Western Animation - Discuss American, Canadian, and European cartoons here (or just bitch about wokeshit, I guess)

[raspberry mocha]

Why is the western animation industry filled with mentally stunted sjws, anyway?

 

[God of Nothing]

Why is the western animation industry filled with mentally stunted sjws, anyway?

people who never grew out of it deciding to work on animation and they naturally hiring or encouraging other like-minded dysfunctional retards

 

[Liquid Marlon]

To build on what I said last night, however, there is an optimistic part of all this. You can't just consume the same thing over and over again. You're going to want something new. And there's a hundred years of history on film waiting to be rediscovered.

Over the last few years I have seen things become popular on the Internet that I could never imagine would become broadly liked - the Moomins, the Hungarian bunny-in-the-suitcase cartoons, the Richard Williams Raggedy Ann film. Just today I found that Stupid Invaders, a game based on the old Fox Kids show Space Goofs, has spawned its very own meme:

Now imagine some kid on TikTok or something liking the meme. Maybe they'll want to see where it came from - and maybe they'll find something new in the process. And once their curiosity is awakened, they might even find more. And voila, your horizon is broadened.

But will this lead to the new creatives making more interesting things with a wider palette of influences? Well, again, we'll have to see...

The green alien dude in Space Goofs was a tranny/gay or something and was voiced by the same guy that voiced the Devil in Cow and Chicken, what a weird fucker lol.

The fan-made wiki takes this and runs hard with it too when it was obviously based on the old "man in what could be confused with skirt" joke.

This wiki seems to think that this gross-looking alien is a female just because he said so but I don't even think he even thinks that's the case himself. (Abracadabra (S02E27)

Anyways that's all I have to say about this topic but I do want to bring up transformation music for the show was remixed by the Living Tombstone at some point (removed for copyright at some point) and used in the Gorgeous Freeman Episode 2.

What a fucking weird world we live in.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

I wouldn't say Capitalism, but rather Nepotism (which is usually the latter stages of uncontrolled/government-sponsored capitalism). The people that got to where they are by skill didn't prepare a new generation or teach techniques. Instead they just hired whoever (literally) sucked their cock the most, leading eventually to studios filled with incompetent dicksuckers and ruled by whatever alpha bitch sucked the most cocks.
Besides that the education shifted to allowing talentless diversity hires to be accepted, so standards dipped to 10 year old draw ability and use of light colours to make the autists fill comfortable.
Finally there was zero competition, the industry became completely stagnant and consoomers would watch whatever shit was thrown their way irregardless of how bad it looks.

Nepotism has always been in the entertainment industry. That's not what's causing the problems.

The green alien dude in Space Goofs was a tranny/gay or something and was voiced by the same guy that voiced the Devil in Cow and Chicken, what a weird fucker lol.
View attachment 3257706

The fan-made wiki takes this and runs hard with it too when it was obviously based on the old "man in what could be confused with skirt" joke.
View attachment 3257695

This wiki seems to think that this gross-looking alien is a female just because he said so but I don't even think he even thinks that's the case himself. (Abracadabra (S02E27)
View attachment 3257771

Anyways that's all I have to say about this topic but I do want to bring up transformation music for the show was remixed by the Living Tombstone at some point (removed for copyright at some point) and used in the Gorgeous Freeman Episode 2.

What a fucking weird world we live in.
View attachment 3257820

In the TV show Candy was an extremely effeminate male, but the game was, for some reason, now directed at adults, so now he was outright gay and planning to get a sex change.

I always wanted to play the game but I could never find the time - or the CD, or an emulator...

 

[Basic Blonde Boy]

We are supposed to be at the pinnacle of human creativity, at least in media. That is at least what we are consistently told. Today, thousands of creatives from all sorts of backgrounds work in entertainment. We should be seeing an explosion in techniques, styles, and stories to reflect it.

People have already given good answers to this, so I will not repeat, but I would like to throw in my idea. I think the commodification of media is probably one of the most disastrous things modern media has. When you look back at a famous work, let’s say Star Wars, the influences that built it are pretty obscure and diverse. Samurai films and westerns, amongst other things, were the backbone to this space franchise. Star Wars wasn’t really original in story-telling, but it was original in how it mixed in elements to form something new. Going into animation, many of its best pieces are the same. I remember Pan speaking about Samurai Jack, and how it’s inspirations were wild, from 300 to 80s football films. While the series had more mainstream inspirations like Star Wars and anime, it mixed in a good chunk of obscure. The problem now is that years later, generations that grew up on just Star Wars, anime, etc. are making productions. Now the inspirations are the same source, which is how you end up with Cal-arts boiling down into a competition for who can recreate Sailor Moon magical girls shows the best.

