Continued from my last post, “Some Science and History.”
Adult cartoons were made to defy expectations. Some sadist thought it would be funny if parents watched a cartoon with their children expecting a fun, lighthearted story only to get vulgar, offensive comedy. This example isn’t hypothetical. When Seth Rogen’s Sausage Party premiered in 2016, parents complained about the film being inappropriate for children. Sausage Party is rated R. It’s a movie about anthropomorphic grocery food making sexually explicit food innuendos. At the end of the movie there’s a food orgy. Sausage Party is not for children. Despite its R rating, parents still took their kids to see it. This happens with countless other shows: Rick and Morty, South Park, and Family Guy. Kids are messed up for life because their parents didn’t know a reoccurring character on Family Guy would be a pedophile trying to seduce Peter Griffin’s son. You could blame this on bad parenting. You probably should blame this on bad parenting. A film studio is not responsible for what you show your children. It shouldn’t be that difficult to monitor the content your children watch. A movie or tv show’s rating should not be ignored.
But, to play devil’s advocate, parenting can be hard. I wouldn’t know from personal experience, but I can imagine wanting to stick your screaming, annoying kid in front of a tv just to entertain them for a couple hours. In your exhaustion, you forget to check the shows rating. You assume its fine just by looking at it.
Why do you assume its fine?
Because it’s a cartoon. Cartoons are meant for children.
Cartoons are synonymous with “daycare.”
The reaction from parents to popular adult shows such as Family Guy created a new stigma around the word cartoon. Now cartoons can be made for adults, but for some reason they need more shock value than a Tarantino film. It seems cartoons are only appealing to adults when they contain excessive swearing, disturbing amounts of violence, vulgar humor, and borderline pornographic content.
Can there be a balance? Is there a middle ground between PBS Kids and Adult Swim?
There is a middle ground. Believe it or not, there are cartoons that have more layers. Cartoons like Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, Bojack Horseman, Cowboy Bebop, and more recently The Midnight Gospel. These shows are more than shows catered to children or a show meant to scratch an adult’s irreverent itch.
Here’s the ending crescendo; the point I have been trying make in the last couple posts:
These shows need more credit. These shows tell stories that could never be realized on a live action movie screen. They tell stories with passion, character, and emotional depth that I fail to see in most live action films. But cartoons have been given the proverbial shaft when it comes to social dogma. There’s some unwritten rule that says cartoons are to remain unpopular.
But maybe that’s why I like them so much. The reason hip-hop gained popularity was because it was the underdog. Hip-hop was underground. It was tough and cool. It was anti-establishment. Hip-hop was a break from the status quo.
But now hip-hop seems disingenuous and hypocritical. Hip-hop is still anti-establishment, but it has become so popular that it practically is the establishment. In new music, hip-hop seems to be the only genre. The unpopularity that gave hip-hop it’s character and “charm” has been lost in its unprecedented wealth and fame.
I believe cartoons have charm because they are unpopular. They’re free. They can push narrative boundaries in ways that wouldn’t be possible with mainstream criticism.
That is not to say there isn’t trash. Because there is trash. Cartoons can be hot garbage sometimes. Most of the time, actually. But so can live action films. Have you seen the new Star Wars movies?
What is my point?
Cartoons should be appreciated more. They should be given more respect. That’s all.
But I’m a hypocrite because I don’t want them to be popular. I want cartoons to stay quirky and weird.
So, if I had to choose…
between popular and weird…
refer to my high school clique selection:
Weird. I always choose weird.
Here’s a couple emotional scenes from Bojack Horseman to play you out.