How Cartoons Are Judged

An interesting issue arose in response to tryanmax’s Toon-arama article last week and I think it’s worth discussing. The question was this: if Wreck-It Ralph had focused more on a videogame narrative instead of shifting to a fairytale princess narrative, would that have turned people off? I think the answer is no. Here’s why.

In the adult world of films (not be confused with adult films), people select films based on the specific genres and subgenres that interest them. If you like burly muscle men (no, we still aren’t talking about adult films), then you will grab an action film. If you’re into drama and court rooms, then a legal drama will appeal to you. Sounds simple. But what if you like spaceships?

Well, this is where it gets tricky. If you like your science fiction to be more fantasy, then you gravitate toward something like a Star Wars, where fantasy worlds collide and people with superpowers lightsaber it out as totally unrealistic spaceships scream by overhead. But if you prefer your science fiction “hard” (stop thinking about adult films) or more cerebral, then you gravitate toward something like 2001 or Apollo 13, where the premium isn’t on the action but on the correctness of the technical specs of what is going on. And fans of these two subgenres, often don’t like each other or each other’s films (seriously, nerds, get a life).

So when these films go looking for an audience, there is a serious problem that audiences quickly self-select. Hence, a remake of 2001, let’s call it 2001.1, automatically loses anyone who isn’t a science fiction fan the moment the trailer begins, and it loses the fantasy nerds the moment they don’t see a blobby thing spitting fire. And if the film doesn’t stick to their genre conventions... and only those genre conventions, then they get angry... Green Hulk Angry. You would like them when they’re angry, and have access to a keyboard from an anonymous location.

Anyway, cartoons aren’t like that.

Cartoons are a genre unto themselves. They have their own conventions, which will be employed no matter what type of story is being told. Whether the story takes place on a spaceship, in a castle, in a forest, in a sewer, in the past, in the present, or in the future, and whether it involves people or aliens or rabbits or roadrunners, you will get the things you expect from a cartoon.

Because of this, it is the rare film-goer who will decide that a cartoon doesn’t appeal to them because of the genre supposedly being depicted. In other words, few people will avoid Bambi because they don’t like nature films, or The Hunchback of Notre Dame because they don’t care for that period in French history, or Duck Dodger because they prefer their science fiction to be “hard”. People don’t judge a cartoon the same way they do a normal film... they judge it on its merits as a cartoon.

Now, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t some cartoons that won’t interest people or that somehow people are incapable of distinguishing between cartoons. People still look at the animation style, the history of the company, and the story itself to see if it will interest them, but they aren’t judging the film by the conventions of genres outside of cartoons, they are judging the film on whether or not they think it will be a cartoon they find appealing.

This actually raises an issue that I see with a lot of modern cartoons. I struggle to enjoy modern cartoons. In fact, it’s the rare recent cartoon that I find at all entertaining. To me, the problem is exactly this: these cartoons are abandoning the conventions of cartoons in the name of realism. They are trying to tell live-action stories that have been animated rather than making cartoons.

Hence, when you smack a modern cartoon rat with a frying pan, he screams and the person who smacked him (accidentally of course) apologizes profusely. Blech. That’s not how “cartoons” work. When you smack someone in a cartoon, their entire body should deform, they should see stars, and the being that hit them should display maniacal glee. Cartoons are about cartoon physics, which mocks the normal laws of physics, not about real life physics. They are about fantasy problems, not real life problems. They are about larger-than-life villains who get their comeuppance in insane ways.

Even more realistic films like the Disney films still follow these rules. Their stories may be animated versions of classic tales, but they still use cartoon physics and rely on larger-than-life melodramatic actions.

Modern films don’t do that, and this trend toward making animated life-action films rather than cartoons throws away the very thing that keeps people from judging cartoons on the basis of their plots and settings... like regular movies. In fact, the reason I liked Despicable Me was that it was a good Steven Carrell films, not because I thought it was good cartoon. As a cartoon, it was a waste. As a comedy that competes against Get Smart and Dinner for Schmucks, it was top notch. Similarly, the reason I couldn’t give a rats ass about Ratatouille is because I have no interest in a story about a French sous chef who wants to prove his worth. Perhaps, if the film had been a cartoon instead of an animated film, I would have cared. But as it wasn’t, so I didn’t.

This is something Hollywood should consider. The further they drift from cartoons being cartoons and toward just being films that saved a ton on sets and costumes by animating their characters, the more they run the risk of being judged by different standards... the same standards that have led to fragmented, fickle adult audiences... no, not that kind.