Phil Lord and Chris Miller ask the Oscars to show more respect for its Best Animated Feature category
"Animation is for everyone," write Lord and Miller in a guest column for Variety
Aux News Chris Miller
Some people were seemingly too distracted by “the slap” at this year’s Oscars to notice the odd way the Best Animated Feature category was presented. Presenters Halle Bailey, Naomi Scott, and Lily James joked that kids watch these movies “over and over and over,” much to the chagrin of their parents. And, earlier in the night, co-host Amy Schumer said that she hadn’t seen many of the Oscar-nominated films, but that she has a toddler so she’s “watched Encanto 190 times.”
But the thing is, animation is more than something for kids. So, Phil Lord and Chris Miller—who are behind some of the biggest animated feature films like Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, The Lego Movie, and this year’s Oscar-nominee The Mitchells vs. The Machines— would like a word with the Academy.
In a guest column for Variety, Lord and Miller wrote about why the Best Animated Feature Oscars category shouldn’t be dismissed as being only for children, and should instead be recognized with as much prestige as the other categories.
“Framing the five Academy Award nominees for Best Animated Feature as a corporate product for kids that parents must begrudgingly endure could be dismissed as simply careless. But to those of us who have dedicated our lives to making animated films, that carelessness has become routine,” they write.
The pair continue, “Animated films routinely demonstrate excellence in photography, design, costumes and performance. They are some of the most carefully and cinematically directed films of the year. They have some of the most intricate scoring and sound design.”
Lord and Miller suggest that—instead of having presenters make crappy jokes about animation being for kids— the Academy could “invite a respected filmmaker to present the award and frame animation as cinema,” before suggesting Oscar-winning filmmaker Bong Joon Ho. They say that then Bong could explain “why he listed two of this year’s animated feature nominees (Flee and The Mitchells vs. The Machines) among his top 10 favorite movies of the year.”
The duo also say that describing the Best Animated Feature nominees as children’s movies isn’t fully accurate, since Flee is “a heart-wrenching animated documentary about an Afghan refugee” that “isn’t kids’ stuff, and neither are past nominees I Lost My Body, Waltz With Bashir, Persepolis and on and on.”
You can read their full op-ed here.
44 Comments
That category has, sadly, become little more than an advertisement for the latest Disney movie, which are mostly children’s movies. It’s a complete lack of imagination from the Academy to fail to recognize the innovation happening in the animation sphere, and it’s, sadly, part of a larger trend of lack of appreciation for animation and animators. Cartoon writers and animators are rarely paid what they’re worth, for instance. Also, while we’re here: The Mitchells vs. The Machines was robbed. Encanto made me cry and all, but c’mon.
Correct on all counts. I’d only like to continue the thought by pointing out that Wolfwalkers losing to Soul was an even bigger injustice last year.
The best Disney and Pixar cartoons are family films in the fullest and best sense of the term, but even those movies are inevitably promoted towards kids in a bid to maximize merchandising revenue. It’s, shall we say, just a tad frustrating.
Encanto was very pretty movie that made no innovations, pushed no envelopes, tried nothing new, and will not stand the test of time.
That Bruno song is going to stick around long enough that people will eventually seek out the movie it’s attached to.
See, that’s so odd to me – not only did I find none of the songs in Encanto memorable, but that’s the one that probably had the least impact on me. I don’t remember a note, and everyone’s going around calling it the next Let It Go.
The only song that did stick with me was the first one, and that’s only because I had to go back and re-listen to it with the subtitles on in order to understand the irritatingly important exposition that the song does all the heavy lifting on so poorly. The sound mixing fo it is atrocious, and weirdly if you go listen to the soundtrack version on youtube, it sounds fine: the version in the movie has a serious problem. “Mngblhspalhalahlala MADRIGAL”
Yeah, usually a new disney/Pixar is on loop in my house for a month. I think my kids watched Encanto twice, and I’ve since mostly forgotten what happens therein.
Goddamn, did Encanto steal your lunch money or something.
With stuff like the recent TV adaptation of “Invincible”, we are getting closer and closer inch by inch.
Their point was not that they shouldn’t be called movies for children if they are movies for children (though really they’re movies for families); it was that they shouldn’t be characterized as movies for children “that parents must begrudgingly endure.” That they as a rule can’t be enjoyed by adults also is the dismissive part, as is the idea that just because something is exclusively enjoyed by children (which again isn’t the case) doesn’t make it less accomplished or undeserving of recognition.Now it’s a separate question as to whether the Academy is failing to recognize innovation in the animation sphere, which is a common problem in prestige award shows of all stripes about all genres. But we shouldn’t be coming from the basic assumption that stuff made for adults is better and stuff made for kids is worse.
No, absolutely. You’ll never hear me disparage “stuff for kids” as less worthy, and I hope I didn’t come off as doing that. You’re right: it’s a characterization issue.
