Art, Meaning, Message and Audience

[Ravariel]

I started a similar topic in the Poli section about this, as a discussion on how the intended audience of a piece effects the art of that piece, and I thought it would be a good thing to discuss here as well, since audience may be the single most important decision you make about what you write. I'll copypasta what I wrote from the other forum then we can target our discussion more towards targeting specific audiences and what that might mean about the eventual message of your writing.

So, I was reading the forum comments on this article today and one poster almost triggered my Berserk Button and a long-winded rant about the merits and Meaning (capital M) of art directed at younger people... and more generally at anyone.

Y'all should read the article and the comments, because its an interesting discussion with points I do and don't agree with that we can discuss here, of course. But for ease I'll copypasta the post that pissed me off:

"Elesar
Muckraker
Posts: 234
Joined: 16 Apr 2009

Scooby and Shaggy were always strung out on meth. And the new Battlestar (which is what I assume you're referencing) is only about 10,000 times better than the original. Not joking.

In all seriousness, you have a legit point. Trying to rework things that were inherently childish into adult concepts is going [to], oh how to put this gently, blow. So I agree, to a point. I just want you (and less you because I assume you know this) and everyone else to recognize 2 things:

1) Aiming a story at children is going to restrict your art. Are Wall-E and Up good films? Fuck yes, I loved them. Will they ever have as much brilliance and meaning oh what are my top 3 adult films, say Godfather, Blade Runner or A Clockwork Orange? No, never. Not their fault, but simply aiming it at a younger audience means you have to sacrifice some artistic merit. Want an example from the same director? Look at the difference in quality between Ponyo and Princess Mononoke. (And I liked Ponyo before I hear it).

2) You have to recognize what are already kind of adult themes. People assume that comics are inherently for kids, and that's not ENTIRELY wrong. But it's not entirely correct either. Batman, for example, is not an inherently childish concept. It is, when you strip away a lot of our assumptions, about a 10 year old kid who watches his parents die and, again boiling away a lot of stuff, goes completely off the wall crazy, dresses up like a Bat and starts punching criminals. Is it silly? Yes. Are there already adult concepts and stories working their way in? Oh yes.

Just some food for thought."

---------

Now in many ways I completely agree with Elesar. The new Battlestar IS a bajillion times better than the old one. I personally think it may be the best show TV has ever seen. Full stop. I'm completely serious about that. Scooby and Shaggy, however, were always potheads, not meth-heads.

But seriously, my main gripe is his first point, that targeting art or entertainment at a younger audience limits you in a way that an adult target does not. Interestingly enough he brings in an author who I believe completely negates his point as evidence of it, in Miyazaki and Ponyo vs Princess Mononoke. PM may be my favorite film of all time... I don't claim it is the best film, but it is easily in my top 3 personal favorites. However, when you bring in titles like Spirited Away, the argument that Mononoke is the more "meaningful" or more valuable, or more art-y film tends to fall apart. I like Mononoke more than Spirited, but I'd be hard pressed to say that Spirited wasn't the more meaningful story, didn't have better art (though not by much), or didn't have the better growth of character, depth of concept, and message.

We can also look at TV shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Powerpuff Girls (yeah, you read that right), or The Animaniacs to see that aiming at an audience doesn't preclude deep philosophical insights, humor, or interesting character development. When we delve farther into art, books like Bridge to Terabithia, A Wrinkle in Time, Watership Down and others give us some very "adult"-level messages and meanings in pieces targeted (less so for Watership, but I read it for the first time at 12, so it sticks) at a younger audience.

So, is this idea, this meme, this zeitgeist that kid-centric works have less to say, or are limited in some way self-inflicted? Or is Elesar right? Are the medium and audience inherently limiting and is that why there are so few good examples of deep meaningful art directed at youth?

Also: how can we, as writers, avoid this apparent dearth of meaning in works targeted at younger, not stupider, audiences?

[Ravariel]

Oh, links lost in the copying... silly me.

This is the article I was talking about. You can get to the comments directly from there.

[Dr-Worm]

At 5/29/10 02:39 PM, Ravariel wrote: But seriously, my main gripe is his first point, that targeting art or entertainment at a younger audience limits you in a way that an adult target does not.

