox put this to the test, giving the show a prime-time slot, it flopped miserably.
- Quite frankly, with their particularly more restrained use of humour, strong continuity, and emotional depth, much of Bruce Timm's work, such as that of the Batman and Justice League franchises, could qualify for a prime-time slot. Unfortunately, most grown-ups aren't willing to watch a hand-drawn series based on spandex-wearing superhero exploits. As a result, the shows are watered down and shipped as children's entertainment.
- Just to show how strong the Ghetto is: When the producers wanted to make a piece of Emmy Bait for Batman Beyond, did they go the True Art Is Angsty route, which tends to come naturally for Batman? No, they made a comedic episode where he has to fight crime while Egg Sitting.
- The Animatrix, a collection of animated shorts set in the universe of The Matrix, was aimed squarely at an adult audience. Many of the shorts were surreal to the point of psychedelia, and they had violence. The Animatrix has a higher Rotten Tomatoes score then the original Matrix. It sold poorly, but this was probably related to lack of publicity and oversaturation of the Trilogy more than any cultural bias about the role of animation.
- Then again, the cultural bias could've affected the publicity.
- Star Trek The Animated Series was a continuation of the old live-action Star Trek, complete with Gene Roddenberry at the helm and the cast providing voicework (except Walter Koenig). Still, it was toned down to be friendlier to kids. It aired in the 1970s on Saturday morning — anything not kid-friendly in those slots was literally forbidden back then.
- Despite the fact that the Teen Titans source material was directed toward teenagers, hence the title, when the comic was adapted into an animated series, numerous aspects were either severely watered down or removed altogether to make it suitable for a solely juvenile audience. The quote from above comes from response to criticism that the series as a whole expressed an overly childish nature.
- That's because Sam Register was in charge. Now, if it was Bruce W. Timm, then it would be different...
- Yet that certainly didn't diminish the Nightmare Fuel it occasionally presented. See: Slade.
- The struggle between doing a quality show and watering it down lent a schizoid flavor to the show. You would, for instance, have the angsty and adult Raven plot arc, and in the middle there would be an episode featuring that Bat-Mite ripoff.
- A similar occurrence took place to a much greater extent, especially in the later seasons, of Static Shock. The Milestone Comic on which it is based can be best described as an Amazing Spider-Man with a black hero, twice as much angst, and 10 times more contemporary content (sex, gay-bashing and visual gang warfare were but a few of the series's recurring focal points). While the beginning of the animated series is close enough to its source material, it became more and more child-oriented as time went on. Where Did They Get Lasers was in full effect by the middle of the series even though real guns were seen and used in the series' premiere.
- There is another example of a non-laser gun when a bullied kid steals his father's gun with the intention to kill his tormentor; he ends up being knocked to the ground by some students with the gun going off and hitting his friend Richie in the leg. Richie doesn't bleed, but you can tell he is in serious pain. Later on, we find out he could've died if the bullet struck any higher.
- The producers of Spider Man The Animated Series had a list of requirements to keep the show politically correct. Some were animated staples such as laser guns and not mentioning "death", "die", etc.; but some were utterly ridiculous ("Caution that when Spider-Man lands on the roof, he doesn't harm any pigeons.").
- Subversion: the UK — specifically, Channel 4 — has produced a hefty amount of adult animation for TV, with far more variety than America's contributions.
- It could be argued that the dark underbelly of the Furry Fandom runs smack into this, as animation is where you're most likely to find Anthropomorphic characters. A common complaint heard is "you're ruining our childhood," implying that cartoon animals are just for kids.
- That's not what it implies at all.
- From what I have seen, the "you're ruining our childhood!" complaints are usually levelled against fanart using characters from cartoon shows or animated movies that are aimed at children and putting them into sexually explicit situations, not some random anthropomorphic foxes or whatever getting it on. Also, it doesn't only apply to anthropomorphic animals, but any character that officially is "wholesome"/acceptable for children twisted that way.
- Something Awful has "ruined my childhood" via their more disturbing art contests based on making kid's shows have a darker twist to them than EVER accidently seeing Yakko with a penis. The punk kid from Zits murdering everyone in a school shooting? Awesome! As long as there is no penis.
- Violence doesn't ruin childhoods because children think violence is cool. That's why kids like dinosaurs and explosions. Conversely, children consider contact with members of the opposite gender icky. Hence, sexualizing something you did as a kid is horrific, while adding in violence is hilarious/awesome.
- Two awards for cartoons at the Emmys: one for programs up to 30 minutes, and one for programs 30 minutes or longer. Neither was even seen at the 2007 Emmys (though the fact that the creators of South Park thought them getting an Emmy was ridiculous and probably wouldn't have shown up might be a reason not to show their win).
