Research Report Proposal
I’ve decided to write my proposal on a topic that I can get very fired up about - whether or not cartoons are just for children. Short answer: no, I don’t think they’re just for children. Sure, there are some shows aimed specifically at kids with the purpose of education and/or entertainment, but many other “kid’s shows and movies” such as Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, even Shrek, aren’t solely for children to enjoy. A lot of shows and films like these can cover complex issues and have underlying themes that mostly go unnoticed by children. Cartoons don’t even have to be explicitly adult for adults to enjoy them, either, since some people think that the only way they can enjoy a cartoon is if it’s something like Family Guy, or Rick and Morty.
While researching this topic, it came to my attention that originally, cartoons were aimed at adults, which I found incredibly interesting. That got me wondering why this perception of animation has changed so much, which is what led me to changing my initial ideas for my research report. Instead of writing an extended essay on whether animation is just for kids, I’ll be including the analysis of the history and evolution of animation and its audience.
I’ll be conducting both primary and secondary research for this - primary being a questionnaire asking people from different age ranges their opinions on the matter, secondary being analysis of video essays and articles regarding the topic. My aim for this research report is to figure out why people personally think cartoons are or aren’t for kids (history aside) and to bring to light different points of view regarding the medium. I may also analyse a few different examples of animation that have different target audiences and cover why they’re appropriate for whichever age range. For example, shows such as My Little Pony [MLP] and Steven Universe [SU] being aimed at children yet still retaining an adult audience (though for different reasons, plus MLP, while teaching some good lessons to kids, is portrayed in a far more child-like manner than SU). Analysing “adult” cartoons and why they’re considered adult cartoons would be interesting also.