Agreed. I mean, honestly, I found Up (and to a kind of lesser extent, WALL-E) to be way more thematically resonant than A Clockwork Orange (I like it, but don't love it the way a lot of people do), which has multiple contradictory messages and doesn't really seem to believe in any of them.

So, is this idea, this meme, this zeitgeist that kid-centric works have less to say, or are limited in some way self-inflicted? Or is Elesar right? Are the medium and audience inherently limiting and is that why there are so few good examples of deep meaningful art directed at youth?

Hell no. The reason why there aren't a lot of good examples is that pretty much all of the companies currently making children's entertainment except for Pixar thinks that Elesar is right. "Intended audience" is only as limiting as you allow it to be; while an uncompromising artistic vision might weaken a family project's chances at commercial success, as a work of art they can still work wonderfully. Aiming for a family audience doesn't necessarily mean a work has to lack thematic depth or even pretty adult themes. I'll cite The Iron Giant and the recent Where the Wild Things Are as great examples of this.

And actually, the very fact that a work is aimed at children can even be utilized by the artist to their advantage, in order to tap into the essence of childhood itself as part of the work's wider meaning. I'm struggling to think of a lot of good examples of this, but the strongest one I can think of right now is E.T.

There are endless possibilities for very deep stories that can be told in ways that are understandable to children. In fact, I'd even say that quite often it's the best stories that are able to do this, because they get straight to the heart of what they're trying to say instead of hiding behind arbitrary complications, cheap formal gimmicks, and worst of all, unwarranted irony and cynicism.

Also: how can we, as writers, avoid this apparent dearth of meaning in works targeted at younger, not stupider, audiences?

Well, the first thing, I think, is to keep reminding yourself over and over again not to underestimate your audience. Looking at the vast majority of children's entertainment today, they must think kids are fucking idiots. Will an hour and a half of colorful, sugary, mindless CGI chaos keep hold of a kid's attention? Yeah, probably, but I'll never stop believing that kids actually respond better (in the long term) to works that actually mean something. They can tell the difference. They might not be able to articulate it, but believe me, they can tell the difference. Hell, just try to think back to the earliest pop-cultural memories you have. What are the things that stuck?

After that, I guess the next step is to do your best to master that often tricky tightrope walk between implicit and explicit. If you can manage to keep your deeper themes bubbling just under the surface, you can pretty much get away with anything you want to say (usually this means hidden layers of darkness). At the same time, you have to balance that with the explicit, and make sure that there's enough going on that you won't lose kids before they've been paying attention long enough to catch on to the deeper layers. This, I think, is where Where the Wild Things Are tripped up a little, which resulted in its mixed reviews and underwhelming box office gross.

Pixar, on the other hand, is the reigning champion of maintaining this balance (back in their heydays, Mark Twain, Roald Dahl, and Tove Jansson were masters of this as well, among others). I mean, just look at WALL-E. The film develops one of the most memorable and touching romantic relationships in cinematic history and the two leads can barely even speak each other's names. It's all done with clever give and take between the explicit and the implicit. Maybe that's not the best example, but there are plenty of others and, well, it's getting late.

I've been really interested in the possibility of writing something for children for a while now, so I'm starting thinking about these kinds of issues more and more. I think that overall, the best way to go about it is to tell the story you want to tell first and worry about those issues of target audience later. In doing so, I think artists would find that they don't need to "dumb down" their work nearly as much as they may have initially thought.

[Ravariel]

At 5/31/10 04:46 AM, Dr-Worm wrote: Hell no. The reason why there aren't a lot of good examples is that pretty much all of the companies currently making children's entertainment except for Pixar thinks that Elesar is right.

Then I guess the question becomes: isn't that effectively the same thing?

How do we work to change that mindset?

"Intended audience" is only as limiting as you allow it to be;

Exactly my thoughts. Thing is, though... if you want a sharp, clear narrative for your work, you need to know what audience you are writing for. Ergo, any intended audience has pitfalls and limitations that will effect your work. A book for 5-10 year-olds won't work if it's full of metaphors and historical references, just like a hard sci-fi book won't work in the style of Dr. Seuss.