There is something to be said that as nerd culture becomes less obscure, media the sources that created that culture get less varied as people are just taking from the same pool of capeshit, Star Wars, and anime. Thus making less creative products.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Nepotism has always been in the entertainment industry. That's not what's causing the problems

Like I said, it's not just Nepotism but also lack of competition, but even then the current level of Nepotism is unreal. With people leading projects that should not touch a script or go near a child.
We have hit the height of media two decades ago only to freefall to media that would be substandard both in story and animation compared to to 1940's Soviet Media.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Why is the western animation industry filled with mentally stunted sjws, anyway?

I like to think that CalArts and the rise of Tumblr, mixed with trust fund kids who embrace grievance studies in college are part of the reason as to why this is the case.

 

[Oats12345]

Hard to belive amphibia final epsiode is tonight it feels not Kong ago when I remmber the show being announced.

 

[Toolbox]

It's a pretty excellent show. I'm not one of those people that likes looking for hints and secrets but the reveals are pretty good and makes sense. The show doesn't overstay it's welcome and ends without really any filler.

It's good, but I don't know if it's aged that well. Humor wise it commonly falls for the same traps as other shows at the time like early adventure time, with random wacky zany comedy that feels forced. And it also suffers from some characters never learning or really changing at all despite it being a story driven show that just happens to have one off plotlines.

 

[Basic Blonde Boy]

Why is the western animation industry filled with mentally stunted sjws, anyway?

Because animation today sprung off the same cloth. Thanks to the 2008 writer’s strike, most animation heads came from Flapjack and the projects it spun-off. Think Steven Universe is for SJWs, well, CN has been hiring Rebecca’s friends to make new shows to the point where they are all based off Steven, which was already based off of Adventure Time, which was already based off of Flapjack. It is an incestous industry plagued with the same people developing the same shows.

To be fair though, this has always been the case, just to a lesser scale. Most of early CN was the same group of friends who worked together for Dexter, PPG, Johnny Bravo, Samurai Jack, Foster’s, etc..

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

Like I said, it's not just Nepotism but also lack of competition, but even then the current level of Nepotism is unreal. With people leading projects that should not touch a script or go near a child.
We have hit the height of media two decades ago only to freefall to media that would be substandard both in story and animation compared to to 1940's Soviet Media.

In the 40s the USSR was producing things like this:

A lot of things would be substandard in comparison.

Because animation today sprung off the same cloth. Thanks to the 2008 writer’s strike, most animation heads came from Flapjack and the projects it spun-off. Think Steven Universe is for SJWs, well, CN has been hiring Rebecca’s friends to make new shows to the point where they are all based off Steven, which was already based off of Adventure Time, which was already based off of Flapjack. It is an incestous industry plagued with the same people developing the same shows.

To be fair though, this has always been the case, just to a lesser scale. Most of early CN was the same group of friends who worked together for Dexter, PPG, Johnny Bravo, Samurai Jack, Foster’s, etc..

The writers' strike didn't actually affect animation, though, because animation writers for kid shows aren't in the same union.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

In the 40s the USSR was producing things like this:

A lot of things would be substandard in comparison.

The writers' strike didn't actually affect animation, though, because animation writers for kid shows aren't in the same union.

Shit, I thought it was the 60s where you had all the good Soviet media.

 

[Juan's Sombrero]

In the 40s the USSR was producing things like this:


A lot of things would be substandard in comparison.

The main character looks like a sperg, but that's only due to the aesthetic style back then. That being said, it's pretty good. Has that folk tale vibe going for it. I actually watched their version of Beauty and the Beast a few years ago. Gonna check out other Soviet toons.

Speaking of Soviet animation. This is from bob mob memes or whatever. You guys really need to check the comments.

 

[Steamboat_Bill]

Shit, I thought it was the 60s where you had all the good Soviet media.

Kind of, yes, but even through the Stalin years you had interesting animation (the main style was this sort of Disney-esque thing up until the 60s), and things like the fantasy films of Ptushko and Rowe.

Gonna check out other Soviet toons.

Better watch out...

Speaking of Soviet animation. This is from bob mob memes or whatever. You guys really need to check the comments.

