- This video is brought to you by Magic Spoon.
(upbeat music)
What's up, guys? Michael here.
Given the general state of things
in the live action hellscape of 2021,
it makes sense that a lot of us would look
to the lighter, brighter world of animation
for some wholesome escapism.
However, it seems like recently,
our cartoon buddies are going through it
just as badly as we are.
Whether they're suffering from addiction issues,
coping with toxic familial relationships,
or navigating systemic sexism, the cartoon characters
in our favorite recent adult animation shows seem
to be dealing with just about every dark subject
under the sun.
So, with the boundless possibilities which animation offers,
why are we gravitating towards characters
who are working through real life traumatic experiences?
And in doing so, have we actually found a way
to use adult animation as a kind of therapy?
Let's talk about it in this Wisecrack Edition
on "Why Adult Animation Feels Like Therapy."
Spoilers ahead for a bunch of sad cartoon people/animals.
But before we get into it, I'm gonna take a quick break
to enjoy a bowl of Magic Spoon cereal.
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Find your favorite flavor.
And now, back to the show.
Now, before we can break down
recent trends in adult animation,
we need to take a look at its past.
Contrary to popular knowledge,
early animation was pretty adulty, featuring raunchy,
boozy, and sometimes straight-up terrifying content.
Note: we cover this extensively
in our "Origins of Adult Animation" video,
so be sure to check it out.
With the rising number of American households with TVs,
animation began to be specifically marketed towards kids,
with the occasional family-friendly exception
like "The Flintstones."
Of course, Fred and his prehistoric pals were rarely dealing
with anything quite as heavy as today's characters.
Well, except for that episode about infertility,
which was over my childhood head.
- We're so anxious to have a baby,
we take it out on Fred and Wilma.
- [Michael] The show was mostly just
about a simple fella who liked to eat, bowl,
and convert animals into household appliances.
- It's a living.
- [Michael] A true everyman.
What's more, "The Flintstones"
was basically just an animated take
on domestic sitcoms like "The Honeymooners."
And even when "The Simpsons" arrived
to shake things up almost 30 years later,
this was still the template they were working from.
Not that "The Simpsons" never got dark.
♪ Like my loafers, former gophers ♪
♪ It was that or skin my chauffeurs ♪
♪ But a greyhound fur tuxedo would be best ♪
The third episode has Homer on the verge
of killing himself, after all.
- [Homer] By the time you read this,
I will be in my watery grave.
- [Michael] But the show was more interested
in the little flaws and foibles
of lower-middle-class life in America
than the depths of human suffering.
And no matter how somber the subject matter
of any given episode might be,
it still functioned in that classic sitcom mold:
you were guaranteed that everything would be wrapped up
neatly before the end credits rolled.
Well, almost always.
- Come on, say something conclusive!
- I'm afraid this is a very open-ended problem.
- [Michael] The success of "The Simpsons"
spawned a whole wave of animated shows
designed to appeal to an older audience,
with the likes of "South Park"
and "Family Guy" making it explicitly clear
that they were not for children.
And I do mean explicitly.
- Peaches.
Peaches, I'm sorry.
- Damn it!
You could've at least given me some warning.
- [Michael] But while these shows were comfortable
wading into darker waters than "The Simpsons"
with whole episodes dedicated to topics
like sexual harassment, child abuse, and racism,
they largely did so in the name of subversion and satire.
This was typically hilarious and even insightful,
but which was unlikely to tell you much
about what it meant to be a real person
navigating any of the subjects they discussed.
They were very smart, but didn't do much
for audiences looking for sincere emotional pathos.
It's the difference
between watching Kenny die for the hundredth time
and watching "BoJack Horseman" character Sarah Lynn die
once, an experience from which
I will probably never recover.
- Right, Sarah Lynn?
Sarah Lynn?
- [Michael] Suffice to say, you're likely not shooting
to provoke intense emotions if, say,
you're also a show that's happy
to have one of your lead characters
feed another kid's parents to him via a bowl of chili.
- Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh!
I made you eat your parents!
- The point of this kind of adult animation
was to use the looser boundaries of the medium
to go completely balls to the wall, putting things on screen
that would either be physically impossible
or extremely illegal if done by an actual human being.
It was about leaning into the chaos to mine comedy
from all the darkest, most (beep)-up stuff
the writers could come up with.
And it was okay to laugh at it all because,
ultimately, they were just cartoons, right?
But in more recent years,
we've seen more and more shows ask us
to emotionally invest in our animated friends
at a much deeper level.
Adult animation is still as wild as it's ever been.
One glance at "Rick and Morty's" phone-munching chair-people
or "Tuca & Bertie's" turtle-hoarding neighbor
will tell you that.
But they've integrated some of the harshest parts
of our reality into their own colorful worlds.