And actually, the very fact that a work is aimed at children can even be utilized by the artist to their advantage, in order to tap into the essence of childhood itself as part of the work's wider meaning. I'm struggling to think of a lot of good examples of this, but the strongest one I can think of right now is E.T.

The Incredibles, Bridge to Terabithia (again... the book more than the movie, but the movie was great, too), The Sandlot, Stand By Me (The Body), etc all use childhood itself as an important part of the storytelling. All without sacrificing any depth of meaning or message.

There are endless possibilities for very deep stories that can be told in ways that are understandable to children. In fact, I'd even say that quite often it's the best stories that are able to do this, because they get straight to the heart of what they're trying to say instead of hiding behind arbitrary complications, cheap formal gimmicks, and worst of all, unwarranted irony and cynicism.

I think we also don't give kids enough credit about what they can understand. Complex metaphor is usually beyond them (as it took me, an extremely avid reader, long into my high school years to really understand them), as are referential passages, the require a large knowledge base in order to understand. But topics such as life and death, love, sadness, loss... all of these things they can understand.

Well, the first thing, I think, is to keep reminding yourself over and over again not to underestimate your audience.

...Like so.

Looking at the vast majority of children's entertainment today, they must think kids are fucking idiots. Will an hour and a half of colorful, sugary, mindless CGI chaos keep hold of a kid's attention? Yeah, probably, but I'll never stop believing that kids actually respond better (in the long term) to works that actually mean something. They can tell the difference. They might not be able to articulate it, but believe me, they can tell the difference. Hell, just try to think back to the earliest pop-cultural memories you have. What are the things that stuck?

Honestly? Looney Tunes, Thundercats, Transformers, MacGyver, and Jack London books. I guess one out of five ain't bad...? :P

Anyway, it's not just today's children's entertainment that is dominated by flash and style over substance. When I look at a lot of the more-popular kids shows when I was younger... many of them stack up about the same as stuff today. Also, adult entertainment can be given the same criticism... when Transformers as a live action movie is less interesting than a cheesy 80s cartoon, you know something's off.

After that, I guess the next step is to do your best to master that often tricky tightrope walk between implicit and explicit. If you can manage to keep your deeper themes bubbling just under the surface, you can pretty much get away with anything you want to say (usually this means hidden layers of darkness). At the same time, you have to balance that with the explicit, and make sure that there's enough going on that you won't lose kids before they've been paying attention long enough to catch on to the deeper layers

Again, I think this is excellent advice for ALL audiences, not just kids. Which only supports the idea that most limitations that people think exist for kids entertainment are self-inflicted and not based in the reality of what kids are able to understand.

I've been really interested in the possibility of writing something for children for a while now, so I'm starting thinking about these kinds of issues more and more. I think that overall, the best way to go about it is to tell the story you want to tell first and worry about those issues of target audience later. In doing so, I think artists would find that they don't need to "dumb down" their work nearly as much as they may have initially thought.

I think the real problem is that people conflate "simpler" with "less meaningful" when it comes to targeting kids with their work. A simple story can be extremely meaningful (see: Bridge to Terabithia, the first half of Up, etc), and a complex one can be lacking in any real meaning (see: Dan Brown).

[MonkeyV]

First off, I'd like to say that Princess Monanoke [sp] bored the hell out of me, and Spirited Away would have possibly been really good, if it had not been for that one guy who spontaneously turns into a dragon near the end, always doing so much bizarre and 'out of the blue' crap during the whole thing.
But back on topic:

Do children seem to get more stupid every year?
Yes, I believe so.
Do people who make children's shows and movies dumb down their material to compensate for this?
Again, I believe they do.
But, are the shows and movies possibly to blame for children getting stupider?
Maybe. Kids spend tons of time watching T.V. these days. They're bound to get some incredibly fucking dumb influence.

The point is, people who aim at younger audience do not need do dumb it down, per se. There are plenty of adult themes in shows on Nick. Older viewers, or smarter / more knowledgeable but younger viewers, will understand the themes or get the jokes. They may be lost on more idiotic and/or younger viewers, but no harm is done.
Possibly, a solution is making the grown-up themes more subtle.

