The Oscars Needs To Stop Pretending That Animation Is Only For Kids

thegamer.com:

Animation has always had a tough ride at the Academy Awards. Despite their brilliance, Pixar and Disney have long become the default winners while so many other bolder, more experimental films miss out on the winning spot or are either robbed of nominations altogether. For years it has felt like the medium isn’t treated with the same reverence as live action, even though it’s such a huge part of the industry and arguably kept it ticking throughout the pandemic. Yet somehow, it harbours a reputation the archaic powers that be have never been willing to contemplate or reason with.

For example, this year Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle wasn’t even nominated, while the brilliant The Mitchells vs The Machines sadly missed out on a win I feel like it deserved. Encanto is fantastic, but it was the winner we all expected. Your Name, Promare, In This Corner of the World, and Ride Your Wave are just a few of the films deserving of recognition in recent years that didn’t even receive nominations. Yes I’m aware that all of them are anime, but they also deserve a place far more than Boss Baby or Shaun The Sheep: Farmageddon. In retrospect, it was somewhat of a miracle that Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse won at all.

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However this perception is bigger than The Oscars, it concerns a wider idea that animation is made for children and adults who consume films, shows, and shorts in the medium are somehow enduring its existence, doing so only to satiate the needs of younger audiences while wishing they were doing anything else. We saw this rhetoric reinforced by the Best Animated Feature presenters last night, all of three of whom have played