What Are Cartoons For?

It is important to note that cartoons were never intended to be a medium for children. The cartoons we most often think of, from the Golden Age of Animation (1920s-1950s)--Warner Brothers, Betty Boop, Popeye, etc.--originally ran before feature films, along with newsreels. And watching them, you can see that their content appeals much more to adults than children.

After all, Betty Boop was a lounge singer:

And Bugs Bunny parodied Tarzan movies (made for adults), featuring two gorillas' failed marriage:

During World War II, cartoons were even used as propaganda:

Note the cheerful racism and and homophobia used to mock the Nazis.

This shouldn't be surprising--animation was still a relatively new medium in the first 20th century, and few entertainment mediums start out directed at children. However, in the late 50s and into the 60s, Walt Disney in particular began to move cartoons into a period of family-friendliness. Over the following decades, our modern perspective began to develop: cartoons are meant for children.

I'm not going to debate the validity of this perspective, though I would argue that any artistic style should probably not be limited to consumption by the under-18 crowd. The truth of the matter is that today, cartoons in America are primarily created for and marketed to children. Which begs the question--what, exactly, is their purpose? Are cartoons a medium by which we pass down social norms and traditions to the next generation, to educate them in how to behave in society? Are they a purely educational medium? An entertainment medium? Or are they a mix?

It turns out that no one seems to be able to agree about this. While all cartoons seem to give a cursory nod to the notion of being "educational" for the sake of airtime, cartoons have a wide range of purposes. Shows such as Doug or Hey Arnold!  feature normal kids dealing with on everyday situations—poverty, bullying, friendship, etc. They teach social norms, and while they are of course entertaining, their focus is more on plot than humor. Other cartoons, like Dora the Explorer are purely educational in a more traditional sense. One can't help but notice that these edutainment cartoons tend to be marketed towards much younger children.

On the other end of the spectrum we have cartoons such as Regular Show or Rocko’s Modern Life. They feature gross-out or wacky humor, highly stylized and frequently non-human characters, and little to no educational value, though they may deal with similar themes as the social norms 'toons. Some might argue that these cartoons don't have a point--they are just mindless entertainment. They also tend to be the cartoons that push boundaries the most (see my next post on Ren and Stimpy). Rocko's Modern Life in particular features more innuendo than most adult shows--it seems like the writers and animators were trying to see what they could get away with. However, it's also true that these cartoons are significantly more fun for adults to watch with their kids, considering that they feature more nods to grown-ups than most other shows.

Finally, there are many cartoons that have blended educational or social norm themes with entertainment and (usually) subtle adult humor. Shows like Animaniacs feature songs about world and state capitals along with Looney Tunes-style hijinks. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, meant for young girls, has spawned a following of college-age men called "bronies," due to its ability to blend jokes for adults with extremely blatant messages about the power of friendship. Yet these cartoons may be the most difficult to make, and the first to go awry. While the pure entertainment cartoons make no claims to being moral compasses or educational venues, the mixed cartoons can end up sending questionable messages. For example, if Wakko can teach us about the state capitals, what is he and his siblings teaching us about women in this clip?