[Dr-Worm]

At 6/1/10 12:15 AM, Ravariel wrote: Then I guess the question becomes: isn't that effectively the same thing?

I mean, yeah, it ends up having a similar effect, but an imagined obstacle is much more easily conquered than a real one.

How do we work to change that mindset?

Keep pointing out examples that refute it, or even better, make new ones. And thinking farther ahead, we can do our part to steer our own children in the right direction culturally, encouraging them to be active readers/watchers and to demand more from their entertainment and art.

The Incredibles, Bridge to Terabithia (again... the book more than the movie, but the movie was great, too), The Sandlot, Stand By Me (The Body), etc all use childhood itself as an important part of the storytelling. All without sacrificing any depth of meaning or message.

Hmmm...to be honest I kind of loathed Bridge to Terabithia, and I was a big reader when I was a kid. Nice inclusion of The Sandlot, though.

I think we also don't give kids enough credit about what they can understand. Complex metaphor is usually beyond them (as it took me, an extremely avid reader, long into my high school years to really understand them), as are referential passages, the require a large knowledge base in order to understand. But topics such as life and death, love, sadness, loss... all of these things they can understand.

Yes, exactly, this is pretty much what I was trying to say with my whole post. Kids really do pick up on that stuff, and to take it a bit further, I think that they need it. Not as much as we do, perhaps, because kids aren't exactly having existential crises, but they still need it, and they're not getting enough of it. Kid-centric works need to aspire to do more than simply grab kids' attentions.

Honestly? Looney Tunes, Thundercats, Transformers, MacGyver, and Jack London books. I guess one out of five ain't bad...? :P

Hey, Looney Tunes may not have deep meaning, but it's the real thing, a true product of real artistry. But...wow, I think I have a lot of newfound respect for my parents. For me it's more like Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, Roald Dahl, and, well, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, but still.

Fun fact about The Wizard of Oz: the producers were originally going to cut "Over the Rainbow" from the film because they didn't think kids would understand the song's deep themes. Just goes to show how stupid that kind of thinking is.

Anyway, it's not just today's children's entertainment that is dominated by flash and style over substance. When I look at a lot of the more-popular kids shows when I was younger... many of them stack up about the same as stuff today. Also, adult entertainment can be given the same criticism... when Transformers as a live action movie is less interesting than a cheesy 80s cartoon, you know something's off.

Hmmm, I guess it was around the 1980s that this trend really began, when massive corporations first started to realize the terrible power of synergy (think about how many popular '80s cartoons were based on or spun off into popular toys). But I think it's getting worse.

As for similar criticisms being applied to more adult-oriented entertainment, you make an interesting point there. But I think the big difference is that adults have options and kids don't. It's not like there's a Criterion Collection for children, not to mention that playground politics make it so that kids have to get into the latest meaningless crap if they want to stay in the loop, a problem that doesn't really exist in adult society.

I think the real problem is that people conflate "simpler" with "less meaningful" when it comes to targeting kids with their work. A simple story can be extremely meaningful (see: Bridge to Terabithia, the first half of Up, etc), and a complex one can be lacking in any real meaning (see: Dan Brown).

Whoa, I was actually going to say more or less the same exact thing. Don't remember why I didn't...

And aw, come on, what's so bad about the second half of Up? Sure, it starts to devolve a bit into the typical climactic stuff, but it's certainly more of a smooth transition to the back half than WALL-E, which almost feels like two completely different movies stuffed together.

[passionne]

Agree Scoobie and Shaggy were potheads.They always had the munchies.
My personal opinion is writings and film for the young are lighter on purpose.I aman adult and a huge "Clockwork" fan but 1.It is not appropriate for the young,2. Most adults don't get the meaning so how could a child.
In order to appreciate Steinbeck or Hemingway or a million others is to have experienced life.Which is an adult trait.
Childhood innocence ends too soon.So if I write for a young audience it is usually lighter and happier than the often deep,intensity I write with for adults

[EKublai]

In my humblest of opinions, there is only one connection between quality and target audience. For starters no matter who the intended audience is, almost every medium of art, not to mention pretty much everything else, is dominated by world of adult visions, interpretations, and visions. Sure they are exceptions, most notably in acting I think, but when we think about the products of youth in these disciplines we are more taken by the initiative of the child of simply doing "it" (writing a book, making a film, winning an academy award) than by the quality of what they've created. So really you can see virtually every novel or film or whatever as "adult" because adults made them. This is why the popularity of shows about high school drama bug me, because they simulate the visions of modern day high school experiences of people who are twenty or thirty years out of touch.