Totally valid points. You know, I like these guys. They seem like good guys.
These guys are single-handedly (or dual handedly since it’s two people) reshaping expectations for mainstream animated movies. I hope we get a few more directors like this outside of the pixar realm to continue fighting for dense, complicated and visually stunning animated features
With any luck, they’ll continue pushing until American audiences accept animation as a meaningful medium for adult-oriented filmmaking, instead of assuming that animated films must be family- or child-friendly. TV’s made some progress (there’s lots of kid-unfriendly animated series now) so hopefully that’ll start bleeding into film at some point.
I know what you mean, but Demon Slayer: Mugen Train was the most successful movie of 2020 in the world, so doesn’t really get more mainstream than that.
I feel like that’s the exception and not the rule. Japan sees original IP’s as the norm and builds a huge portion of their media culture about finding new, interesting artists telling crazy stories. Kinda the opposite here outside of Pixar, Adult Swim, and maybe a few other random projects here and there
I was responding to “These guys are single-handedly .. reshaping expectations for mainstream animated movies.” And as you point out, there’s a whole country currently doing that. The Jujutsu Kaisen 0 movie has been ranking in the top 10 of movies in the US for the past few weeks. It may not be Oscar worthy (whatever that is) but it’s definitely not Disney and definitely in the mainstream.
i agree and maybe the distinction is I forgot to say explicitly in America. This might just be personal preference speaking but outside of shonen manga series and whatever Masaaki Yuasa is making, story telling in anime is typically very sub par. I love that they can go dark and more adult but the amount of series that work on a storytelling level in my opinion is very low, especially with how they pad out anime to not catch up with the manga. I love anime and manga but other than maybe One Piece and Chainsaw Man I don’t think there’s anything that comes close to the complexity of Lord and Miller movies, but this is just my late night hot take and I’m sure most anime watchers would disagree with me here.
I think you’re underselling anime a bit, but I generally agree. And like in the comics world that birthed some of the examples, more adult and violent stories popping up in animation makes the products “not for kids” but necessarily actually good. There’s a lot from Japan that’s great (I do love Yuasa and—hobbyhorse time—wish Makoto Shinkai would lose some his very adolescent shine), but I think it’ll be a European or maybe even Chinese animated movie that takes the industry further. The former already makes animated films with wider range—reflecting their comics tradition I think—and the latter—I think China makes some really great films about modern life outside their own blockbuster output, and something like one of their neo-noirs in animation feels inevitable.
Man, how I wish that were the case. New, interesting stuff from artists telling crazy stories is a rarity in Japanese animation. It’s mostly fan service these days. The good stuff is indeed good, but it comes in tiny quantities just like every other country and genre.
As someone who works in animation, I’d settle for “less contempt” from the rest of the industry if we can’t get respect.
I’ve always found industry contempt for animation as stupefying as film makers who consider music to be an afterthought.
It’s like, how can you know so little about your own industry?! The amount of work that goes into even a simple animation is arguably more than getting a friend to act live in front of a camera. That’s where the industry begins.
I’ve always found industry contempt for animation as stupefying as film makers who consider music to be an afterthought. Yup. It is ALL storytelling. Animation is a medium, not genre. Animation uses the SAME film making language, but we use different tools.I would argue that Grave of Fireflies is just as impactful on telling the horrors of war as Schindler’s List is and I don’t think Spielberg would have a problem with anyone saying that because he himself respects animation.
As someone who knows people in animation, you guys should also have less contempt for fellow animators that happen to work in video games. Although it is funny to troll my friends with equating the 2.
As someone who knows people in animation, you guys should also have less contempt for fellow animators that happen to work in video games. Although it is funny to troll my friends with equating the 2.Maybe I’m lucky that I am around mostly kind people because I honestly don’t know one person in animation that has contempt for video game people. I worked with plenty of people who fled the video game industry to come into film and TV animation because they are treated better in our industry. Most of us feel bad for the people in the VFX and video game industry because we know those people are getting exploited.
I hope that Lord and Miller have enough respect in the industry that maybe, maybe, a few more people might open their minds to the idea that animation is an art form that can convey any story and appeal to any audience. I’m not even asking for the Academy to stop rubber-stamping the best-received Disney/Pixar animated feature as their winner almost every year; just, y’know, treat the category with as much respect as the other categories, rather than a chance to promote next season’s Disney or Pixar film.(Although it pains me to point out an error in their op-ed: Waltz with Bashir was nominated for Best Foreign Language Feature, but not for Best Animated Feature. Which, I think, is further evidence of the lack of respect the Academy has for that category.)
They’ve gotten better. Flee received nominations for Best Documentary, Animated Feature, and International Film. That was a first.
