Animation is more than just children’s cartoon

In 2022, during the presentation for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, several comments from the presenters made me contemplate the general air around this medium of art. While animation is by no means a medium of entertainment lauded by critics in the academy (or really, most critics of an older age), having the presenters play off the entire medium as simple children's cartoons that parents have to suffer through is nothing but insulting. 

This isn't merely centred around the Oscars, most critics tend to regard animation as a lesser form of art or entertainment. This has been the opinion for the longest time and is shared by anyone who considers themselves to be a "grown-up" too old to watch children's cartoons. Have things changed? Sure, on a more consumer level, the world is now more open to the many wonderful doors animation has enabled for storytelling. But for critics around the world, time seems to have come to a standstill.

Circling back to the Oscars, the award for Best Animated Feature has by far the shrewdest system of voting in place. There are no technical restrictions in place, allowing members from every department to vote. However, voters aren't even required to watch all the movies they vote for. This leads to many issues, with reports coming from members of the academy that their vote was cast into the only piece of animated film they watched, that usually end up being a Disney movie.

If even the most esteemed critics don't take such a prestigious award seriously, how do they expect the rest of the world to? I can tell you from personal experience that support for animation is overwhelming on an international level from creators. Artists of all kinds are enamoured with this medium – not genre – that allows for the most varied and unique style of cinema. I have spent countless hours and sleepless nights watching animated movies and shows from far-flung corners of the globe, and have felt how ardent the creators' love is for their medium.

The dismissal of such a unique form of filmmaking does not help these artists or the entertainment industry across the globe, especially when an industry dedicated to animation can barely grow in so many countries. This is an issue that may be most visible at popular award shows, but it persists everywhere.

In Bangladesh, animation as an industry is far from thriving due to a lack of financial and industrial support. What little we see of animation usually comes in the form of short commercials and, in extremely rare cases, serialised animation. However, YouTube has proven to be a popular medium through which many independent animators release their own projects. As heartening as it is to see artists express their creativity in a variety of means, this highlights the exact issue animation is having today. 

With no support from film producers and critics, we cannot expect the industry to grow at the pace that it should. It does not take too much effort to realise that animation is not simply just children's cartoons. Every year, we get to see some incredible work being released from Europe, Asia, and even by smaller studios in the US that do not necessarily fall under the trademark Disney family-friendly nature of storytelling. Instead, they choose to tell compelling stories with art styles unique to the directors and animators. These are worthy of recognition just as much as any live-action project, if not more.

Raian is currently watching Adventure Time, do not bother him at IG: @raian_is_burning