Beginning with Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, feature-length animated films have amaz... more Beginning with Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, feature-length animated films have amazed and delighted viewers—to a point. Beyond that point, their appeal fades into predictable, family-oriented adventures with enough music, mischief, or merriment to satisfy stereotypical expectations. What once brought animation to life now leaves a stale, déjà vu aftertaste, while the same core stories and visuals continue to roll through American cinemas. Forbes writer Scott Mendelson fired point-blank at this repetition with his “Still a Genre, Not Yet A Medium” analysis of the animation industry, noting how most films “target the same audience with many of the same tools” and are thereby consigned to a genre (Mendelson). Animation should be recognized as an artistic medium instead of a genre, because it can serve all types of audiences—despite American mainstream animation forcing itself into a kids-only box—and can tell stories through techniques unique from live-action films, rather than only acting as visual effects. Further, relegating animation to a genre denies its intrinsically equal value among other forms of visual media, while treating it as a medium allows its potential to be fully explored.
Beginning with Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, feature-length animated films have amaz... more Beginning with Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, feature-length animated films have amazed and delighted viewers—to a point. Beyond that point, their appeal fades into predictable, family-oriented adventures with enough music, mischief, or merriment to satisfy stereotypical expectations. What once brought animation to life now leaves a stale, déjà vu aftertaste, while the same core stories and visuals continue to roll through American cinemas. Forbes writer Scott Mendelson fired point-blank at this repetition with his “Still a Genre, Not Yet A Medium” analysis of the animation industry, noting how most films “target the same audience with many of the same tools” and are thereby consigned to a genre (Mendelson). Animation should be recognized as an artistic medium instead of a genre, because it can serve all types of audiences—despite American mainstream animation forcing itself into a kids-only box—and can tell stories through techniques unique from live-action films, rather than only acting as visual effects. Further, relegating animation to a genre denies its intrinsically equal value among other forms of visual media, while treating it as a medium allows its potential to be fully explored.
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