For a hot second, I applauded Flea for successfully branching out. Lol
Animation is the pinnacle of film form and visual expression where entire worlds are conjured out of nothing, and yet, it’s relegated to being a “kids thing.” There are plenty of cartoons that are both great and for adults. It’s a legitimate medium and anyone who doesn’t respect that is a dweeb. And honestly, if you’re putting on a show that purports to respect film and the endless contributions required to make any movie come alive, you’re just an asshole if you pretend animation is lesser.
The contrarian in me wants to tell these cartoonists to stop whining and be happy they have a seat at the table. But on the other hand, so many Oscar nominated movies have so much CGI they’re practically animated movies, so why not get rid of the line altogether.
I was going to say what about Spirited Away, and then realised it won Best Animated Feature over 20 years ago. :O
The funny thing is more and more “live action” movies are actually becoming animated movies. Like how many scenes in Spider man No Way Home were completely done in CG?Although I would say the obvious solution would be for Lord and Miller to make a Clone High movie and make it R rated to prove it’s not for kids.
One of the best thrillers I have ever seen:One of the best dramas I’ve ever seen:Satoshi Kon was a directing genius.
I was pretty frustrated that the “Best Animated Short” category was one of the few that weren’t included in the live broadcast this year. I always check out all of the films in that category as they are delightful.
Last years winner, “Hair Love” brought me to tears.
I thought “Hair Love” was one of the weaker shorts 😬, but still glad it wonHave you seen this year’s animated shorts nominees? The animation felt either super pretty and meaningless (Robin Robin), visually interesting but a super bummer/at times painful via sound design (Bestia), or super pretty and saying…nothing that hasn’t been said before/not in an interesting way (The Windshield Wiper – which surprisingly won!)
On a similar note, I was fascinated by Animated Short this year, as it was the first time since 2009 that none of the nominees were from Disney/Pixar, and “Robin Robin” from Aardman was the only family-friendly entry. Everything else was VERY adult and very sexual (“Boxballet” dealt with sexual harassment, winner “The Windshield Wiper” depicted graphic sex and nudity, “Affairs of the Art” featured tons of nudity, and “Bestia” literally has a scene of a dog giving cunnilingus). I was genuinely intrigued by how it would turn out, especially because my local theatre showing the screenings made it clear that children would not be admitted.And then of course Disney shunted it off to the pre-show because they had no horse in the race.
My boss at work has a young son who loves Spider-Man, years ago I suggested the, new-at-the-time, Spider-Verse film. The next day he came up to me and said “WOW thank you that was like watching a REAL film!”.
Good for them. Even if Disney and family films dominate the animation space, the Academy treats the medium like garbage, and shame on them for doing so.
Ideally, I’d say we get rid of the Best Animated Feature category and consider animated films on par with live action, but I know the Academy won’t do that for some reason.
(Semi-related, as Hollywood tends to refer to those who act as “actors,” regardless of gender, should we also nix gendered acting categories?)
Sorry guys we’re only allowed to treat animation with the slightest big of respect whenever its a Ghibli joint and sometimes not even then
This is also a night for filmmakers and the industry… even if the audience is mostly kids for animated features, they’re being made by large hardworking crews of individuals with a dedication to their craft. Animation ain’t easy.
Other hurdles:There’s the American cultural view of cartoons as kid stuff. The Simpsons, Family Guy, etc. have made it less of an issue as far as TV goes, but it somehow hasn’t translated into our view of movies.There’s the idea that animation is “cheating” in the sense that you can draw whatever you want. I think they look down on movies that rely on CG in the same way. Never mind the art and the craft that goes into telling stories that way and having those stories land well. Occasionally they’ll throw one a bone but not too often.They’ll accept movies where actors did ADR all day long, but voice actors get less clout. Celebrities generally get stunt casted to draw more audience and they do fine but they’re usually doing a version of themselves. The kind of skill voice actors have is amazing to most people but rarely rewarded publicly.
I think the millenials are going to have to come to power in the Academy for this to happen. The rising popularity of anime is helping to normalize animated shows/films as not just being kids’ stuff in the US. But until the generation that not only grew up with it, but continued with it into adulthood, is in charge, it will be hard to have it looked at in a more serious forum. “Oh, it’s a cartoon, never mind” is still in a lot of people’s minds because their frame of reference is Disney, Nickelodeon, etc…
They seem to be forgetting that annually there are barely enough full-length animated films worthy of being nominated. There are a handful…and they are almost exclusively made for children.
Animation is propping up the entire film industry right now. All that CGI that big budget superhero movies run on is animation at the end of the day. The highest grossing movie of 2020, Demon Slayer, was animated. The highest grosser of 2021, Spider-Man, was like 80% animated. That’s not a bad thing at all! But what is shitty is how the industry is absolutely dependent on animators but also shits on them every chance they get.