The prime example is "BoJack Horseman," which,
despite its constant punning and weird animal antics,
is basically a whole show about depression.
It explores mental illness in a way
that often veers into the territory of addiction-
- Is this, like, an AA thing?
- No, I don't need AA.
- [Michael] childhood trauma-
(Harper grunts) (others laughing)
- [Michael] PTSD- - Oh.
(ominous music)
- [Michael] and a host of other places
where unhappiness can take root.
Similarly, "Big Mouth's" animated middle school hijinks
allow it to dig into the messy parts of adolescence,
as well as the psychological toll
that divorce can take on a kid.
And Rick and Morty might go
on adventures through a multiverse
full of giant butts and greasy grandmas,
but the heart of their story is usually about self-hatred,
despair, and broken relationships.
And even a show as visually delightful
and formally playful as "Tuca & Bertie" still finds a way
to deal with painful subjects like sexual assault.
- Tuca, I have to tell you something.
- So whichever present-day adult animated series
you're into, it's safe to say that we've come a long way
from the gentle rhythms and easy resolutions
of Bedrock and Springfield
and that where we are now is a hell of a lot darker.
So the big question is, why?
Why would we look towards places
full of talking animals and Shame Wizards
to explore the harsher parts of the human experience?
Part of the appeal might have to do
with the medium of animation.
Animated characters have an inherent sort
of universality about them.
In "Animation: Genre and Authorship,"
scholar and artist Paul Wells
summarizes psychoanalyst Martin Grotjahn,
writing that "the animated figure works as a symbol
that transcends materiality, but makes material impact."
Essentially, cartoons can actually be easier
for us to project ourselves onto because they're not real.
I mean, have you ever felt more seen
by a flesh-and-blood human being
than you have looking at the "this is fine" dog?
Similarly, animation expert Professor Paul Wells has said
that animation itself creates "a space for characters,
or phenomena, to operate on more symbolic
or metaphoric terms and conditions,"
which "invites a greater degree
of possibly highly charged emotive
or abstract interpretation."
Animation is by nature a bunch of symbols
that we've created to represent reality,
so it kinda makes sense that we'd be inclined
to engage with them on a metaphorical level,
even if some of those symbols are things
like sperm monsters and centaurs.
Animation is also far less beholden to logic
than most other mainstream entertainment.
We'll gladly accept characters
surviving things that should kill them
or entire cities being flattened and then instantly rebuilt,
just so long as everyone involved is made of ink.
And on a different level, it's also less beholden
to the dominant logic of our societies,
so "Rick and Morty" can point out economic exploitation
in a way that would make a live action comedy
feel like a huge bummer.
- Does he like it?
- It's a metaphor for capitalism, Morty.
What do you think?
- What's more, being less tethered
to reality often allows animated shows
to evoke their characters' feelings
and mental states much more directly,
something which "BoJack Horseman"
was always uncomfortably great at.
Think about the opening credits,
where we watch him float through scenes
from his life in an emotionally detached haze.
Later, we come to understand
it's his primary defense mechanism.
Or consider the incredible,
almost wordless underwater episode,
where BoJack is forced to navigate a world
he doesn't understand without being able to talk,
emphasizing his emotional isolation.
Or think about the increasingly abstracted visuals
used to portray his emotional breakdown in season 5,
allowing us to experience the disintegration
of reality right alongside him.
In one such episode,
the full immersive capacity of animation allows
for his costar and girlfriend Gina's cliche showtune song
to read as dark and menacing,
complete with dancing popsicles.
Part of the reason we were able
to get such a rich understanding of BoJack as a character
was because the entire show could be warped
to reflect his interior life
and make it visible to the viewer.
- Has anyone ever come back from this place?
(Herb sighs)
- BJ, there is no place.
It's just your brain going through
what it feels like it has to go through.
- And this is true whether he's running
through the washed-out imagery of his youth
or watching Diane, the only person
to ever effectively call him out on his bull(beep),
turn into a terrifying monster.
Of course, it goes without saying
that adult animation's introspective possibilities
for achieving subjectivity also makes it very good
at depicting drug experiences.
Similar tactics have been employed
by a host of other adult animated shows, too.
"Big Mouth" was able to make a full-blown musical spectacle
out of a young woman's first period.
This reflects how, from Jessie's point of view,
having everyone know she was on her period
felt about as seismic and humiliating
as being followed by a giant, singing tampon.
In "Tuca & Bertie,"
quote-unquote "reality" is similarly malleable.
When gentrification threatens their neighborhood,
it's symbolized by a pervasive moss
that creeps into the birds' apartment building.
When Tuca brushes fingers with her crush,
she's so excited that her bones literally fall out
and Bertie has to pick them up, which is what a brush
with a crush truly feels like, isn't it?
