Animation Multi Media Essay 2

 Why Big Mouth's Animation Matters

In 2017, Big Mouth was released on Netflix; it was an animated perspective on puberty and growing older; and at the core of its storytelling is the accessibility that only animation could provide. Big Mouth takes on a period of change and growing up that is unique to every individual and attempts to understand it within an animated world.

 

Big Mouth follows a group of 11–13-year-olds in middle school who are learning about sex, their bodies, how to fall in love, and how to grow up. It’s graphic and hilarious and doesn’t shy away from…anything. Big Mouth also doesn’t deal in realism; it’s not a Disney-style animated show that is attempting to mimic the realities of turning 12 years old and figuring out how to use a tampon. Big Mouth’s success lies in the vehicle of it’s storytelling: animation that challenges what the audience expects. The first indicator of that the appearance of an external character known as the hormone monster; puberty becomes characterized as this uncontrollable “thing” that has it’s own thoughts, emotions, and desires outside of the character actually experiencing puberty. 

It’s interesting to consider the connection between abstract animation and the link to the abstract storytelling in Big Mouth. Big Mouth’s art direction is not necessarily abstract; the shapes have direct narrative meaning that reflect reality. But the approach to a symbolic visualization of puberty in the form of the hormone monster and monstress is an extension of the early animators that experimented with shape-shifting and story-telling that went beyond what a film camera could capture; at the end of the day, an artist can invent a way to tell a story that a videographer won’t ever be able to.

 Here, a 16 year old character learns about her options for birth control and contraceptives by going on Bachelorette-style dates with all of them. Condoms, IUD's, Birth Control...They all are animated and personified. It's comedic, it contains social commentary on the use and education of the methods, and it plays with the storytelling that's accessible with animation. 

By no means is Big Mouth considered actual abstract animation; that type of animation does not follow typical narrative structures or even structure in general. Abstract animation is challenging to the viewer, and often subverts the audience’s expectation of what art and animation are supposed to be like (Turner). Defined in a straightforward way, abstract animation “is the ideal medium through which to explore the dimensions of the inner world, the ’internal truth’ and to explore the possibilities of pure, kinetic, graphic elements” (Turner). 

 

While a show like Big Mouth doesn’t visually take on the simplification of abstract shapes and sound, a line can be drawn between the pursuit of the “inner world” and the “internal truth” of storytelling that Big Mouth tackles when dealing with the sexual education and puberty of it’s main characters. 

 

 

While a show like Big Mouth doesn’t visually take on the simplification of abstract shapes and sound, a line can be drawn between the pursuit of the “inner world” and the “internal truth” of storytelling that Big Mouth tackles when dealing with the sexual education and puberty of it’s main characters. 

 

Big Mouth’s animation is "grotesque" and detailed, often stepping past the line of what’s been animated before (Fry). In the same way that animators who were trying to take on new ideas and new artistry in the similar way to UPA animation. UPA experimented with midcentury design and artistic styles, like drawing 2D shapes and forms or playing with the setting and color of the scene, similar to UPA’s Gerald McBoing Boing. 

 

Most importantly, it’s how Big Mouth takes these elements of artistic abstraction or playing with the bounds of reality within animation that reflects the core of it’s story. According to Eddie Falvey in his article about adult animation, "Big Mouth exhibits a clear incentive to animate the largely ineffable experience of growing up, a goal made possible by an adult cast, 'smart' tactics and the limitless potentialities of the animated mode." Identity is something that is always changing, not easily understood, and difficult to capture in a realistic way (Fry). Without the vehicle of animation, the story within Big Mouth would be lost. And without the history of animators and studio styles that came before it, Big Mouth simply wouldn’t exist. 

Bibliography: 

Falvey, Eddie. “Situating Netflix’s Original Adult Animation: Observing Taste Cultures and the Legacies of ‘Quality’ Television through BoJack Horseman and Big Mouth.” Animation, vol. 15, no. 2, July 2020, pp. 116–129, doi:10.1177/1746847720933791.

Fry, N. (2020). “Big Mouth” Is Still Changing—For the Better. Retrieved 29 March 2022, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/28/big-mouth-is-still-changing-for-the-better

Turner, P. (2003). Content and Meaning in Abstract Animation. Kinetic Imaging Publications And Presentations.