I’m not talking about just slapping a content warning about mature themes on a show. A mature rating is mainly to do with the age of the audience the media is aimed at, not the maturity or worth of the work itself. Many works aimed at teenagers have “adult” themes or concepts unsuitable for younger children. Many works aimed at general audiences are thought-provoking and have great artistic merit. And many works aimed specifically at adults are as lacking in substance or maturity as any you could find. I mean “mature” in the sense of “based on slow, careful consideration” (e.g., a mature judgment) as well as its more obvious implication of “aimed at full-grown audiences” (i.e., adults). The maturity I’m talking about depends on intent and thematic handling, not surface-level “adult” content.
Thoughtfulness and maturity can exist in media for any age group, though they manifest differently. A children’s cartoon addressing grief might carefully guide young viewers through unfamiliar emotions, while an animation for older audiences can rely on its viewers’ prior experiences with loss. Each can be profound in its own way, they just happen to have different executions and expectations. This is why adults can still enjoy family-friendly shows: plenty of them are enjoyable and interesting for adults too! To dismiss all children’s cartoons as utterly devoid of artistry or thematic depth is willfully blind, and an insult to every adult involved in making them.
Consider something like Bluey. Many adults adore it as much (if not more) than their toddlers do, drawn to the gentle parenting style it depicts and its warm domestic comfort. But let’s not kid ourselves: regardless of how emotionally rich it may be, intellectually it is primarily targeted at the developing brains of preschool children, and thus there are certain themes and nuances it cannot tackle because it is not meant to tackle them.
Comfort has its place, but so does challenge. An adult brain, starved of sufficient challenge, will either drift into mindless consumption or project meaning where it wasn’t intended. No media is above analysis or criticism, and acknowledging something you like isn’t 100% perfect and pure won’t, like, taint it forever. In fact, speculating about fictional worlds can be great fun. I love analyzing media and picking it apart and theorizing about what seemingly unintentional details could potentially imply in the larger context of the fictional universe, even though the creators almost certainly did not mean anything by it. But when interpreting a work primarily for children, it’s worth recognizing when you are stretching it far beyond its intended frame. Enjoying My Little Pony while babysitting your niece is harmless. Analyzing its pony-pony sociopolitical climate as your main intellectual pursuit is another matter entirely. If you wanted a complex political drama full of moral nuance you would have been better served by engaging with media built to deliver that instead of forcing what you already watched into what you wish it had been.
A lot of the people who enjoy children’s cartoons shun mature-rated animation. And I understand where some of the sentiment is coming from: What’s mature about a lazily animated cartoon cracking low-effort sex jokes and giggling at swear words? Or a show that claims social consciousness and satire while regurgitating childishly wishy-washy opinions and messages? What about deliberately trying to rage-bait viewers for hate views? Frankly, not much. I do enjoy a well-placed crude joke, but animated shock humor often exists solely for its own sake, the punchline being just “Haha, you said a bad word,” or “Haha, sex!” When a show uses these so-called jokes as a substitute for insight—especially while posturing as socially conscious—it rings hollow. We see this in shows prioritizing shock value over genuine substance. That’s why so many people criticize the infamous “swear-every-other-word” writing of Vivziepop’s shows (Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss). Her “adult” shows’ core audience is mainly under eighteen precisely because that demographic finds swearing funny—an interest that usually fades when they grow old enough not to get scolded for swearing. Sure, her shows have adult fans as well, but the fact that the core audience skews young despite the adult rating is telling.
This isn’t to say mature-rated animation can’t be crude or irreverent—some of the best are. The key difference lies in self-awareness and intent. Take Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, for example, a raunchy comedy with non-stop swearing that thrives on over-the-top visuals and focuses on being fun, crazy, and stupid. It avoids serious themes because that’s not the point, and attempting them would fall flat. It’s for teen and older audiences because it has mature topics (swearing, sex, violence), but it never pretends to be mature in the way it presents them.
There’s nothing wrong with adult animation being popcorn entertainment. Most of us watch things to be entertained, and if a show delivers exactly that, it’s fulfilling its purpose. What bothers me is the persistent stigma that animation as a medium is inherently childish. The idea that cartoons are for kids, and adults who watch them must be avoiding “real” drama with real actors, is insulting to anyone over the age of twelve who enjoys the art form. The moment characters are drawn instead of filmed, the assumption seems to be that the audience’s IQ evaporates.
Mature storytelling isn’t measured in how many times someone yells “fuck” or how much blood gets spilled. It’s measured in intention. In coherence. In the courage to say something real even if it’s uncomfortable without undercutting it with a fart joke seconds later. It’s being able to explore sensitive topics without exploiting them for shock value. It’s about how it handles complexity and how it sits with uncomfortable truths. It’s about trusting the audience to grapple with complex themes, to feel the full spectrum of human emotion, and to emerge, perhaps a little changed, on the other side.
But comfort and substance can exist together. Mature animation doesn’t require grimness or hyper-realism. It can be playful, surreal, and even absurd. You could tackle profoundly adult themes in a brightly colored cartoon musical about talking animals. You could tell stories of existential dread in a show where characters have googly eyes and rainbow-colored skin. Wackiness and whimsy are features of the medium, not issues that need fixing, and the wilder visuals do not negate technical aspects such as plot and characterization.
This thinkpiece got so long-winded and sidetracked… What I’m getting at is that kids’ cartoons being thought-provoking does not mean they were secretly meant for adults all along (children can think thoughts too, you know), and having a cartoon depict gore and sex won’t automatically make it interesting to adults. Animation is a great art form and I hate that it’s been looked down as nothing more than loud, bright-colored slop only fit for shutting up crying toddlers or entertain only the most socially maladjusted of weirdoes.