From the '1001 movies you must see before you croak' thread in the Media Madness corner, there was a short debate about whether "Animation" should be a movie genre or not. Since opening that can of worms would completely derail the thread, it wasn't continued, but I find myself asking: Why should it not be a genre?
So far I've only ever heard the producers themselves ("It's not just an animation, it's so much moooore!!!11!1") and, for a lack of a better term, fanboy purists (great way to open a discussion, I know..) make a fuss about it. And I get why, there's still a part of the population that sees animation movies as kiddie stuff and so on. But really, who cares about them? If you feel the need to justify animation movies as a 'real' movie (as opposed to a 'cartoon'), then you'll just be wasting a lot of time at someone who'll likely doesn't even want to understand.
Fact of the matter is: Animated movies (the mainstream ones) do have a lot of similarities that classifies them as a specific genre. Not counting the obvious 'animated' part, the story usually unfolds in the same way: Protagonist is shaken out of his or her daily life and embarks on an epic adventure, often accompanied by funny sidekick(s), trying to chase something or to return to somewhere, with a happily ever after ending.
You can probably shove them all under Comedy and technically it could fit, but I feel it's different and more than that. Same goes for Adventure or Romance.
And yes, there are always exceptions. But I'm talking about the big picture here. I'm also talking about mainstream movies in the example above. Japanese animation for example has elevated anime to such an art form that it is also used for raw action, intense drama or basically every genre. But even then the style and tempo and whatever differs from 'normal' Japanese movies.
If there really is a distinction to be made in the genre, it should probably be: Mainstream animation, Japanese (or "foreign") animation, Classic animation (before the CGI era) and Arthouse animation.
Then again, the same goes for the standard genres (Comedy can be split in slapstick, parody, etc. but people still lump them all on the same genre).
What are your views on it?
So far I've only ever heard the producers themselves ("It's not just an animation, it's so much moooore!!!11!1") and, for a lack of a better term, fanboy purists (great way to open a discussion, I know..) make a fuss about it. And I get why, there's still a part of the population that sees animation movies as kiddie stuff and so on. But really, who cares about them? If you feel the need to justify animation movies as a 'real' movie (as opposed to a 'cartoon'), then you'll just be wasting a lot of time at someone who'll likely doesn't even want to understand.
Fact of the matter is: Animated movies (the mainstream ones) do have a lot of similarities that classifies them as a specific genre. Not counting the obvious 'animated' part, the story usually unfolds in the same way: Protagonist is shaken out of his or her daily life and embarks on an epic adventure, often accompanied by funny sidekick(s), trying to chase something or to return to somewhere, with a happily ever after ending.
You can probably shove them all under Comedy and technically it could fit, but I feel it's different and more than that. Same goes for Adventure or Romance.
And yes, there are always exceptions. But I'm talking about the big picture here. I'm also talking about mainstream movies in the example above. Japanese animation for example has elevated anime to such an art form that it is also used for raw action, intense drama or basically every genre. But even then the style and tempo and whatever differs from 'normal' Japanese movies.
If there really is a distinction to be made in the genre, it should probably be: Mainstream animation, Japanese (or "foreign") animation, Classic animation (before the CGI era) and Arthouse animation.
Then again, the same goes for the standard genres (Comedy can be split in slapstick, parody, etc. but people still lump them all on the same genre).
What are your views on it?
