draft
Apparently
someone at the Academy Awards referred to animation as a genre and
this provoked a large negative response from many of my friends of
friends on Facebook who are animators or in the animation business.
They all unanimously thought that animation was not a genre. The
person who made this comment originally during award coverage may
have been an actor.
Remember,
before we begin, that the motion picture industry, like many other
industries, feels perfectly entitled to take any word in any language
and give it a new meaning when it is convenient. So what genre means
to someone in the motion picture industry might be very different
from what genre might mean to a film studies professor at the
university.
In
film criticism, a genre generally refers to similar story elements
and conventions that are common between films which are said to be a
genre. For example, most westerns have a climactic shootout in
which good confronts evil and the matter is decided by a gunfight.
In most spy movies with an evil genius, there is often a scene in
which the evil genius explains to our hero their plan for world
domination. In certain fantasy quest stories, the plot often
contains a section in which the hero searches for a special weapon to
use in fighting evil. Time Travel was considered to be a genre that
had no commercial potential until Back to the Future became a hit
series.
Genres
are often mixed, many films today are likely to have a romantic
subplot no matter what the genre.
Genres
tend to bring with them advantages and disadvantages as both a
commercial property and also creatively. It is generally easier to
market a genre film than a film that has no overt genre or which cuts
across genres. The disadvantage is that generally a genre has
limitations and requirements that the audience expects and you can
not easily violate these expectations except with great skill and
risk. A famous counter-genre element is the ending of Shane in which
the hero is wounded, possibly fatally, in the climactic shootout.
Anyone who violates genre expectations runs the risk of displeasing a
part of their audience.
Hollywood
often screws up genre when it tries to cash in on a film that is
successful. Everyone wants to be first to be second. Most of the
original imitators of Star Wars were pathetic in their gross
misunderstandings of what made that film successful. Its always
important to remember that many of the top people in Hollywood are
not too smart. That is why they get paid their small salaries in the
low millions.
So
is animation a genre?
The
first thing to realize is that the person who made this comment was
an actor. Actors have always hated animation. Why? Because what
they want is more films to be made that star actors, of course.
Voice over with celebrities is a new phenomena, and besides, its not
the same thing. The politics of the situation means that they are
in general opposed to animation. The same is true for writers,
directors and producers, because generally speaking the people who
write animation are drawn from a special list. People who direct
animation rarely make the crossover to live action (a recent
exception to this is Brad Bird). Same issue with producers,
generally speaking. Jon Davison is famous for producing “pop
corn” movies, but when he tried to produce films outside his
“genre”, e.g. Robocop and Starship Troopers, he did not get the
approvals and support he sought. Now Jon loves animation, it turns
out, but many producers who produce live action most certainly do
not.
This
is also the same reason why it is extremely hard for an animated film
to win best picture. The academy is made up of actors, directors,
producers, etc, and most of them do not make animation. They dont
understand it and they dont like it, so they dont vote for it.
But
there are other reasons why animation could be considered a genre.
Animation generally falls into two categories when it comes to
marketing films in this country: one category is so-called family
entertainment, and the other sometimes called kid-vid, or animation
for very young children. Now this is a cultural issue, and does not
necessarily apply to other countries. In Japan and the far east,
there is another category of animation which we might call “young
adult”. In this category, we can have much more violence and it
is much closer to action adventure films. But animated films in
this category have never done well among general audiences in this
country, although there is a very loyal and committed set of fans
here. They do not have the economic clout.
By
far the most desirable of these categories in this country is “family
entertainment”, which generally refers to films that are for the
most part intended for young audiences but which can be enjoyed by
adults as well. Thus the parent of a child or group of children can
take them to see a movie and not be bored to tears or wait out in the
lobby. In the case of more pure kid-vid, its the sort of thing one
might want to rent from the video store, use it as a way of
performing day care for the children, but go and do other things
while they watch.
Generally
speaking, a successful film that qualifies as family entertainment is
going to contain elements that appeal to very young audiences as well as having a plot, or nuances of a plot, or of a character that can
be entertaining to adults. Famously, on television, Rocky &
Bullwinkle by the Jay Ward Studios was such a show.
In
longer product, such as films, it was pointed out to me that films
that are going to keep the attention of very young children are all
musicals: it is the musical interlude in particular that appeals to
young children and without that they get bored. So I am told.
The
Walt Disney Company made a film called Rescuers Down Under (1990).
It did not contain any songs and was intended for a bit more of the
young adult audience. It did not do well at the box office. Disney
felt that they had learned a valuable lesson here. (Rescuers Down
Under was also the first feature film made entirely with the CAPS
system).
May discovers the "dust bunnies" in Totoro. How could anyone not love this film?
One
of my favorite films of all time happens to be an animated film, My
Neighbor Totoro (1988). Now Totoro has no
musical numbers, it is very long, and the protagonists are two little
girls. Very little apparently happens in this film, Mai gets lost,
Mai is found, the two little girls are able to visit their sick
mother in the hospital and believe that she will get better. I
suggested this film to a friend of mine with a 12 year old American
boy and he HATED the film with a passion. Troma, of all companies, attempted to give Totoro a theatrical release in this country, which is how I happened to see it at its premier at the Director's Guild. But it didn't work, and this unbelievably wonderful film died at the American box office. So did Akira. Nevertheless, later films from Japan did get larger releases and have done well. So it is not black and white.
Nevertheless, I doubt you could get American financing for an animated murder mystery. Or an animated western with a climactic gunfight. Or a film noir. Because it is commonly believed that such films, if animated, have no chance of making their money back.
There
have been independent animated films that break the
mold. But again, these films although independent, are also intended to
make money. Had they made a huge amount of money, then people would try to imitate them. But unfortunately they did not, at least not to the best of my knowledge. Still there is no law that says it has to be that way. Was Team America an animated film? Did it do well? It also had at least one musical number.
So,
is animation a genre? Well, yes and no, genre may not be exactly the right word. But it is easy to see why some professionals in
the motion picture industry would think that it was.
Film
Genre on Wikipedia
Rocky
and His Friends (1959 - 1964) on IMDB
My
Neighbor Totoro (1988) on IMDB
Rescuers
Down Under (1990) on IMDB
No comments:
Post a Comment