Roads to Safe Places

TGWTG can be very awful because his 'gimmick' seems to be screeching a lot. Zero Punctuation is really funny, although sometimes I get the impression Yahtzee riffs on details just for the sake of riffing. Of all the gimmick reviewers, I like James Rolfe best - and not just the Angry Video Game Nerd things he does. Most of his movie reviews are entertaining, presented in a way that's informative, pleasant to follow and he doesn't try to cram in gags wherever possible.

Anyway, animation - the late 70s and early to mid-80s were perhaps the most terrible animation era of them all. Most programs talked about in that video are from that time. Feature animation was in decline and TV animation was completely in the hands of business people focusing only on marketable brands and low production values. The artistic aspect was almost destroyed because the entire process got streamlined: generic designs, limited, mechanical animation and outsourcing. Consequently, the writing was insipid pandering to uncritical children to get to their parents' money through merchandise. The 90s got a little better when creator-driven cartoons started to become popular again but that didn't save us from shows like Pokémon, one of the greatest cross-media money-making schemes of all time.

Overall animation is a male-centric business, there is no beating around the bush on that issue. In our Cologne studio, the women work in administration and post-production, we have no full-time female animators. They are rare even in the big studios, although there are some noteworthy female art directors and story artists.
In that respect things are getting a little better but it's a slow process. There are more female students coming out of traditional animation colleges like CalArts or Sheridan, a development that might lead to their increased filling of supervising animation positions once the current student generation takes over the industry. Still, it is a battle that can't be won only in numbers. Animation is an art form and like all art forms there is a strong ego component involved. Female animators will have to assert themselves if they wish to control the content.