Read on Twitter
I want to share some thought about political alignments when it comes to cartooning & cartoon fandoms. This wasn't inspired by the election, but by Thad K's recent "disavow" of "alt-righty" ppl who were Liking / RT-ing his tweets - as in, some of you guys who follow me. (thread)
Some of you have things in your bios that signal to others that you're ideologically on the right: crosses, maga hats, other obvious signifiers. But in other ways the signifiers are more subtle - lack of pronouns, for instance, a subject I've made fun of to some infamy
The interesting question is, why are so many "Woke" ppl fans of what we've colloquially made fun of as "CalArts" or more accurately, "Beanmouth" cartoons? The obvious answer is "the ppl who make them r Woke and put gay kids & stronk wamens in them" but the full answer goes deeper
Aesthetics reflect beliefs. This manifests itself in Beanmouth cartoons several ways: 1) even though casts r multiracial, characters aren't drawn w/ significantly different physical features because Woke ppl contradictorily want to "celebrate diversity" BUT "we're all the same"
2) male & female characters aren't drawn significantly different because Woke ppl see acknowledgment of sexual dimorphism & physical differences as anti-egalitarian (gender spectrum, etc) and generally hate macho men & beautiful women to begin with (patriarchs & their prizes)
(remember how the Thundercats reboot made a point of mocking the “dudebro manbaby” fans of the original? it's because they enjoyed neutering masculine 80s fantasy adventure aesthetics that appealed primarily to young boys)
3) the biggest factor in blandness of Beanmouth style tho is that it can look "weird" enough to be more cartoony than Family Guy, but doesn't require TOO much skill - in other words, it lets the artist feel unique & special without much effort, putting focus on "identity" instead
(John always used to say that it was dirty hippies who invented the idea back in the 1960s that everyone was “creative” and uhhhhhh just like with everything else, he was right)
Woke Toons actually have a corporate counterpart in mass-produced commercial art, where the same mentality manifested during the 2010s decade of Wokeness - check out @HumansOfFlat for a thorough documentation - you've seen this stuff before, tho - you see it everywhere, now
you might notice fans of Beanmouth cartoons have little interest in Golden Age (1930s-50s) animation. Or if they DO profess interest, it's only to own the Chuds. Like when they post old comics panels of Superman punching Hitler. are such ppl actually reading old 1930s-50s comics?
the modern Woke Toon Fan doesn't like how Golden Age Cartoons sometimes included racially insensitive or sexist jokes, sure - that's a given. In fact, even when a cartoon is "innocent" of that stuff, they can dismiss it outright just for being "made by a bunch of old white guys"
But Woke Cartoon Fan indifference or contempt for Golden Age Cartoons goes deeper than just being pre-woke stuff from ur grandpa (or great-grandpa's) era - notice how they're not championing New Looney Tunes' efforts to live up to those older, higher standards. Can you guess why?
Here's my theory: Beanmouth Cartoonists & their Woke Cartoon Fan enablers mainly don't care for Golden Age Cartoons because those clearly display a higher level of skill than exists today - & the progressive worldview is against recognition of hierarchy. "everyone gets a trophy"
This is all to say, and I mean, this thread is just me trying to sum up what I've learned about Toon Twitter this year - it's NEVER a surprise when ppl w/ Beanmouth toon avis also have BLM, ACAB, rainbow flags, pronouns, & other corollary Woke identity signaling in their bios
Now, on the flipside of Beanmouth Avis having predictably Woke politics? you've got Anime Avis being assumed right-wing, right? This pattern is already well known, Blue Checkmarks love to point it out. Anime-watching incel Drumpftards in their mom's basement. Ok, but - why Anime?
I'm a 34 year old Boomer so I've seen Anime fandom in the West go through a lot of changes. it NEVER used to have any political baggage until - of course - the Woke 2010s, when EVERY fandom suddenly had to GET WOKE OR ELSE. They're still trying w/ Anime but it's never quite stuck
Anime doesn't come from the West (duh) so it's harder for Woke Westerners to coerce it from the outside. But there's also a noticeable overlap between Dissident Right types & anime fans that doesn't exist w/ Lefties - and the explanation why is comparable to Golden Age Cartoons
You can see where I'm going with this. Yes, Anime isn't "Woke" because they have hot babes, macho men, racial caricatures, sexist jokes, etc. But just like with Golden Age Cartoons, you're also seeing higher levels of technical skill on display, and Woke ppl hate that even more.
Woke ppl hate Anime even MORE than Golden Age Western cartoons because unlike us, the Japs clearly make "cartoons 4 adultz!!" that aspire higher than crude humor for weed-smoking attention spans. Shamed by this, they dismiss Anime as mostly "tentacle rape for right-wing incels"
To sum up Anime vs. Beanmouth - the former reflects valuing hierarchical art skills, "adult content" that assumes emotional maturity from the audience, & using cartoon exaggeration to idealize ppl. The latter is Steven Universe. Can u see why one's right-wing & the other is woke?
So, you have this overlap between Anime fans, right-wingers, and ppl who aren't necessarily Anime fans but think modern Western cartoons suck - and guess what? Golden Age Cartoon fans KNOW modern Western cartoons suck, too. "Oh no, does this make me a reactionary? Better disavow"
Golden Age Cartoon fans can't really sound off about how obviously shitty Beanmouth cartoons are because those fanbases are super-woke & have nothing better to do but swarm on wrongthinkers. The Left eats its own, as they say, and no-one's more vulnerable than moderate liberals!
Speaking of moderate liberals, in closing I'd like to mention Cartoon Sitcoms, which have kept animation in a state of retardation for the past 30 years. If there's a politics or ideology reflected in them, it's Neoliberalism. proud Hillary voters & Simpsons Avis have a 1:1 ratio
and Old Simpsons Fans - my dok, these Gen-Xers and millennials grew up at a time when Homer Simpson supporting a family of 5 and owning a house on a single income was NORMAL, and now they cheer whenever a Covid-masked Lisa Simpson "takes down" Trump. To the glue factory with them
everything about the production of Cartoon Sitcoms, from the Simpsons & Family Guy all the way down, is optimized towards generating wealth for an undeserving elite while exploiting outsourced labor to create product that nourishes the stomaches of consumers but never their souls
Cartoon Sitcoms r cartoons 4 what the right calls "Bugmen" - the characters even look like bugs, with their uniformly bulgy eyeballs. Go home to your pod, Bugman, then eat/watch the bug cartoons - crucially, they think the content of this mass consumption makes them transgressive
There's always more to say about political / ideological alignments w/ different kinds of animation fans throughout the years, and around the world, but seeing my followers "disavowed" by someone for enjoying his mockery of crappy modern cartoons really got the old noggin joggin'
Hope this thread was somewhat elucidating about the subtextual ideological warfare behind the funee drawings we like to talk about here on "Toon Twatter"
/thread
/thread
PS. I forgot to mention something really obvious
woke ppl watch kids' cartoons instead of anime because mentally they're children
you're welcome
woke ppl watch kids' cartoons instead of anime because mentally they're children
you're welcome