But that's where the connections end.
Moving on. I can cite great movies targeted at a younger audiences with more mature themes underlying the story, but frankly adult themes are not what make the movies great in themselves. Do you think everyone is in agreement over what's the best Pixar movie? Hell no. This is because there's more than one way to connect with a general audience. Up did it with adult themes yes, but it served the movie to do so. Ratatouille's script was as delicious as the on-screen food. I could go through every Pixar film like this but you get the idea. Every Pixar movie is a door to a new world with its own lock and key that fits.

The best example in books (not as successfully done in its film version) is Where the Wild Things Are
The target audience is that of children. Its message (it's okay to feel angry) is for children. The reason for this being such a great book is precisely because it exposes a rift between parents and their children.

Anyway, hope this is enlightening

[ArmouredGRIFFON]

Once you see how dirty the Powerpuff Girls is, you can never unsee it. It's the way we perceive it. Adults understand the dirty humour and the political concepts in cartoons that are aimed at children, but children can never see them because they cannot perceive them or understand the references in the same way (which in some cases are HILARIOUS by the way, you've got your pedophiles, 9/11 .etc.).

[RNNR]

Target audience is a big limit and coupled with shareholders' expectations of profits this has generally resulted in toy commercials stretched to fill a Saturday morning timeslot, or with additional investments the tape of a feature length film.
So the stigma that 'made for kids' or 'made for family' films and other media have isn't exactly unfounded.

"It's shit, it's always been shit and it'll probably remain shit forever." seems to be the sentiment.

In creative endeavours though I've (personally) found limits actually to be liberating, as contradictory as it may seem and I believe I'm not the only one who's realised this when seeing gems such as Phineas & Ferb, Samurai Jack, Disney's Golden Age et al.

A limit isn't really a limit, it's more of an enhancement, an additional means which helps to focus your creative energy into one tight, strong beam of awesomeness.
Instead of trying to spread all of it across the map, you can invest in one small part and get the most out of it.
It defines the playing field and the directions and choices available, providing a springboard which you can bounce ideas off right away, allowing the artist to form mental connections and come up with great and innovative solutions immediately applicable to a very specific problem.

This is why sports and games have rules: it's immediately clear what choices an athlete or a player can make at any specific situation. And if it isn't an action immediately results in feedback which can be acted upon.
It's the difference between screwing around and actually working towards a tangible goal.

A limit is just an additional challenge and as a creative individual you have to overcome it. Sadly this is mostly done with another problem in the back of the head: money, which seems to have the uncanny ability to suck any artistic merit out of practically anything, but that's more because profits are generally seen as the defining factor when it comes to the right to exist, which is horseshit (or... My Little Ponyshit).

This sentiment is the result of the industrial mindset most of humanity seems to have, even after some 150 years since the Industrial Revolution. But that's another rant entirely.

Point is, a target audience of tweens isn't necessarily the end of any meaning, depth or message. It's just that the general way it has been handled makes it seem that way.
It's just another challenge.

There are some really decent points in this thread so far, and I'm not going to address them all quite yet, frankly because it's a bit too hot to study the production of material for children from a structuralist stance in-depth, like RNNR kind of already did. From an individual standpoint, it's impossible to ignore a material backdrop, but at the same time assumptions about 'the audience' actually need to be dropped, because that's how art works, in cycles - there's a market for 'different things' most of the time, and these sorts of assumptions will lock you out of accessing that market. And that's not what you want, because you want to make money however as much as you 'want to make children happy', or rather, create material you believe to be more meaningful than other things being produced for them.

