Obsessing About It: The Rise Of New Animation

Last time we talked about animated show, I made the point that the one that's supposed to be adult-oriented seems to be in decay; I explained some reasons about the phenomenon...but now, it's time to deal with the other half of the issue.

Are children cartoons in the dawn of a new golden age?

Hold your horses Mabel...

I'm what you could call a "90's kid"; I remember watching Animaniacs, Batman The Animated Series, Tiny Toons and Pepper Ann; from time to time, I still have the chance to watch some of those shows again on a re-run or on the Internet to put at test how much of my love for such animated shows is nostalgia and how much is because they're truly quality entrainment. To my surprise, cartoons like the ones I mentioned before truly have passed the test of time.

 Even if sometimes, their references are so 90's it hurts...NOT! (If you were a 90's kid, you probably
understand where that came from)

Not all series are that fortunate: for each series with a good quality control system, there were others that it's better not to remember and let them rest in the peace of Internet anonymity

Who am I kidding? There's no such thing...besides, that series sucked.

However, many of my generation peers are not afraid to claim that there was nothing like the old Cartoon Network, the old Nickelodeon, the old Disney Channel, and how much better the 90's shows are than the ones we have today. While it is true that there's a lot of crap nowadays...

Seriously, who watches that shit?

...there are plenty of shows that, to be fair, I wouldn't be afraid to call not only good, but actually superior that what we had back in the day. Not always tough, but...G'd dammit, sometimes I am very surprised by how sophisticated modern kids cartoons can get, I mean never thought the story of a cursed human and a half-demon, half-vampire girl could touch my heart...

I'm not crying! YOU ARE CRYING! T.T

If we see the premises and plots of modern cartoons...well, yeah, they're crazy. Of course, being this the world of animation, isn't strange to see shows with crackpot insane stories and concepts, but even taking that in count, modern animation can turn really weird, really fast, even by standards of the medium.

Yeah, yeah: a bluejay, a raccoon, the son/daugther of Frankstein and a ghost just hanging around...

But unlike adult shows, those samples of weirdness seems to lead to something: there is an attempt to build a plot, character development, a tone; in all their craziness, they make sense by the rules of their internal worlds. It seems to work with no problem.

Why?

Because some simple truth; so simple, it's hard to not ignore it from time to time, distracted by other factors. Which is that simple truth?

The writers and the authors take their shows seriously, with a very personal vision of what they want to produce.

Now, I'm not saying that authors from previous years didn't take their job as seriously as they should; animation is famous for having very passionate people, struggling to make their works famous and well-known, sometimes betting against all odds and all predictions of failure.

Yep, this has been the story of the medium for a long time

But I'm talking about something slighty different: the rise of what I like to call, the "auteur animated series". Of course, by its own nature, having a single person writing a TV show, animated or not, it's pretty much impossible, but that doesn't mean it can have the personal creative vision of the creator. Nowadays, that seems to be, if now the "standard", at least studios are more open to give freedom.

Because let's be honest, when I heard about "Gravity Falls", I just couldn't believe that show was on freakin' Disney Channel. Is not that there's no child-friendly content in the show, it is just...it's hard to think what executive greenlighted something like this.

By the channel who brought you "A Dog With a Blog"...

While names like Alex Hirsch, Pendleton Ward, Lauren Faust, Brian Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino and Dan Mandel aren't exactly mainstream (let's be honest here: outside of Disney, and probably someone like Chuck Jones or Tex Avery, no names from animation make its way to the memory of the general audiences), they are surely more famous and well-respected among animation fans than, let's say, Seth McFarlane. Add to this recipe executives that, while still tied to commercial principles (that's just not going to change ever), seem to be at least more savvy with the fans, and understand that taking one risk or two doesn't harm their products. In any case, just improves its image.

There are things they're still not ready for, though

It's hard to tell if this is the dawn of a real new Golden Age for the medium, or, if that's the case, how long it's gonna last (sine unfortunely, whether we like it or not, all things, as good as they are, must come to an end), but at least I can tell you that while I do recognize the 90's cartoons and I understand the spirit of the nostalgia, the idea that the shows from that era were superior to what you can see today is completely bullshit, made by people who just doesn't seems to watch a lot of modern animated shows.

In any case, animation fans of all decades should be united against bigger enemies, like this one (because if you think the live action series CN and Disney Channel are crap, you should take a look south of the border).

If you have laughed at this show, you may be a retarded!

Shalom comrades.

Headlines: Time Magazine Yells At Cloud

So, the Internet has been pretty busy with the controversy created by Joel Stein's article for Time Magazine about how the Millenial Generation (rougly, the people born in the early 80's to the mid 90's) is narcissist, lazy and entitled.

The reaction of the new media has been incredible: there we have it, a 41 years old man making such declarations about a whole generations of individuals who are living through one of the most complicated economic times in recent history woulnd't exactly pass unnoted, especially by a generation that domains and feels at home in the modern social plataforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Acussations were made: the article was either stupid because Time would be insulting one growing segment of buyers and consumers, or just plain insensitive to the reality of millions and millions around America (and hell: the majority of the Western world) that want a better job and want to achieve more in life but aren't in the best position to do it so due to high rates of unemployement...I'm not here to discuss that (it has been discussed enough by other, way better writers than me).

What I want to talk about is how, a journalist (an educated person), a member of the generation X could make such a big mistake: complain about how today kids are.

Bear with me, and see this funny experiment, because all those claims about how the youngers are lazy and self-absorbed are far from being something new. See this next Life magazine:

What's so special about it? It talked about the supposedly differences between the younger generation and the grown ups: among them, how these kids were lazy, unable to make a living and narcissists. The date of the magazine? May 17, 1968.