- Family Guy for 2009 did not even nominate themselves for the Emmys' Best Animated Program. They submitted directly to Best Comedy...and are nominated. They did not win (we all know the Emmys are in the effing can for 30 Rock every year), but they were nominated in a "live action" category in the Primetime Emmys, which is impressive.
- Gargoyles, which was made by Disney of all people, still managed to have serious and mature themes, as well as strong continuity.
- Dreamworks Animation features, particularly the Shrek franchise and Kung Fu Panda, may be offering a way to help bridge this animation gap. While none of those movies is exactly adult animation — they have a lot of kid-friendly moments — neither are they standard kiddie-fare. They offer mostly good alternatives to the Disneyfied products they compete with. Perhaps this will be a major step in finally breaking down the walls of the ghetto, as future films may become less aimed toward children and more critically accepted and honored.
- Does anyone else wonder how the hell Channel 4 (UK) ever got away with airing Family Guy at 6 p.m. after questions were asked in the house after they started to broadcast South Park post-watershed?
- And what about Beavis and Butthead or Daria? Those cartoons aired on Noggin, which was advertised as a children's channel. The morning was for preschool-aged kids; the evening was for teenagers. Those had better have been on in the evening!
- When the new FOX animated series Sit Down Shut Up was first pitched, it was pitched as a live-action show. Executives rejected it because the characters were "too broad". Rather than attempt to fix this, the creators merely said "we'll just make it a cartoon, lol", because good characterization is obviously not important in animation. Naturally, it got green-lit, but proceeded to bomb.
- Sounds more like "animation genre ghetto" than "animation age ghetto".
- Sky One used to air Family Guy and Baby Blues as part of their Saturday Morning line-up, along with kids stuff in the early part of the decade. They, uh, did not last long.
- Though in the latter's case, it should be noted that the comic strip was family-friendly. Adaptation Decay at work.
- Fox used to air The Ripping Friends on Saturday morning. It was basically The Ren And Stimpy Show on steroids. (It is created by John Kricfalusi...). The show was dirty, filthy, and hilarious. Cancellation and a spot on Adult Swim at 11:00 PM ensue. Guess they figured adults would appreciate all the poop and booger jokes more.
- The Simpsons is revered for being an animated show enjoyed by both children and adults, but in the British "100 Greatest Kids' TV shows" poll on Channel 4 (which wasn't very democratic since the 100 shows were picked by the channel in the first place; the public were simply putting them in order, so to speak) the number 1 spot was taken by The Simpsons. The people on the show's constant pleas that it belonged there because it appealed to all ages really held no ground considering there are plenty of other shows that kids can also enjoy despite them being made for adults that didn't make the list. Once again it seems to be the old argument "It's animated, that means kids must like it!"
- Invader Zim deserves a mention. Nickelodeon specifically asks its creator to make it a show for older children, but wound up marketing it between SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly Oddparents. Predictably, it only lasted a season and a half. (Ironically, Nick later opted to whore it out in crossovers meant for said other shows' target demographics).
- Bell ExpressVu will categorize any animated series as "Children", regardless of its rating. End result, cartoons set in the future with automated suicide booths and vending machines labeled " Heroin - it's refreshing!" are labeled as "Children". (Side note: to even things out, The Comedy Central news programs are labeled "News").
- Every movie in the DC Universe Animated line has a sticker on the case saying "The First-Ever Animated (insert subject of movie here) Movie Rated PG-13!", as if nobody would watch the movie otherwise (which, sadly, is probably the case). It technically isn't even true for Batman: Gotham Knight, since Return of the Joker was rated PG-13 eight years before.
- What really makes the Ghetto concept so retarded is that older American cartoons like Tom and Jerry had fairly mature themes, such as stabbing and shooting, even going so far as use ketchup and making it look like blood.
- A major issue a Plugged In Online review and various Media Watchdogs have with Avatar The Last Airbender is its seriousness and maturity for a cartoon. If cartoons really should be just for kids, this would be a bad thing. However, most of its demographic are of the age who believe the darker, the better. The co-creators have said several times since the beginning that the show was designed for kids, but at the same time were very confident that its particular writing would attract older audiences and wider demographics. Though certain parties argued otherwise, the end result is obvious.
- "He's supposedly the only one skilled in manipulating all of nature's basic elements. But he isn't. A rival shares his powers." I don't think that this reviewer actually watched the show.
- He also objects to its FOREIGN influences. How DARE you expose our youth to Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu influences! It frankly struck me as pretty discriminatory, like all kids should be allowed to see is 'wholesome Christian values' out of fear that they'll be tainted by anything else.
- Plugged In Online is owned by Focus on the Family, a fundamentalist Christian organization, so it's not entirely unexpected that they'd object to a show that would tend to glamorize Eastern spirituality.
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