Just a Face and a Caption: What Do You Mean Its For Kids

This one slipped under my radar. It doesn’t convey the trope on its own and relies entirely on the caption. I don’t even think Watership Down is for kids anyway . . .

The example on the Literature subpage mentions that it's intended for children per Word of God. Voting Keep Until Better Image Suggested, although the caption should make it more clear that the statement is an official rating.

Keep Until Better Image Suggested.

It could use a second frame, perhaps.

But yes, even aside from Word of God, Watership Down is often suggested for young audiences (because, you know, it's a cartoon about bunnies).

Keep Until Better Image Suggested

Keep.

Maybe we can add a cover that shows the rating to indicate that it's marketed for kids? [1]◊

Maybe find one in English.

Even if it's not always true, being an animation gives a strong enough suggestion that it's made for kids, so the caption is enough to get the point across. No need to bloat the image with extraneous panels.

Agreed with that last sentence. Keep Until Better Image Suggested.

Edited by rjd1922 on Aug 18th 2020 at 4:30:44 AM

But what about the Animation Age Ghetto???

I actually had that in mind when I read that. In fact, the point of the image on What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? is the fact that being animated doesn't automatically mean it's for kids.

What about simply adding the rating to the current image, so it's shown in the image itself and not just the caption?

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 15th 2020 at 1:53:48 PM

I know Adams stated the movie was made for kids, but there is absolutely no way to convey that through an image.

If the image shows it's animated and about bunnies, then it shows that people think it's for kids.

We also have What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?, where people assume a work is for kids when it's really not (often due to Animation Age Ghetto). To qualify for this trope, the image needs to show that the work is actually intended/marketed for kids (e.g. by showing the work's Rating) and not simply assumed to be such.

Edited by Adept on Aug 18th 2020 at 5:04:01 PM

Hmm, it strikes me that we get a lot of confusion between "What do you mean it IS X" and "What do you mean it is NOT X", because either one sounds like sarcasm mode for the other.

Felidae is animated and has cats, which sounds like it's kiddy material. It's not.

The "Its for kids"/"Its not for kids" tropes have been confused for a long time. Two wick checks and joint TRS topic for both are long overdue.

I think it's a confusing trope naming, but "What Do You Mean It's X" means that it is not X but looks like X (where X might be in the form of "not Y").

No, it's the other way around. X is the truth, and the logic of the trope name goes that someone ignorant upon being informed of X goes "What do you mean, 'X'?"

• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: It's in reality "not for kids", but mistaken for the opposite due to things like Animation Age Ghetto.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: It's in reality "for kids" (as evidenced by e.g. Word of God or an age rating), but mistaken for the opposite because it contains material generally considered kid-unfriendly.

Edited by Laukku on Aug 18th 2020 at 11:47:42 AM

Right, I told you it's confusing. Some of them got renamed, for example What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic? got renamed to Faux Symbolism, or What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome? to Mundane Made Awesome. I think it's for a good reason.

Renaming "What Do You Mean, 'X'" tropes to something like "Mistaken as [opposite of X]" might be a good idea, although outside the scope of an IP thread.

Oh, we have a looong list of pages that IP thinks should go to TRS at some point.

But at least in this case, it's only the trope name is which is a bit confusing, but otherwise there is no great disuse, so we can find an image without a TRS thread first needing to clean up the trope.