I've never liked animated things. I don't mean animated meaning excitable or showy, as in "Wow, that homeless guy with an umbrella in his ass and a mandolin on his head sure is animated." I mean animated, as in the digitally illustrated films that are everywhere these days. Every time i take a look at movie trailers or coming attractions, it seems there are nine or ten new animated "family" films headed to the theaters. These films always have cute names like "Happy Feet" and "Finding Nemo". And no matter how many times people insist these films aren't just for kids, I'll go see the film in question, and, guess what? It's for kids. Here is what I define as a movie for kids:
1. Primarily staffed by animated, talking animals that sound surprisingly similar to Hollywood celebrities like Chris Rock or Tim Allen (as an aside, when did it become popular for celebrities to voice animated animals? Is this their way of "giving back"? Do you think a five-year-old boy who eats his boogers even knows who Tim Allen is, or, if he did, would give a fuck? Or is it just too make these movies more palatable to the parents? Either way, it sucks.) These animals are always friendly and cute, no matter what they are. As example, these movies suggest that a panther or polar bear can incredibly friendly, witty and selfless.
2. A storyline that follows some variant of the following: A cute animal wants to see the world, so he escapes his zoo/family/house and begins to travel with two other animals that are also cute. When gone, he learns the world isn't always a nice and safe place, but, when he sticks together with his friends, can conquer anything. He then returns home, happy. A kid movie will never have any sex, nudity, death, swear words, rim jobs, ejaculations, or generally negative outcomes, because all these things are, you know, evil.
3. All human characters have really big eyes, for some reason. Especially the kids.
4. An unnatural fascination with penguins.
Recently, for some reason, every kid movie involves penguins. What the fuck is it about penguins? I've recently formed a theory that the adults who make animated films do so out of a sense of guilt and self-loathing, as they are always indirectly tied to highly-charged political issues. Take, for instance, this aforementioned current fascination with penguins (March of the Penguins, Happy Feet). Is it just a coincidence that global warming is knocking out Antarctica, and thus penguins will probably all be dead in about twenty years? So now we pay homage to them in movies because the SUVs the animators drive are directly responsible for the death of the penguins they are animating? And four years ago, when all the ocean movies started coming out (Finding Nemo, Shark's Tale), I believe it was a direct result of the ice caps melting and changing the salinity of the oceans, which is killing all the Nemos. You need to find Nemo? Try looking on the beach, where he'll be washed up, dead. I think we should introduce children to these issues at the earliest age possible. When i was in 1st grade, my own goldfish, my Nemo if you will, died a horrific death at the blood-stained hands of my sister/murderess. Despite the pain this causes to this day, I believe the murder of my fish taught me an infinite amount about the world and myself. There needs to be more death and mayhem in these cartoons, to prepare children for the shit world we have left for them to fix. Like finding a place for all the happy-foot penguins to live once their home melts away forever.
And don't get me started on animated films made explicitly for adults, like anime. That's just some weird shit I can't get into. If you are over forty and still watching animated cartoons, you probably still eat Cracker Jacks and sleep in Superman sheets. I fully expect to see these guys on "To Catch a Predator" one day. Probably holding a blow-up penguin sex doll, to boot.