Relating specifically back to your post Ravariel, I agree with you that Miyazaki actually offers more of a counter-example to Elesar's point. Granted, I've only seen Spirited Away properly, but I've one point in particular I'd like to make on it. Essentially, in a sense so general that it insults the film, the story is effectively a Japanese version of Alice in Wonderland. What that approach effectively ignores is that the fact that it's Japanese holds great power for it. It's an age where culture wonders free, and as the film's distributors in the west, Pixar really clocked onto that. Look at the iconography, look at the style of the art. It's not western, it's something different. In a slightly different, less child-centered sense, this is why I loved Dargonball Z when I was growing up. My Dad once came in while I was watching it and asked, 'Doesn't anything normal ever happen on this show?' It didn't really, even when it was more of a comedy like Toriyama set it out to be. You'd have dinosaurs walking around making gags, light-hearted conflict, old men getting nosebleeds for 'unknown' reasons. I knew what it meant, and I found it funny, and it doesn't make any sense in a western way.

Without so much of a cultural emphasis though, the unfamiliar factor in making children's works last for a long time is a very big thing. I'm glad Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl have been mentioned, because they're key examples. Green Eggs and Ham: limited vocabulary (deliberate of course), a slightly warped message in the eyes of adults (I've heard many that snark that the message is more along the lines of 'be an annoying, persistent twerp and you'll get people to do what you want'), sounds 'restrictive' right? I don't think so, because it is bizarre. It's silly, and unusual, and the child isn't going to focus on the snarkiness of the message if they're following the story step-by-step. Likewise, Dahl knew this tactic of writing. Children like the unusual and the bizarre, in general. And the frightening. While some works overblow this latter point ('scare 'em straight' examples for instance), Dahl's works were entertaining, but I know some scenes from his books stayed in my mind for a long time. They have their relevant messages, but it's not the entire objective to go for the message.

In visual arts, there's Tim Burton's films, which clearly take from German Expressionism (films of which not often indicated as being very child-friendly), yet they're often treated as somewhat child-friendly in select cases. Burton's an interesting case, because I've heard him being referred to as a creator of art cinema on account of the structure of his Alice in Wonderland adaptation. I don't agree myself, erm, on many levels actually, but still. Perhaps I'm supposed to take that statement in regards to different audiences. There's not much of a chance of an Ingmar Bergman being advertised for kids, because his films aren't intended for kids. I know that sounds silly, but try to take it in respect to Burton being an example of an 'art cinema filmmaker'.

Another TV example that I loved as a child: Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy. It's almost the anti-cartoon in some episodes, particularly one that spoofs the boundaries (or lack thereof) of animation and turns the world of the cul-de-sac into a surreal one. That whole, short-lived, era of animation seemed to have similar effects, which I suppose is why they live on so well (I actually do agree about The Powerpuff Girls. I'm glad the Looney Tunes were mentioned too, because I loved those shorts (and still do actually). One of the things that can't really be appreciated now is one of the most clearly absurd gags of them all: is a rabbit really supposed to strike up a conversation with the hunter trying to kill it? That's why 'what's up doc?' was so funny at first. This is also why 'Duck Amuck' is seen as a classic, by animators and viewers... goodness knows. Formalism for the sake of wonder and amusement still works by the by, on different levels as we see. Hell, I remember when Animator vs. Animation was very popular here on Newgrounds for instance.

And let's not forget about that tale referring to producer Eddie Selzer, who supposedly thought making animations wasn't supposed to be funny for the animator. He was wrong, they seemed to have a great sense of humour between them, the Looney Tunes animators. And kids loved the cartoons, that's the relevance of this little mention.

It's just, the thought of Tom Fulp breaking into some kids' house and telling him his Flash short isn't funny, it's just...

Anyway, it works with Disney too. In the Disney adaptation of The Jungle Book, Kaa the snake is greatly different to his character from the book. He also doesn't offer much to the story. Watch it again, it took me a while to consider this. Why is he in in it then? Because what he does adds to the themes of the film, and makes it an experience worth going through. I suppose an adult counterpart to this sort of character can be seen in one of the most notable of classical narrative films, Casablanca. What the Hell does Peter Lorre contribute to the ending? I don't know, but I thought he was fucking great. They're not too different to how they work narrative-wise, at least I don't think so. Actually, they work similarly spectacle-wise too - four words: seemingly random musical numbers.

And that's my general point. I knew I had one somewhere. Similarities.