Adult cartoons flourish because cinema has become indistinguishable from animation

Evidence

While the history of animation has always involved material addressed to adult audiences, the 2010s saw a marked increase in mature themes and explicit language on the coloring page. Hits like Bojack Horseman, Undone, or Rick and Morty have encouraged producers already enthusiastic about the ever-improving cost ratio of evolving animation technology to live action. Profit motive aside, the prevalence of adult cartoons evolves from the pressures on the medium of film that we’ve already named; as Lev Manovich argues, “Cinema can no longer be clearly distinguished from animation. It is no longer an indexical media technology but, rather, a sub-genre of painting.” — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 235

Categorization

• XREF: Manovich’s claim that cinema is a sub-genre of painting dovetails with the reader’s own interest in the collapse of mediation that defines immediacy.