Barriers That Should Not Be

I love movies. I love watching them, I love reviewing them, I love ranting on them, and I'm really not picky on what genre they are as long as they're well written. (Keyword WELL WRITTEN). But there's one thing that I'm definitely not the only person to notice: Animated films are being labeled by their medium rather than their purpose. Or rather, this is how they're being produced. Let's round up some facts!

-A very large majority of animated films play the same role in what they provide. That is, comedy and general entertainment for kids, and maybe a few laughs or the rare deeper message for adults. But think about it; what animated film of the last five, even tens years that you've seen hasn't fallen under this ideal? And the Simpsons Movie doesn't count because we all know it still did the same thing. 

-Film industry categorizes animation into genre more than medium. This banks off the last one a bit too. We've got the kids' comedy with some maturely appreciated tones. But isn't that a genre? As definition dictates, genre is determined by theme. But animated movies seem to all share the same theme. Not the end moral mind you, there's a lot of different ones there, but how that movie works and plays out. Meanwhile, animation really is just another way to make films. Now it is more flexible. You can do more comedy based ideas in the realm of animation and make scenes that would just cost way too much in real life to pull off, but the bottom line remains, it's a filming process. 

-There are in fact animated films that break these boundaries, but not many. Beowulf is one of my favorite examples. Point here being though, there's not a significant amount that can warrant the movie makers to do more with animation. When you only see kid comedies with maturely appreciated undertones under the big screen that overshadow everything else, that's all you're going to see.

Like said earlier, there are films that break the boundaries, but I think we need more to make a point. Did you know the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were like one of the darkest comics imagined? (And I'm talking Watchmen dark.) Not to say where they went today is bad (because TMNT will always be cool as long as Michael Bay doesn't touch it), but there is more room to cover. We need audience expansion!

With this, I think we need animations that push the envelope. Not extreme, but enough to make people realize that "oh man, we can still make a compelling drama with drawings and voice actors!". 

So when will this generalization start to change? I hope soon honestly. Animation is a serious medium if you ask me and needs expansion as soon as possible.