Animation and Me: A Reflection

First of all, I apologize to any actual followers of this blog: this entry is not a movie review. It is an assignment for English class. But I thought, Why not include it here? You don’t have to read this, though I hope you will.

I’ve thought a lot recently about my enthusiasm for animation. I’ve touched on this before (read my profile), but even so it’s hard to pinpoint why I love animation so much. Perhaps it’s the ability to make anything believable. Since nothing is filmed, the movie isn’t meant to look ultra-realistic, so you can include the unusual without fear. Maybe that’s why so many animated films center on human-like animals or have fantasy themes. Is that why they’re so appealing to me, because they have talking animals and magic users? Or, perhaps it’s the style. Animation, whether traditional or 3-D, generally looks simpler than real life, more stylized.

In any case, my fascination began when I was quite young. Not surprising, you say? I agree. Kids are notorious for drinking in any and all cartoons, regardless of quality. How else do you think those awful Disney direct-to-video sequels managed to net any sales? Because they are movies that parents buy to give their kids something unproductive to do and keep them busy.

But the older I got, the more I was able to discern between the mindless entertainment and the works worthy to be called good movies alongside live-action films. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I remember walking through Rite Aid one day several years ago and passing by a display stand for Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure. Rather than wanting to snatch up a copy, I thought, “Eh, it probably isn’t that great.” I ended up watching the movie at one point (I don’t remember why) and noticing that its quality level was indeed below that of its prequel. A few years later I was consciously aware of the Disney “cheapquel” phenomenon; I think it was having to sit through Pocahontas II: Journey to the New World that eventually made me painfully aware of Disney’s imperfection. I have since learned to only expect the worst from that family of movies. (Though I did at one point watch The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea out of pure curiosity, and was rewarded with a wasted afternoon and a crummy mood.)

But how much has animation influenced my everyday life? Good question. I’ve liked art and animals from early age, and in middle school began to do my first “art.” It was mostly of dragons, unicorns, horses, and cats. Granted, it wasn’t all that great. Fair, but with lots of room for improvement. But then, in tenth grade, I rediscovered The Lion King. Before I knew it, I was doodling lions. At first they didn’t look very good, but the more time went on, the more I could successfully emulate lions drawn in Disney’s style, and the more I could successfully depart from Disney’s style and keep the art looking good. As my confidence grew, I returned to dragons and cats and introduced canines to my repertoire as well, but giving them all a Disney-like twist as well as my own tastes. Now I can tackle almost any animal with an appealing, animation-reminiscent style.

Also, after the “rediscovery,” I regained interest in animated movies in general. I returned to watching the videos that my family owns. After a while, once my art had improved as described earlier, I fancied trying to animate things myself. It was perfect: I could make my cool drawings move, just like the good movies! I have made a few attempts at animation over the months, and I intend on developing my skills in the area much further in the future.

I started this blog as an assignment for my twelfth grade English class. The only instruction was that the entries be “responses to something.” I sat down and thought for a while what I wanted the theme of my blog to be; I didn’t want to just write about random things I saw, but about a cohesive set of material. So what’s something that I like a ton that others might be interested in? Animated movies, of course. Music is too wide of an area to effectively explore so casually, and math is appealing only to a small portion of the population. And come on, what could I effectively write in a blog about Spanish that people would read?

There you have it; I enjoy animated movies, as explained before, and many other people do too. But animation in itself isn’t something I can do very well yet. I’ll try to work on it in the future, but right now I am content with my skills in still art. I definitely want to take art classes in college and explore all of my artistic potential.

College? To those of you who know me, art doesn’t seem like what I would specialize in. Sure, I’ll take music lessons and join ensembles. Sure, I’ll try to get better at Spanish and maybe learn another language. But if I were to lose all my skills but one—suddenly not know how to do anything right but one thing—that thing would not be the saxophone, nor my mathematical prowess, nor my knack for languages. I would choose to keep my immersion in animation-styled art. (Well, okay, I wouldn’t want to give up my singing voice either.) It’s a surprising conclusion for myself to come to, but if I look at my history and at my life today, I realize just how much I rely on doodles of animals to get me through the day.

In the end, I guess it’s not so much that animation itself will be an important part of my life, though I love it. What will remain an integral part of my life is the stylistic impact that animated movies have had and will continue to have on my art.

Thank you.