So, Teen Titans Go?

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Teen Titans Go probably isn't as bad as you've heard. But, since you've heard that Teen Titans Go is capable of causing aneurysms and murdering puppies, that's a weak defense. In its favor, it has pretty solid animation - it's very fluid, looks natural, and the style reminds me of a mix between WordGirl and Star vs. The Forces of Evil. It fits with the kid-friendly nature of the show. I also like the poppy color scheme - lots of blues, greens, pinks, warm colors like that.

Alright, that's about all I got. In truth, I'm probably giving Teen Titans Go more credit than it actually deserves. I never said this show was very good. A lot of people hate this fucking show with a passion; I merely dislike it, and I think it's another one of those disposable, invisibly mediocre cartoons that networks like Nickelodeon seem to be indulging in. But I figure that, if you want to look at film and cinema on a large scale, you have to break apart or analyze the criticisms and community surrounding a film or a television show, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. The purpose of this is to examine why people despise this show so much, and I think I have an idea why.

For starters, it's stupid. Like, really stupid. The thing about Teen Titans is that it was a brilliantly-written drama that was still very kid-friendly and appealing in spite of its darker elements. It appealed to a broad audience of kids and adults like. It's also one of those few shows that stood the test of time; I was re-watching some episodes the other day and I can still appreciate the amount of effort that went into them; I'd wager it was even better than I remember. So, given these circumstances, creating a spinoff of a dearly-beloved show was risky from the get-go; turning it into a comedic was even riskier. The original Teen Titans was funny enough; in fact, the constant drama and action helped give weight to the moments of levity and comedy.

It was comic relief in an otherwise serious, heartfelt show. To turn it into a full-stop comedy and put the humor front and center would not only remove the dramatic tension but trivialize the circumstances and characters. And the characters are indeed trivialized; in fact, the minimal character development is by far and away he worst aspect of the show. They aren't characters anymore, they're stereotypes, and stereotypes can't be used as effective characters. The Titans have a lot of their negative traits exaggerated for comedic purposes; and they are, intermittently, comedic. They are also, far more than intermittently, not comedic. The characters' flat personalities (the sassy black guy, the shrill young leader, the annoying green guy, the ditzy redhead, the emotionless chick), and the low number of gags that can be taken out of those personalities, makes the whole premise seem incredibly trivial.

The show fails on a narrative perspective, too. It's bad enough to have unsympathetic characters (though that's not a pre-requisite, there hasn't been a good kid's show without somewhat likable heroes), but to have a go-nowhere plot is arguably worse. The original Teen Titans was made up of a collection of shorts and isolated stories, but it had reoccurring plot elements and villains that gave it momentum. Kind of like what Cowboy Bebop did. Teen Titans Go doesn't have that sense of momentum; it doubles down on being spontaneous and random at the expense of being consistent. There's a lack of bite in its conflicts, characters, and even morals. In fact, having morals in the story to begin with is contradictory; because the characters are specifically designed to be inflexible, having them learn a moral or message by the end of each episode is pointless and counter-intuitive.

It's manic as all hell, which isn't really the problem; it's the constant chaos that makes it exhausting. Each individual scene is exactly the same as the one before it, and it becomes tedious by the end of everything. It's not insufferable; the Young Justice crossover episode was actually funny because of how absolutely deranged it was; it was mocking itself. But, as a whole, it is tiring, more than it should be.

In spite of that, I believe the reason people hate this thing so much is because of how uncaring the show as a whole is towards its fans and viewers. There is a particularly infamous episode, "The Return of Slade", that pretty much affirms this. I'm not going to go into depth about what happens in the episode, but the entire episode basically makes a claim that animation and cartoons are just for kids, and anybody who criticizes this show just needs to accept that they're taking it too seriously. It's an attack on the critics, which is never a good idea. It's callous and petty, and also retroactively ironic because Teen Titans proved that animation can be more than just children's entertainment.

And, at the end of the day, that's ultimately why people don't like it. It's easy to overlook the animation, the static characters, the voice acting (although I will admit the voice actors sound incredibly depressed working on this), and all of that stuff. But, the "who gives a shit" attitude the show takes on is a problem. While I personally am not insulted by that philosophy, I can easily see why people would be, especially long-time fans of the show. Animation is for everybody, even cartoons. There's nothing wrong with a silly cartoon, or a dramatic cartoon, or a silly and dramatic cartoon; there's nothing wrong with an American cartoon, or a Japanese cartoon. But for the series to condemn the modern-day attitude that animation can and is for every age group is something of a trigger to those who watch this show, and for good reason.

Am I sympathetic towards TTG? No. No, no, no. It makes me laugh sometimes, but other than the solid animation and good color scheme, it gets pretty much everything else wrong. Cartoon Network has to lean on Steven Universe / Adventure Time and pray to God they still have an audience anymore.

Til next time.