Have I ever told you how it's common to hear people in Russia say what they produce now is vastly inferior to the old Soviet stuff?

 

[Juan's Sombrero]

Have I ever told you how it's common to hear people in Russia say what they produce now is vastly inferior to the old Soviet stuff?

I can believe it. At least then, they were better at lying.

 

[Trilby]

Kind of, yes, but even through the Stalin years you had interesting animation (the main style was this sort of Disney-esque thing up until the 60s), and things like the fantasy films of Ptushko and Rowe.


Better watch out...


Have I ever told you how it's common to hear people in Russia say what they produce now is vastly inferior to the old Soviet stuff?

Doesn't surprise me. I'm sure it came down to state-subsidized funding, which dried up after the fall of the USSR. In the 60's, you did have the emergence of the more adult/contemporary approach to animation that Soyuzmultfilm tried.

 

[Sneed F91]

Why is the western animation industry filled with mentally stunted sjws, anyway?

Think about the type of person you have to be to like animation primarily made for children after a certain age

 

[Phimosis Jonisis]

Why is the western animation industry filled with mentally stunted sjws, anyway?

They know its easier to groom children then to try and indoctrinate adults. That's why they still bitch about "muh gamers.tm"

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

The executives themselves are part of the problem. In the old days, no one could tell what would become popular. No one knew what the public would go for, so they kept throwing darts - greenlighting movies and series. Some hit, many missed. But now they have it down to a science. Things are so micro-managed you can't get much that seems original. It's all about making the big bucks.

^THIS. OH SO MUCH. This was a problem even back in the so-called "glory days".

Remember this original, perfectly paced, exquisitely animated movie musical? Of course you fucking don't, because Turner Feature Animation, the animation studio behind it, was bought by Warner Bros. right before it came out. Warner's Feature Animation division was also working on an animated movie around the same time:

A rip-off of the Disney Renaissance formula (a formula that was losing steam for Disney around this time, mind you) that was a steaming pile of dragon shit.

Which one do you think Warner Bros. prioritized more? The original, perfectly paced, exquisitely animated movie musical that was an acquisition? Or the Disney rip-off that, while a little bit more expensive, was made "in-house"? If you picked the latter. congrats on having a functional occipital cortex. Best part? BOTH bombed (one more spectacularly than the other, of course). Funnier part? The former has since gone on to be a cult classic, revered by any serious animation fan, while the latter has since gone into the dustbin of history, forever remembered as the shameless Disney cash-in it was.

Seriously, Cats Don't Dance is SO fucking good. If you haven't seen it yet, plunder it from the high seas if you must, but please do so.

 

[Gar For Archer]

Part of the answer is, quite frankly, capitalism. But that is only part of the answer. Capitalism ruled the American economic system and culture for a long time, and many fine works were produced then.

The answer is really the techniques. There are fewer companies than there used to be, and so few people taking chances on odd things. For example, the Cannon Group, back in the 80s, was all over the map - they produced mindless action sequels and art films by Jean-Luc Godard and Andrei Konchalovsky.

The executives themselves are part of the problem. In the old days, no one could tell what would become popular. No one knew what the public would go for, so they kept throwing darts - greenlighting movies and series. Some hit, many missed. But now they have it down to a science. Things are so micro-managed you can't get much that seems original. It's all about making the big bucks.

There's also a strange cargo-cult mindset going around with old stuff. We worship it but we don't know how to do what they did - we just badly imitate them and not follow in their footsteps.

Would culture improve if executives went back to greenlighting any dumb idea and letting people do what they wanted with it? Could the future of animation be in projects outside the business mainstream? Maybe. I'm no Cassandra.

If you don't buy that, I have a theory of sorts that we are replicating a decay seen in the culture produced in Eastern Europe as it transitioned from communism to capitalism - when the industries there took a hit they never recovered from. Only that makes me worried where we're going to be headed in a few decades from now...

(Oh, and Campbell played a big role in all that sameness of stories you're talking about, but that's another story.)

I think we’re well on the road to the end of the current era of American dominance of global media, and as domestic production continues to falter more and more people will start looking to foreign media (both new and old) as a replacement. Anime and manga have obviously made the biggest inroads so far (likely because the current boom is actually a resurgence of something that already was very popular not too long in the past) but Squid Game and Parasite (along with the relatively low-key but growing popularity of K-dramas) have brought Korean media into the mainstream, and I think it’s only a matter of time before Bollywood starts getting noticed more as well.