A person’s early twenties are in many ways the most fascinating period of life. Compared to the first twenty, it feels like fifty years have been crammed into the next ten. One thing that I have observed in my life and in the people around me is the retreat to childhood. When you have three papers due and finals to prepare for and a job and whatever else, all you want to do is hide in a blanket fort and eat candy until the responsibilities forget about you.
One of the best things about college is the beautiful mixture of new realms of experience and remnants of childhood. Look at any university quad on any given day, and I guarantee many those you see have gotten drunk while watching a Disney movie. The return to childhood comfort is natural; for most this is not a denial of adulthood, just a step on the way to accepting your new role. I have long been fascinated by this wonderful blend of child and adult, and animators have not remained unaware of this trend. Animated shows targeting more adult audience are growing, and these new genres contain adult themes.
Shows like Bob’s Burgers introduce elements of the absurd into the mundane. In nearly the opposite method, Archer forces mundanity onto the secret agent genre, mocking the tropes of spy movies and resorting to childish humor. Chief among these more adult cartoons are Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty. These cartoons push far beyond parody, these shows are centered on a cynicism so bleak as to be antithetical to the traditionally child-focused art-form.
Bojack Horseman is about an aging actor with the better part of his career behind him. He drinks, smokes, does drugs, sleeps around, alienates those few still around him, and generally searches for new methods of self-destruct.
Rick and Morty follows an aging scientist who brings his grandson on adventures. He drinks, does drugs, disregards human life and really all life, and belittles the family that clings to him despite his selfish nature. Any potential glimmer of humanity in Rick is obfuscated by potential selfish motives. Indeed, the watcher is left wondering if Rick is acting cold to hide his true feelings, or if there is nothing beneath the façade.
These two incredibly grim shows are also hilarious. Both are very much worth watching and are some of my favorites. But they certainly began my pondering on the thematic tendencies of a medium. Animation is largely something for children’s shows. Having a bleak, nihilistic theme in a cartoon is inherently jarring. But that’s the point.
I have described the blending of child and adult as beautiful, as I have come to consider it. But it is also horrible. So much change is packed into such a short time that the transition from child to adult is terrifying. Jarring. The regimented and controlled life that a teenager leads (listen to your parents, listen to your teachers, listen to your boss) is blown away in the freedom of college.
You choose your schedule, you choose your major and career path, you choose what to eat and when to sleep. College freshman often feel in freefall. People change in the wake of this fall. This is when people start drinking and get really into the party scene. This is when people find a cause to devote themselves to. This is when people go through that embarrassing phase where they won’t talk about anything other than hacky sacking or ultimate frisbee. (I believe that decades later that phase will be what we collectively cringe at, a reincarnation of everyone’s middle-school emo phase.) And this is where the comfort of childhood is needed to balance the fear.
As I said above, for most this is a step to fully accepting responsibility. But it is also a trap to fall into. Walk through a dorm and you will find some who play video games all day while failing the classes they’re missing. I once skipped all my classes three days in a row because my friends were having a Power Rangers marathon.
Fear of my future had felt constricting, and childhood represented a haven. That haven became the hole I had to pull myself out of. It’s not that cartoons are bad, it’s that refusing to be an adult is a dangerous and intoxicating choice. Truly growing up is not the denial of childhood. If you can accept the remnants of your childhood but not live in the past, then you can face your future all the stronger for it.
“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” -C. S. Lewis
