A subversive trend: In defense of "trippy" animated comedies

I have this debate with my dad almost every time he stumbles upon a show I like. With the younger adult demographic being fed things like Black Jesus: loud, rutterless and only funny if you’re willing to sacrifice a bit of intelligence, a lot of fiction is becoming less and less inclusive. It started with Adult Swim, sure, but this trend of weird, almost always animated shows has spread to almost every major station. I’ve never met someone from an older generation that enjoyed the stupidity of something like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, or John Benjamin Has a Van (Whose titular character and real life human has lent at least his voice to a staggering number of the programs in this genre.) Looking at these shows logically, which is something these shows count on you not doing, I can totally see where older folks are coming from.

One fact brought to light by these trippy, animated comedies, and live-action shows in the same style, is that something doesn’t have to be good to be enjoyable. Everyone is aware of this to some degree. That’s why, when a Dolph Lundgren action flick comes on our television screens at 2 o clock in the afternoon, we don’t angrily press our red off button with enough force to dislodge it from its little socket. A lot of those old action movies are bad on purpose too, but the trippy comedies of today actually take that intentional suck a step farther.

Series with a lot of action will feature rough looking, overly badass leads that give off a vibe best described as “faux-grit”. The voice-actors, or real actors, will put on an overly dark, raspy voice like Rorschach in Watchmen (Only that guy was being serious) and will have certain aspects of their character type played up where appropriate: air-headedness, bloodlust, the fact that their tough exterior is compensating for some hilarious character flaw. Where this varies from traditional satire is that the joke goes on for so long, and the characters are put up against so much real action, that series like Venture Bros. and Metalocalypse only seem like half-satires.

Action series will sometimes have episodes where very few, if any jokes are told. Family Guy actually does this, but with more of an emphasis on melodrama and adventure when they decide to have a serious episode. This constant experimentation with different genres definitely draws in viewers with a different kind of thinking pattern, and establishes a different set of rules for kids hoping to make their own shows one day.

Perhaps the reason my dad, along with a good chunk of america, get tired of these shows is that they rely on writing tools that are generally regarded as lazy and lowbrow: repetition, gross-out gags, etc. This has caused a lot of outcry from the "cultured" critics of Fancyville, who give no merit to a program that would stoop that low. The belief is that stupid humor makes for a stupid show, and that's something this genre loves to challenge. In the same breath that someone makes a poop joke, they may also reference some obscure historical figure. Adventure Time in particular features almost as many references to nuclear war and emotional bonds as it does nonsense jokes and funny noises.

It's interesting, too, that these shows manage to appeal to both stoners and the sober, without a lot being lost on either audience. Adult Swim launched when I was in elementary school, so perhaps growing up with these shows has given us a different kind of brain, one that can switch between the logic of more conventional shows while also appreciating the absurdity of these strange programs. There's no doubt that subversive writing is becoming more and more mainstream, though the actual effect this will have on programming in the future is hard to decipher. Right now it's a rather large niche for a rather specific age demographic, I'd like to get a better idea of what kinds of parents have come out of being raised on this stuff --- hopefully not ones that do a lot of drugs.

Marve'ls new emphasis on female heroes is good for boys, too

I hear a LOT of complaints going around about current Captain Marvel Carol Danvers: why does she matters? why is she likable? And why does she needs her own series? Hell, with all these female heroes getting solo series: Spider-Woman,Gwen Stacy as alternate reality, white-suited also Spider-Woman, and She-Hulk, who is not a Spider-Woman --- the real issue has become the visibility of female heroes in the comics medium. No one seems to care that they are getting visibility, but that it's happening almost overnight, seeming more like a panicked effort to increase the number of females with their own books and regular spots on the big teams than an artistic expression.

One explanation could be that these books are coming out so quickly simply because they can. From what I gather, it sounds like some people would prefer an eleven year, female comic release schedule, which is totally unnecessary when dealing with a medium of paper and ink, instead of the sets, computers, and big name actors present in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Consider too that these continuous, rapid-fire releases of female-driven books, and female supporting characters joining existing books, haven't come close to measuring up when compared to the number of men and male-like beings that populate comics today. If Marvel isn't launching these books and creating these characters out of panic, they fucking should be.

Beyond the benefit of giving women the chance to read about someone far closer to themselves, I can tell you that having more female characters, with personalities and problems and stuff, is an incredibly important concept for young boys too. Having been one myself, I can assure you that strong female role models are incredibly important to our development into stable adults. That sexism in the nerd community thing that men insist doesn't exist?

It Totally.Fucking.Exists.

Growing up, there were two "rules of masculinity" instilled in the brains of my friends and I from early middle school on. The first: men SHOULD like women. Everybody knows that one, but I still remember a second unbreakable law among little dudes of the nerd persuasion, or anyone who made a hobby out of consuming fiction: that you SHOULDN'T like female characters. This last rule only applies to anything they actually say or do: badass one-liners, achievements and the like. If they're attractive (Or rather, what teenagers are supposed to think is attractive) you are allowed to gawk at them and talk about how nice their pencil-drawn busts look in their imaginary wizard fabric that somehow accentuates every curve of their handcrafted, not real figure.

For me, 9th grade was a prime gawking year, but I grew out of it quickly, around the same time I broke rule #1 and came out as bi. There's no denying that teenagers are naturally horny, and having crushes on people that aren't real is a thing that totally happens. What bothers me is the idea is that that's all women can be to a boy reading comics. What gets to me too is the sad truth that a good chunk of my friends, most now out of college, have the opinion hard-wired into their circuitry that obscure characters should stay obscure, and obscurity is where a lot of these characters have lingered for years.

For the record, any fictional character can be interesting. They don't exist, so it's not like they need to hang out with a group of hipster website startup employees to learn how to captivate a room with their charisma. Making a character interesting works especially well when that character isn't all that known. Tony Stark's loyal butler Jarvis can't suddenly trade in his dry personality for an eccentric, whimsical old man feel, but a lot of the women getting books now haven't really had their personalities developed. Even if they have, the average reader probably doesn't know a thing about someone like Squirrel Girl, who has only been a regular in one series since her inception. (Is she the small-but-spunky character type? Goofy, seemingly innocent but actually incredibly dangerous? Doreen Green who's that??)

An interesting woman, fictional or otherwise, can make all the difference to a kid learning his role as a man who likes women. Kevin Hart does a joke about making your wife feel like she's fun, even if she isn't. I can only speak for the guys, so this may be true for women as well, but when we think about what's "fun" we tend to only think about what we do with other guys. Like Hart, I was only ever told to pretend to be interested in what my future spouse enjoys, never to actually participate and try to find the fun in it.What I'm suggesting in this post, I actually approached the opposite way. I started reading female led books after I had already taken part in my girlfriend's hobbies, not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

For boys who don't yet have girlfriends, I think it's almost a necessity that they be raised on at least a few female led stories. Learning to admire a leader like Carol Danvers is important for these kids who are where I once was. It all boils down to this shit that I saw growing up, but didn't process until it was put into perspective. Growing up, we got our image of power from Dragon Ball Z or New Adventures of Superman, then looked for that image when choosing a mentor. Joss Whedon has said that having a strong mom led him to write strong characters. For kids without those role models, it could be the reverse, where a strong female character will allow the next generation to see the strength in their female teachers, coaches, and other leaders.