Recently, the statement “Animation is for everyone” was trending on Twitter and many expressed their deeper thoughts on this statement.
When animation is brought up, many individuals tend to say it is for children or classify it as its own genre which of course, is not true.
Even Japanese anime is considered for children despite the fact that there is a large number of anime that are made for mature audiences like Attack on Titan and The Tatami Galaxy.
In art, a medium refers to the substance the artist uses to create a piece of artwork. In storytelling, one can use animation to create a large variety of stories in different genres and forms ranging from 3D to stop-motion. Classifying animation as a genre, and only made for children is ignoring the deeper parts of it, and not accepting the grandeur of what it can really provide.
A genre gives you a glimpse into what the story is about. Horror, sci-fi, fantasy and the likes. When you see the genre as comedy, you will know going into it that you are expected to laugh. When you see the genre as horror, you will know to expect something scary. This cannot be said for animation because it is such a broad term.
This is not a new topic that is being discussed. In fact, a year ago, a Reddit user LancasterDodd777 went to the site under r/movies to rant about it, and the post gained a lot of upvotes and comments.
In the post they went into a lot of detail and gave a good explanation.
“By the logic that animation is a genre, we’re then accepting that Akira and Up are the same genre,” They said. “Make live action versions of them both (which they probably will if given long enough) and they certainly wouldn’t be considered the same genre.”
They expressed that it bothered them because they found it unfair to the animators and filmmakers who had all their work lumped up together in one shared bracket. It diminishes their hard work.
Owen Dennis, the show creator of Cartoon Network’s popular series Regular Show said on a Twitter post that they made their recent series, Infinity Train with the view that animation is for everyone.
“Adults can watch it, kids can watch it, teens can watch it,” he tweeted. “Marvel movies are 90% animation, so clearly, adults love animation too.”
This is not saying that animation should not be referred to when describing a film or series but as the Reddit user said saying “it’s an animated horror” or “an animated romance movie” is a lot more indicative of what to expect and to a degree more respectful than “it’s an animation.”
