The Audience isn’t Stupid
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic |
There was a brief period in the early 2010s where I was
absolutely obsessed with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. There was
something that just made the first few seasons special.
MLP, as people may know, is meant for children. Often when
creating work for children, people may immediately think it must be simple,
similar to communicating with children in real-life. Indeed, it is safe to
assume children are incapable of understanding complex issues in life. Given
children must not know any better, surely it means creating content for them is
easy!
That’s not really the case, as you would imagine. In fact, I
would argue it’s harder than making content for adults which is precisely why
MLP: FiM was a masterpiece.
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Princess Celestia |
There is a point when content can be patronizing. This
occurs a lot in children’s media especially. Everything is written and designed
in such a way that even children understand what’s happening. I don’t know
about anybody reading this, but even as a child I would think I know more than
I should. I frowned upon media which make everything on-the-nose. Children, in
general, does not care about the creators’ feelings; if something isn’t working,
they make sure everyone knows in the household.
Poor designs. Bad, patronizing writing. If anybody thinks
children are not capable of detecting those, then perhaps the creators are not
fit to make media for them in the first place.
Going back to MLP: FiM, what struck me immediately was the
brilliance of their designs. Their characters are child-friendly yet they
display universal appeal and fundamentals. Children, like adults, may not
understand why something might be good but they sure know what is good. The
fact is that no matter the age, there are universal shape language which are more
appealing than others.
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Steven Universe |
It’s often the case that having a lot of colours create a
more child-friendly environment. This is why toys are colourful; it ensures the
daycare doesn’t look like a scene from Saving Private Ryan. However, this does
not give license for media to look like colourful vomit which is often what
happens when the art direction is led by incompetent artists. MLP: FiM clearly
had creators who knew what great designs look like and, in turn, I was able to
appreciate it just as much as a child.
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Doraemon |
This mature understanding of universal design also pertains to their writing but, for the sake of this blog, I will spare you the details and simply recommend people to study the series themselves. Just trust me when I say the show is a good watch because it is not trying too hard to be a “child-friendly show”; it’s a good show which just so happens to be child-friendly.
All the examples shown in this post are shows you may want to study if you're going into media fit for family and children. All of them share one trait; they can be enjoyed even if you aren't necessarily the specific target for the media.
The point of this entry is to consider your art and whether
if it’s being too on-the-nose. Just like with MLP: FiM, you don’t need to have
a checklist of the perceived requirements for your audience. Your sole goal is
to create good content based on the skillset you’re consistently improving. If
it doesn’t fit the mold of what’s out there, who cares? As long as it’s good,
you may end up changing the criteria itself.
This is often what irks me about, you guessed it, Anime and
Cartooning styles. In a lot of cases, I see artists forcing design decisions
for the sake of playing it “safe” without the consideration of whether they fit
or not. Our goal as artists is ultimately nuance; we aren’t screaming “ANIME!”
with our work so much as making good media which so happens to say “Anime”.
When it looks forced, people will know.
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My Neighbour Totoro |
We can look back at some of the most influential media in
history. I guarantee they always brought something new and appealing which
redefines the genres and styles they cover. Cookie cutter, conspicuous
pandering may work at times (and sometimes very well, unfortunately, for some
series like the Michael Bay Transformer movies) but expect audiences to realize
it immediately and react negatively.
There is nothing as insulting and unappealing as media which
thinks the audience is stupid, whether they’re 6 or 60.
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