On Timeless Storytelling-Lessons Animation Taught Us

You sure didn’t make this easy, did you Mikey?

I’m a huge fan of animation. I’ve been one since I first watched The Lion King in theatres at the age of 4. 24 years later, I anxiously await each newest theatrically-released animation, hoping it’ll be worth my time. There’s simply too much to not respect and love, and when Mikey Neumann issues a challenge to get the conversation rolling, you’d better expect me to jump on the bandwagon…even if I’m several months late.

Why did it take so long? Well, I’ve been attempting a response ever since his video debuted this Summer. I’ve gone through about a dozen ideas, scrapped three or four false starts and have contemplated giving up a few times. To be frank, Mikey’s video on Thanos, which he published later, was an easier response than what I’m attempting now, as it’s not as personal. It helps that The Avengers: Infinity War is also more straight-forward…

In truth, the “lessons animation taught us” concept isn’t new. The late-Roger Ebert had an entire episode of his beloved TV show dedicated to this exact topic, and that was in the 90’s! If adults were getting the ball rolling two decades ago, then chances are that it was already something worth taking note of. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I didn’t know what to talk about for the longest time. I initially wanted to discuss the dramatic comedy of Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo, and how they utilize both to critique the underpinnings of society. Then I wanted to discuss Studio Ghibli and how they’ve shaped my adult years. Then I wanted to discuss Avatar: The Last Airbender and how it’s still my favourite show 7 years after I first watched it. Most-recently, I wanted to focus on imagination in animation.

But all of those ended up being scrapped when I couldn’t find an angle to approach them with, which leads me to Attempt #5. So, what lessons has animation taught me? It’s hard to pick one, but I think I’ve finally found a bone with meat on it. That’s right, if animation has taught me anything, it’s that it’s timeless.

Let me explain.

Allow me to say something incredibly-controversial right out the gate: animation has always been a few steps ahead of live-action. The latter’s made some amazing strides in the last 40-odd years, but it’s still an incredibly-limited art-form that’s only progressed because of its integration of animated components (like stop-motion and CGI). Any idea live-action can achieve animation’s been capable of for far longer, even before computers. For live-action, the challenges of the medium’s capabilities restrict what it can pull off, like a puzzle with a pre-set number of pieces, while animation’s only real limitation is the creator’s imagination.

Even outside of that, animation has many more possibilities because of its lack of restrictions. We laud films like Babe for making animals talking look easy, but a seasoned nitpicker can find “fake” details that don’t match the illusion. With animation, however, this is irrelevant because, well, everything is “fake” to begin with, so the creators are forced to immerse the audience from the ground-up. This makes for a greater suspension of disbelief, allowing you to get away with a lot more:

Want to make animals talk? It’s possible.

Want to make the animals sing too? It’s also possible.

Want to make them anthropomorphic? Again, also possible.

Want to do all of that at once? Do I even need to answer that?

The level of creative freedom doesn’t even have to be that drastic. Concepts like food and drink, which are known to be a hassle in live-action because they go bad, can fit naturally into animation. In live-action, techniques have developed over time to help prevent waste and spoilage, like how ice cream is usually mashed potatoes mixed with food colouring, but with animation? If you want food, go ahead! No restrictions necessary!

This freedom even extends to action scenes, more-specifically fight scenes. I’ve seen many great fights, but in live-action lots of time and care has to go into making them perfect: you have to pick the right people. You have to subject them to training. You have to hire a fight choreographer. You have to know how to film the fight. And then you have actor fatigue, which is bound to kick-in at some point. Even when you use stunt-doubles, there are still the aforementioned limitations.

Animation has none of that. Not only is everything built directly from the ground-up, but you even can bend the rules. No need for fit actors and actresses, simply draw a skinny or heavyweight character. No need for tight prep-work, simply animate the fights as you go. This isn’t to say that planning isn’t required, it is, but you aren’t working with the limitations of real people.

These advantages also make animation an ideal format for more timeless effects work. Live-action special-effects have a tendency to date themselves really quickly, especially given how fast technology advances. I have immense respect for the classics and what they were able to pull off, but what looks fresh and new will be dated in 5-10 years. Animation, on the other hand, doesn’t have that problem because it’s not restricted as heavily by the technology of the time.

It helps that, being a medium (especially in the West) often associated with family entertainment, animation usually picks more general and overarching themes than live-action. Disney, in particular, has capitalized on this with fairy-tales, many of which are considered classics decades later. It’s true that some of the concepts presented might not fly by 2018 standards, but the artistry and general themes resonate enough that you can forgive the missteps. You don’t have that level of forgiveness with live-action, even when the films in question have aged wonderfully.

Ultimately, I think that’s why animation has captured my imagination so well: because it reinforces that timelessness is the key to storytelling. True, it’s always important to comment on society in art. But when your ideas are too narrow, or limited by the technology of the time, then who’s to say that it’ll still resonate in, as I said, 5-10 years? And while it’s true that there are awful animations that’ve aged poorly as well, I honestly think that animation is more timeless than people give it credit.