And, of course, there's the show's deft handling
of Bertie's sexual assault when she was 12.
The show's normally chaotic animation style falls away
in favor of a pared-down color palette and faceless figures.
And it's the magic of animation
that lets us truly see the experience
from the victim's perspective.
There's also the various outlandish ways
"The Boondocks" found to use Japanese anime style
to explore Black American trauma.
Sometimes that means bringing Martin Luther King Jr.
back to life to comment on contemporary Black culture,
something that might border on sacrilege
if employed in live action.
And frequently, that means empowering its central character,
Huey, to engage in gravity-defying fight scenes that,
in their outlandishness, paradoxically manage
to accurately reflect the full scope
of his inner power and rage.
When you take a look around,
the anything-goes nature of animation actually allows it
to aim directly at the stuff that's the most real.
Okay, so that might explain why animation is so effective
at exploring the inner lives of its characters.
But that still leaves the bigger question: why do we care?
Why do we seem to get so much value
out of watching animated characters process their pain?
If you were to ask Ancient Greece's
biggest intellectual show-off, Aristotle,
he might tell you that it's all about catharsis,
that watching characters undergo tragedy provides us
with a vital release for our own feelings
of sadness, fear, and anger.
And while many parts of these shows may be symbolic,
they tend to get very literal
when it comes to darker issues.
We might not know what it's like
to have our fiance stolen by a cyborg
or our wife killed by a version
of ourselves from another dimension,
but we've got plenty of experience
with the other issues which affect these characters.
Rick, Archer, and BoJack all struggle with alcohol issues,
as do about 6% of American adults.
And one out of every nine Americans over the age of 65
suffers from the sort of dementia
that's so brutally portrayed in BoJack.
And over 400,000 more Americans each year
will sadly be able to relate far too easily
to the experience of sexual assault in "Tuca & Bertie."
In their journey through the darker corners of existence,
these shows will almost certainly bump up
on something that either the viewer
or someone in their life has dealt with,
making it all powerfully, painfully real.
But what really makes
these animated shows hit quite so hard?
It's probably all the hours we spent staring
square-eyed at cartoons while we were children.
And it turns out our parents were right
that all that TV time would mess us up.
My bad, Dad.
Although they probably just thought
it would ruin our eyes and attention spans,
not that we would one day be emotionally ruined
by watching a horse-man
accidentally seducing a teenage deer.
So actually, never mind, Dad.
I take it back.
Animated shows carry an even greater pathos
for those of us who grew up watching them
because they present what Wells describes
as the "fictionalized notion of consciousness,
which, if imagined real,
both recalls the playful and liberal apparatus of childhood
and makes concrete the irony and contradiction
of the adult sensibility."
What that means is that adult animation occupies a sort
of liminal space that splits the difference between
the fond childhood memories which the medium recalls
and the brutal adult realities which modern shows portray.
So we come to these shows with all the emotional openness
of a sweet summer child, only to be met
with the wall-to-wall adult misery that's on display.
And it might even be more than that,
because in our softened, cartoon-watching state,
we aren't braced for an emotional gut punch the way we are
checking out a prestige live action series over on HBO.
So when we watch BoJack strangling his costar
while in the midst of a drug-addled nervous breakdown
or come face-to-face with the crushing sadness
of Woodhouse's death in "Archer,"
it can catch us completely off guard.
- And he had a good, long life.
- He did, for a heroin addict.
- The anything-goes, consequence-free antics
of our "Looney Tunes" days suddenly gives way
to the absolute reality of what's happening
to the characters on screen,
and we're forced to accept that the wounds being made
won't just be erased and replaced for the next frame.
They're here to stay,
every bit as permanent as the marks we make in real life.
Of course, you can always just pull a Rick Sanchez
and reject this sort of therapeutic value right out of hand.
- I don't think going to a rented office in a strip mall
to listen to some agent of averageness
explain which words mean which feelings
has ever helped anyone do anything.
I think it's helped a lot of people
get comfortable and stop panicking,
which is a state of mind we value in the animals we eat,
but not something I want for myself.
- But to do so would surely be missing a large part
of what these shows have to offer.
We're in the midst of a golden age of adult animation,
thanks to a bunch of shows with a lot on their minds.
And it seems like it's the same stuff
that a lot of us are going through, too.
So maybe we can work
through life's more painful aspects together
with a few badass action sequences,
bizarre musical numbers,
and outlandish sight gags thrown in
to let us have some fun along the way.
But what do you guys think?
Why do shows like "BoJack Horseman" seem to (beep) us up
so much more than shows which don't include asexual axolotls
and strip-dancing orcas?
Feel free to play armchair psychologist
down in the comments.
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Later.
(buoyant music)