But that's far from the only one; meet, as Newsweek called it, the "Video Generation" (sounds lame, isn't?)

Just like their fashion sense

And on it talked about...yeah, the narcissism of this generation, willing to video-record every single banal thing crossing on their lives.

Moving to the 90's, we had...

An article about...guess what? How the Gen X was made almost completely by screwups, more "willing to hike the Himalaya" than in "climbing the corporate ladder".

Every generation in turn has been labeled that way...so, all those undesirible traits those publications described...could it be that is just older people forgetting how they behaved when they were our age? Or even funnier: maybe it has less to do with some generation in specific, and more with all youngsters of all ages?

As I read in a remote corner of the Internet: "As long as there's 20 somethings, there will be hipsters".

So, Mr. Stein; please, think more your words before you yell at that creepy cloud in the sky.

Shalom comrades.

Obsessing About It: Are Adult Oriented Cartoons In Decline?

It wouldn't be a big, shocking secret if I reveal that, despite of my age, I still watch cartoons, just like 86% of the Internet (citation requiered); somehow, I never truly grew up that phase, probably because I've always seen animation as something more than just entretament: I used to draw a lot when I was a kid and I still do it to some degree today.

Now, cartoons for adults aren't exactly something new: I grew up with The Simpsons since way before I was supposed to watch them, but in a funny paradox, most of the grown up animation enthusiasts don't watch adult animation shows: the ones they watch are supposedly child-oriented stuff, like...

This is awesome

Even awesomer

And of course...

I'd insert a joke, but making fun of this series by now it's like beating a dead horse...hehehe, dead horse...GET IT?!

That doesn't mean they don't like older stuff; my friends still watch other kind of shows: The Walking Dead, Glee, Community...more "conventional" series that you would expect being in the taste of young adults. But it is funny how the crude, Seth Macferlanesque school of animated comedy isn't specially well-liked by them.

But someone has to watch those shows, I mean, they're still hits...who watches them? Well, on my personal experience, the ones devoted to those TV programs are...kids.

So, we have this scenario where the childish animated shows are followed by grown ups and the adult oriented are followed by kids and teens...how the heck this happened?

Of course, I'm over-generalizing here, but it's a trend surely I've noticed: the younger ones love the stuff aimed to the older crowd because...why?

One of my favorite phrases is "There's nothing more inmature that trying to act like an adult", and I see the point: I remember when I was a young child and I was wishing nothing but grow fast, being older and independent, free to do what I wanted to do.

Yeah, that was the idea...

And then, I became an actual adult, and I had to deal with the reality: it turned out I wasn't as independent since I was chained to old debts nor truly free because I had bosses, and responsabilities, and bills, and stress.

Luckily, I'm not bold...yet

And from time to time (some days more than it's healthy) I look back at the past, and while I'm aware my childhood was far from perfect, now it doesn't look that bad...being at my age is scary as shit, since you're on your own, you're supposedly to make it yourself, everybody expects so much of you, or at least, they expect to put your shit together and don't be a failure.

Yeah, with that in count (because I'm sure I'm far from being the only one from my age who has to deal with situations like that), aren't then the enjoyment of these colourful, bright cartoons some form of escapism? Of course, you can make the case that the point of fiction is escapism itself. Is it some sort of nostalgia for a more innocent time?

That may be one reason...but not the main reason...

Just look how innocent modern cartoons look like

First of all, let's see some of the adult animated shows: we've got The Simpsons that is reaching its 882th season, we've got two shows from Seth MacFarlane (since "The Cleveland Show" was, as some would say, mercifuly canceled), there's South Park too, and the rookie of the team in the form of "Bob's Burgers". What do those series have in common? With the exception of South Park, they're all black comedies about the struggle middle-class families.

I don't see any genre of fiction and/or media as inherently bad (except of course, child porn), but I do know that you can only exploit a style until it becomes a cliché, and mainstream adult animated shows are trapped in the same formula: high on shock factor, heavy on pop culture references, and very family-centric. Is it a problem? It shouldn't be, but it is.

The generation that originally grew up with The Simpson are now authors and creators on their own, and of course, they'll try to mimic what they liked it; there's nothing wrong with that, the problem IS when they miss the point of what made that series so great: when they read "Black Humor", they seem to over-read BLACK, and forget the part of "humor": Most of those current animated shows rely too much on the shock factor, to insult, to impress...comedy that only frat boys and 8 years old kids would find amusing because they just discover the words "pee" and "dick".

In picture: the writers of "Meet The Spartans", "Epic Movie" and "New Girl"

The Simpsons were big in the 90's because the writers knew the art of crafting and put together creative, edgy plot lines, black humor and memorable characters with strong, well-defined personalities. But nowadays, authors (at least, in mainstream TV) have forgotten about almost every other detail but "try to be as disgusting and gross as possible".

The Simpsons at least had the decency of build a plot, a story; then they started their non-sense, and we were cool with that. Family Guy doesn't even to put that minimum effort and respect for their audience.

Not that their audience deserves a lot of respect anyway, but still...

So, you combine the same model made once and again (even Bob's Burgers, a series that I do respect to a little degree for at least trying to build plots) and a minimun effort in story-making in favor of fast-speed pop culture jokes, and you got why the modern crop of adult animated shows are so unnapealing for animation fans. It is more or less the same scenario when people claim "The Big Bang Theory" is well-liked by the mainstream public, but relatively ignored (or even despised) by those who you could consider "nerds" (including me).

But there's still a question: those more child-oriented shows deserve their praise? Not that I'm saying it's annormal for an adult to watch child's cartoons (I'll be a huge hypocrite if I even suggested that), but we'll answer that the next time...