An Examination of Why Animation Should Target a Broader Demographic by Bobby J Osborne
- Why is animation labeled as a genre rather than an artistic style? Black and white is not a genre of movie. Action, romance, horror, should all be genres within animation, not alongside.
- “As a storytelling medium, animation is capable of telling any type of story for any age, yet animation is used by Hollywood as a means to fill an empty niche in an entertainment market that primarily caters to older audiences.” [p. 2]
- Discussion of propaganda in the wartime Popeye short You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap, which delt with WWII tensions with the Japanese and portrays racist stereotypes. It is not a child-friendly cartoon as it discusses real-life violence and politics, yet is passed off as being all-ages entertainment, thus enforcing the belief that political propaganda is the exception; even a child can “recognize the enemy”
- How can animation target a wider audience?
- three key reasons why it SHOULD:
- 1. technology has changed the marketplace
- 2. children of the 80s have retained their love of cartoons, unlike baby boomers, thus opening the industry up to adults- market shift.
- 3. lines are blurring between live action and animation anyway with vfx dominating popular movies (example: marvel incorporating mostly cgi and also utilizing characters that are pretty much entirely animated- like The Hulk- this is essentially a cartoon character without viewers realizing it)
- video games have already shed the stigma of being for children