Talk:Adult animation/GA2

GA Reassessment

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I believe the current article does not meet GA requirements, and that editing the article in order to make it do so would be a huge amount of work. I do not believe the article would even count as "B-class". I have various reasons for feeling this way, which I will detail in a list of points ~Mable (chat) 10:06, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

• The strong globalization imbalance in this article should be obvious. There's a very clear Unites States-centric point of view, and the views on adult animation in South America and most Asian countries isn't described at all. How is adult animation looked upon in countries such as Brazil and China? The manner in which adult animation in Europe and Japan are handled doesn't make me happy either, though, as detailed in the points below.
• The section on Europe has two paragraphs
• This article seems to be taking a strong historical perspective. Per region (US, Europe, and Japan), the article offers a timeline of television series are considered adult. This is primarily an issue with the sections on Europe and Japan. Reading these sections, I start to feel like the article is a list of animated works rather than a proper article on the subject of adult animation. You have lines such as

  The first foreign animated film to receive both an X rating and ...

  ,

  In 1986, England produced yet another politically-themed animation, When the Wind Blows, about ...

  , and

  Werner - a German animated film based on the comic book. In an episode of many characters use foul language and flip the bird

  and so on.
• What the article does not cover at all is culture and social aspects of adult animation. Coming into this article, I expected to read about why the US believes animation is generally for children or why so many US adult shows are primarily about "crude" jokes, but all I saw was that this thing called the "Hays Code" restricted adult content for 40 years. The article doesn't even really explain why this code was implemented and currently suggests that it affects all film, not just animation. Similarly, I hoped to find out why cultural perception in Japan about adult animation is so different from the US. All the Japan section does is defining hentai (not even mentioning ecchi, shonen, and other genres of interest) followed by listing random adult animated examples. As a result, this just looks like the history of anime in the form of a timeline.
• I am unsure of why I am supposed to care about a list of screenings of adult animated works in US festivals. These don't even seem to have produced any kind of controversy. What am I supposed to learn about adult animation from this section? When I saw the section header, I assumed it was about festivals centered around adult animation, which would have been a much more interesting subject. Is it uncommon for adult animation to be screened at a festival? I guess the article suggests that it is by giving only three examples... but I'm just really not sure what information to take out of this.
• Refimprove! Most of the Europe and Japan sections are unreferenced!
• There are some odd lines in this article, like

  although the film was not by any stretch pornographic, it was an adult film ([examples]) and received an R rating when imported to the United States.

  ,

  "Escalation" in particular is interesting because it was made by Disney animator Ward Kimball, independently from the Disney Studios.

  ,

  Betty’s hula animation was reused for a cameo appearance with Popeye the Sailor in his self-titled animated debut short.

I think these are my main issues. I truly believe the section on the US is pretty good, but the article as a whole is completely unbalanced and doesn't describe the actual cultural perspectives that are relevant to this topic at all. Most importantly: Why is adult animation considered a separate issue from adult live action? I do believe that this is the main question this article should answer. ~Mable (chat) 10:06, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Hays Code

"this thing called the "Hays Code" restricted adult content for 40 years. The article doesn't even really explain why this code was implemented and currently suggests that it affects all film, not just animation"

I do not think a full explanation of the "Hays Code" is necessary here, since we have a rather detailed article about it: Motion Picture Production Code. As a censorship code, it was in effect from 1930 to 1968. In general, it influenced the contents and depictions of American films by severely limiting the amounts of sex, violence, drugs, etc. that could be depicted, and determining how they were depicted.

I have been trying to improve several articles on American animated short films over the last few years, by citing books by animation historians. Several of them address how the Code affected animated films, but also mention that the directors and animators still managed to include "adult" material, by making references that the censors did not get. A director who worked in this way was Bob Clampett. Taken from his article:

"According to an interview published in Funnyworld #12 (1971), Clampett had a method for ensuring that certain elements of his films would escape the censors' cut. It consisted of adding material aimed just at the censors; they would focus on cutting those, and thus leave in the ones he actually wanted". Dimadick (talk) 10:45, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

This information already sounds more useful than most of what is in the article. In particular, I would like to see described how Hays Code affected animation specifically, rather than the article giving some examples of old cartoons (Bosko's Picture Show, Betty Boop) that were changed after the Code was implemented. After all, you could probably do that for live action television at the time as well. In general, the whole "Pre-code animation" section is devoted to examples (most of it to Betty Boop, which I'm sure wasn't unique, and if it was, it would be getting undue weight regardless).

As for Bob Clampett quote you're giving: it is awesome little insight, but it still isn't something specific to animation. That information would belong in the Motion Picture Production Code first and foremost, and could be added here because Clampett was an animator, but it doesn't really solve the problem I'm having with these sections. My biggest question is just really: why is adult animation so rare in the US? When did the US populace decide that animation is primarily for children? If Hays Code affected animation more so than live action, then it would definitely deserve multiple sections as it does now. Otherwise, well, all relevant information should already be in the MPPC and Betty Boop articles and this article is clearly unbalanced towards the US, so I don't see the point in having two large sections on it until more relevant information gets added. ~Mable (chat) 12:44, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

After two months of no activity, I have decided to delist this article. ~Mable (chat) 12:12, 3 September 2017 (UTC)