Like I said in the intro to this series, I started posting about children’s media last year with an enormous discussion of the Disney Princess franchise. Since then, I’ve gotten several comments to the effect that people are either embarrassed to “admit” that they still watch cartoons or that they think it’s cool that I’m not embarrassed to watch them. Well, firstly, I’m flattered. Secondly, I want to make some that might help put this in a different light.
- The idea of “children’s entertainment” or media specifically for children is a relatively new historical concept. Diana has a more in-depth discussion about the ways in which children’s literature has developed and changed over at Part-Time Monster. Storytelling for children in other media formats has its origin in children’s lit. If I was going to really analyze the subject it would probably take several months, so I’ll leave it at this for now.
- Most movies or television shows that are marketed heavily at children are written and produced as “family entertainment.” That means it’s made with the understanding that adults are going to watch it too. So there’s a lot of content in “children’s” programming that is there for adults to enjoy as well.
- Adults in their 20s and 30s are becoming a huge market for animated film and television. That became noticeable back in the 90s, but it was already happening. Even before that, that demographic was already an enormous market for comic books. A lot of Sourcerer’s audience are comic fans. That’s another form of storytelling that has been traditionally (and erroneously) perceived as something for children. Twenty-somethings are often experiencing financial freedom and independence from their parents for the first time. Many of them have disposable income to spend on movies and memorabilia for themselves — as opposed to older adults who usually have more financial responsibilities and have to be more discerning in what they buy even when their purchasing for their own kids. Thirtysomethings are the demographic most often in the middle. A lot of us have young kids, but we’re still involved in collecting memorabilia for ourselves. Again, that means that there is going to be a LOT of content in “children’s” media that’s actually targeted at adults.
- Western culture tends to idealize childhood. It’s treated as a fantasy land where nothing serious or painful ever happens, so media for children has little inherent value to us beyond it’s capacity to teach moral or social lessons. I have a whole bunch of other things to say about that particular issue, but I’ll let you chew on it for now.
- Either that or we glorify “growing up” and view childhood as a temporary, annoying stop-over on the way to bigger and better things. I think children deserve respect, and while we need to make sure that conversations with kids are age-appropriate, it doesn’t serve any purpose to treat art for kids as less meaningful or potentially valuable just because it’s written for a young audience.
I think being embarrassed or apologizing for enjoying cartoons is about as silly as this Trix commercial. And that’s all I’m gonna say this week.
Reblogged this on Rose B Fischer.
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I know loads of adults who still watch cartoons myself included. You can’t beat a Disney film no matter how old you are
Popping by on the A to Z Road Trip
Debbie
http://www.myrandommusings.blogspot.com
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Poor rabbit! Great post, Rose, totally in agreement with you. storytelling has a rich history, can be found in multiple forms and plays a complex role in our identities and social norms. Even those who dismiss cartoons as something ‘for kids’ only, might admit they have a formative influence, along with many other things in life. i’ll take this as added motivation for my recap blogs on Mysterious Cities of Gold! look fwd to reading your other posts on this topic.
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Thank you! So much of what I write is influenced by stories I encountered in childhood!
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I have three, six dvd sets of various cartoons 🙂 I don’t watch them as often as I like. I love Rocky and Bullwinkle! Great post Rose, thanks for sharing. Storytelling takes many shapes. Cartoons are one of my favorite.
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Moose and Squirrel!
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So, a little story. At the library where I work, we’re working on coming up with a display case of books that were our favorites as children. However, the age that was given for “children” was 15. Now, if we were to say under 10, that’s one thing. Under 15? I had read many of the most influential books of my life by then – Dune, Lord of the Rings, pillars like that. Once we all got to emailing around, others had similar sorts of lists. Where do we draw a line between a child-only audience or all-ages for a book like A Wrinkle in Time, Ender’s Game, the Hobbit, or Narnia? Anyway, it will be interesting to see what sort of display case we end up with.
Oh, and about movies generally being family entertainment… every once in a while you see that movie that seems geared entirely to kids. Journey 2 was like that, and there were these moments when the actors just kind of stop and look at the screen like “yep, that’s what’s in the script.” But for the most part, spot-on: open audience.
For instance, I had the pleasure to hear graphic novelist Kazu Kibuishi (author of Amulet) speak. And one of the big questions was how he chose to write kid-accessible comics. This was coming from a room full of children’s librarians (and me, furiously writing notes about the craft of graphic novel writing!). And his answer was that he didn’t. What he did do was write a story he didn’t feel embarrassed having his mother and grandmother read. So it really is an all-ages sort of read, which is really kind of an easy thing to accomplish. Not that HBO can pull it off, but you know, easy enough.
And as to comics, I just finished reading Understanding Comics which, while it doesn’t touch too much on animated cartoons, does talk about cartoons and their relationship with comics a great deal. And a reminder that these things are a medium, and are not defined by what genres or themes tend to be dominant in them. Comics are not superheroes, and cartoons are not Mickey Mouse. My first anime I watched was Princess Mononoke, and I think that’s the sort of movie that can show you very quickly that animation does not have to be only for kids, and can have a really strong overall everything going on.
Anyway, I should really say something about cartoons. I am thrilled, having a new child myself, to have an excuse to hunt down some of the ones I loved growing up and to share them. Looney Tunes of course, but then some of the mid-90’s Cartoon Network greats, like Dexter’s Lab and the Powerpuff Girls. Something like the Animaniacs might be a little too pop-culture dependent…
Whoa, sea of text. TL;DR I loved this post and I agree with every bit of it from basically every angle of my life right now. I look forward to the rest of your series 😀
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You’re awesome. Followup later. 😉
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