Ku Fu Panda 3 and Why the American Film Market Doesn’t Matter

So for those of you not in the know, Kung Fu Panda 3 is the first US blockbuster intended for both American and Chinese audiences simultaneously. It’s listed on IMDB as a “Dreamworks Animation, China Film Co.” production.

Consequently, the film tries obviously to appeal to both markets, replacing in-jokes, wordplay, and satire of the Western hero’s journey, with slapstick and exaggerated physical humor. There is a lot of money to be made in the Chinese market, and they wouldn’t want to cut off that supply of precious Yuan with any scary cultural markers.

This comes among recent discussion over the role the Chinese market has in American films. The makers of critically acclaimed hit Mad Max: Fury Road announced it will not be receiving a sequel, because it wasn’t profitable enough overseas, and because Chinese audiences reacted unfavorably to the pop culture mentions in Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy, some have speculated the upcoming sequel will involve more nutshots than Footloose references.

The film itself features some of most obscenely expensive visuals to date, and action scenes reminiscent of Dragon Ball Z, but not in a particularly good way. The film is filled with explosions and flashes of color that try their best not to have any weight to them.

To be fair, the US has been doing the same to smaller countries for years, as many French locales have been forced to include easy to pronounce menus, but it can still be disturbing seeing Hollywood films turned into tourist traps. From one oppressive regime to another, it will be interesting to see how US audiences respond to the growing trend in watering down films for global distribution.

Why we’re living in the “Renaissance” of animation

Since the 1950s, and especially since the overly commercial, toy-centric years of the 1980s, many critics and historians would agree that animation has been a far cry from the imaginative in-depth worlds imagined by cartoonist legends like Max Fleischer, Chuck Jones, Walt Disney and others.

Since the second world war, cartoons have relied less heavily on storytelling, or expressive character animations, and budgets became generally cheaper. More often than not the animating was outsourced to South Korea or Japan. However with all the ideas and innovations brought about by today’s generation of cartoonists, we just might be living in something of a renaissance for the medium.

During the same time slot as fart humor like Family Guy, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, one recent adult comedy, Rick and Morty has made a habit of filling every episode with a different left-field technique or dada gimmick. The script for one episode Intergalactic Cable, for example, was improvised and delivered on the spot by creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, while another episode goes into morbid and psychologically probing detail while the protagonists kill and bury themselves from an alternate timeline.

This kind of freewheeling cartooning isn’t confined to adult shows, however. Disney cartoon Gravity Falls, bases a lot of it’s plot around conspiracy theories and the paranoid mystery drama of shows like Twin Peaks and the X Files.

Meanwhile, Steven Universe includes very adult views on relationships in the middle of it’s zany humor, hinting towards serious social problems and even LGBT issues.

Animators are technically forging new ground. The once simple, low budget shapes of flash animation have since been worked into the bold, stylized designs of Bojack Horseman, Bob’s Burgers, or Lauren Faust’s My Little Pony reboot.

For those of us who grew up on Nicktoons and Saturday Morning Toy Commercials, it can come off as jarring watching an episode of Adventure Time with it’s soundtrack by experimental hip hop producer Flying Lotus, or glancing at the melancholic dark fantasy Over the Garden Wall which belongs far more on HBO than on the Cartoon Network.

One major thing about this generation of animators is that they are almost all giant geeks, self-proclaimed nerds who actively respond to followers on social media, and many started as animation fans themselves.

The Industry is almost to the point where fans have more input into what goes into the show than any company executive or member of the target audience. Since the days long past when cartoonists were primarily businessmen advertising a product, it’s as if the inmates are running the asylum.

Netflix’s “F is For Family” brutally honest cartoon

Netflix’s December 18 offering, animated sitcom “F is for Family,” is one of the most blunt, straightforward shows ever broadcast and because of that it brings something completely new to TV.

Set in the mid-seventies, “F is for Family” tells the story of a five person unit: the Murphy’s. It’s a family-based situation comedy with an almost complete lack of comedy and nothing close to the standard beat for beat “situations” we’ve come to expect from this kind of thing.

The characters don’t learn morals or suffer for their faults, and they rarely set themselves up for one liners or gags of any type. An least not overly exaggerated ones. What’s left is just a story of a family, one which pulls absolutely no punches.

Many of the characters in “F is for Family” are racist, patriarchal bullies, true to the time it’s set in, yet they’re never exaggerated, never played for laughs or drama. They just are. Even hour-long dramas like Mad Men feel the need to constantly remind the audience in capital letters: “HEY LOOK GUYS, THINGS WERE DIFFERENT IN THE ‘60s.” F is for Family doesn’t use any capital letters to tell its stories.

The show’s Father, Frank Murphy, is an irresponsible ass, yet unlike someone like Homer Simpson, whose antics are covered in jokes and cartoonish visuals to soften any real impact, Frank Murphy is presented to us without any cushion as an irresponsible ass.

Similarly, Sue Murphy is just a realistic portrayal of a depressed housewife, boxed into her place in life. The children, Kevin, Bill, and Maureen, are similarly stumbling, awkward, and aimless, coming close to getting some kind of closure in their lives, but not really getting it.

“F is for Family” is arguably doing what Italian Realist directors did in the ’40s when they made bare bones films about how people really lived.

Or what The Velvet Underground did to rock music in the 60’s when they stripped down all the psychedelic gimmicks and excess, to create the straightforward sounds of punk.

Needless to say, this show is not overwhelmingly entertaining. There are no plots you haven’t heard before, and there’s very little contrived material that aims to make you laugh, cry or anything.

But as a brutally realistic account of a time and a place, it is unmatched.