I don't know, really. Looking at the stuff we got in the eighties and compared to some of the best shows today, I'd say we are rather better off these days. Sure, there's still a lot of junk out there, but stuff like Friendship Is Magic, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, Adventure Time, and a few others are, at least in my opinion, lightyears better than Transformers, the old My Little Pony, Ninja Turtles, and all that other stuff. Good enough that an adult can watch them and not be ashamed.
They are rather watered down in other ways, though. Farthing Wood and Watership down, and even some stuff in the first My Little Pony, were brutal. I doubt we will ever see the likes of those in children's shows again.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud Is there any aspect of popular culture where you think we're seeing higher quality than we have in the past? I'm just asking because "Things used to be better" seems to be your standard rant.
@Chow I agree that perhaps recent cartoons don't have quite the brutality of Watership Down, but I think it's hard to judge sometimes. I wonder if there were parts of The Secret of Kells that I wouldn't have found very disturbing if I had been 10-20 years younger when I saw it, and I've heard that Nine was no picnic either. And then there's the occasional anime that looks all nice child-friendly up until things go horribly wrong.
The Secret of Kells wasn't that horrible. A good movie, stylish, but not particularly unfriendly to children: it had the standard level of violence and death allowed these days.
The anime is an entirely different matter, meanwhile. In Japan there is absolutely no stigma about all animation being targeted to children, allowing them to do whatever the hell they want with them. Then of course if any of these horrifying adult animes make it to the west, they are immediately mismarketed to children because hey, animation! See what happened with La Blue Girl.
@Chow: Or animes such as Puella Magi Magica Madoka for that matter. Not really something for smqll kids afterall. Yet it looks just as cute as any other magical girl anime out there. @Kaigen: Things indeed used to be better. Especially the shows airing on Cartoon Network used to be better. Same with shows on the Disney Channel. Nowadays it's filled with teenage soaps, while in the past we had Aladdin, the Rescue Rangers, The Little Mermaid and so on. Now it's just Hannah Montana all over the place, and badly dubbed on top of that.
I'm more a fan of what the fandom puts out than of the show itself. The show's enjoyable and all, just that the fans that produce good content produce good content.
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They are rather watered down in other ways, though. Farthing Wood and Watership down, and even some stuff in the first My Little Pony, were brutal. I doubt we will ever see the likes of those in children's shows again.
@Chow I agree that perhaps recent cartoons don't have quite the brutality of Watership Down, but I think it's hard to judge sometimes. I wonder if there were parts of The Secret of Kells that I wouldn't have found very disturbing if I had been 10-20 years younger when I saw it, and I've heard that Nine was no picnic either. And then there's the occasional anime that looks all nice child-friendly up until things go horribly wrong.
The anime is an entirely different matter, meanwhile. In Japan there is absolutely no stigma about all animation being targeted to children, allowing them to do whatever the hell they want with them. Then of course if any of these horrifying adult animes make it to the west, they are immediately mismarketed to children because hey, animation! See what happened with La Blue Girl.
@Kaigen: Things indeed used to be better. Especially the shows airing on Cartoon Network used to be better. Same with shows on the Disney Channel. Nowadays it's filled with teenage soaps, while in the past we had Aladdin, the Rescue Rangers, The Little Mermaid and so on. Now it's just Hannah Montana all over the place, and badly dubbed on top of that.