dyre said:
Yeah I see what you mean, but I think people might naturally be inclined to think you feel some kind of special importance regarding del Toro since you made a whole thread about it, you know? You'd hardly be the first person to attach legitimacy to something just because a celebrity endorsed it. And you do seem to feel a little victimized by the perception of cartoons in mainstream society.
Anyway I'm not trying to make you feel bad - we all have some things we feel strongly about. But I'm pretty sure everyone you quoted, while sympathetic, would not have posted this thread, lol.
I also already said I don't even know del Toro that well. I have hardly seen any of his films. So, it'd be weird for me to attach special importance to a film industry person I barely know. I'm not attaching special importance to him. I would have said this if anyone I consider big in the film or TV industry said this because, to me, it's so out of left field. I thought this show, while high in ratings last I checked, was pretty damn obscure, or at the very least out of the radar for people high in the industry. The creator of Gravity Falls responded to del Toro saying it was a huge honor to hear that and also completely out of left field for him.
I recognize how cartoons are perceived is all and even acknowledge many on the receiving end take it too far here:
jamail77 said:
Not that negative opinion of this kind is overwhelming or tipping the scales or anything because I also think many animated fans take this too far and act like animation is being persecuted, which is also far from the truth. Sometimes it just depends on the source and venue for the animation that turns a positive or neutral opinion into the negative type I'm specifically talking about. [It's not a vast mainstream societal or media conspiracy or solely inherent bias against ANY AND ALL animation]
Wouldn't it be strange for someone who feels victimized to criticize people who also feel victimized? Let me put it another way: I've made 656 posts on these forums as of this one and had many a related opportunity to unnecessarily voice cartoon perception in a way that could come off as insecure. This is the first time I have ever done so and I meant to mention it sparingly. The only reason I'm mentioning it so much now in these responses is not out of defensiveness but because I'm kind of tired of it being brought up, particularly by people who clearly aren't reading my clarifications (not you necessarily).
This was meant to be for fun and it feels, frankly, like the topic has been hijacked, mostly by the cynical and the assumptive. I first saw this shared on reddit where as far as I could tell nobody said, "Well, you did feel the need to make an entire reddit post about this" or "Wow, someone likes what you like" or anything like that. I suppose these sort of things are more appropriate there. Then again, they left it at "Guillermo del Toro says Gravity Falls is one of the best realized most compelling series around" and didn't say anything else, which I can't really do here because it would get me a low content warning. Then then again, when sharing links on reddit many subreddits don't allow optional text to accompany your link and title. So, they may very well have said something similar to what I did in my first post and subsequent posts if there was a text option.
I wasn't trying to imply the people I quoted would have posted this thread. If they wanted to, they already would have. I said they should have been the ones to post this because what they emphasize, how they worded their posts, is better than how I approached this, which lead to hasty but fair assumptions (I can definitely understand how people saw some of this on their own despite my intentions because of my choice of words). I didn't mean to say they were just as likely to do this, but that they knew how to write out their feelings and their reasoning for appreciation of this being shared than I did in wanting this to be shared. I thought these forums were a good place for this kind of thing considering my assumed niche of the show and my assumed niche partaking of many of the forumgoers around here.
dyre said:
And he is a bit of a manchild. Not that there's anything wrong with that...in fact, it's awesome. When I'm in my 40s and 50s, I hope to have the means and passion to be a manchild. But it does mean that society is generally less likely to take your opinions seriously.
Actually, there is something wrong with it because the term was not coined to be used in a positive way and to use it in a positive way is very difficult if next to impossible. Even in the mainstream people do love a certain sense of what is characteristically childish in an adult. It's restrictive, sure: The only person that I can think off the top of my head is Walt Disney. But, these people would not call those they deem with a healthy child-ness to them a manchild. That is reserved for complete immaturity at an age way long overdue for such. Though, it certainly goes beyond having a separate house for memorabilia and wearing T-shirts...what? On the other hand, taking a term traditionally used negatively against you and making it into a positive, even if it must be done somewhat forcefully, is a hallmark of many previous insults now almost exclusively used as positives. But, for terms like "manchild" I'm not sure it really is doable. The term just SOUNDS like an implied insult to me even without the context of its coinage and how it's almost always used. You could change it to a positive and make it the more colloquial usage, but that sound of insult would never go away in my opinion.
