Let us compare the different types of media. I’ll start off.
Animation tries to caricature reality and, dare I say it, challenge our world view. Live-action tries to capture nothing more than the world at face value. Novels are overly pretentious and try to waste time on the details rather than any true meaning.
Put in simpler terms,
Animation: Notice how a caricature exaggerates the physical features of any particular human. Imagine if some great artist try to caricature our entire world. Even if the art is particularly ugly (The Simpsons, Total Drama Island), it works better without real people because it needs to be demonstrates that its all an exaggeration of our world.
Live-action: It tries to capture the world exactly as is with no alterations, and even then it doesn’t always work. Tell me, how realistic is iCarly? The main character has no real flaws. Her brother is a freelance artist, and yet they somehow afford a big fancy apartment. Its the size of a house for Pete’s sake!
Novels: “The man with the scraggly beard gave me a long, look in the eye. A look that conveyed nothing but serious emotions.” Imagine that stretched out for a page and a half. You see, I have a reading level so high the scale at my school wont even measure it. Do I read? No. I hate reading, except for internet forums and TV Tropes. Novels waste so much time on the details they forget the important things: characters, story, meaning, etc. Even my favorite novel, 1984, falls victim to this. Graphic novels, however, don’t have these problems, but I consider them to be a category of animation.
Animation is the most intellectualy stimulating form of art, and it has the ability to challenge the world moreso than anything else. That’s right, I think Bugs Bunny is more profound than 2001: A Space Odyssey. Deal with it.
Regarding your opinion on books: It’s necessary for a novel to “waste time on details”. There is no imagery unlike film, graphic novels, and TV, so they have to take time to create an image in the reader’s head. It still benefits the storytelling.
I know this isn’t a real line from a book but I’m going to pick it apart anyway to show that it does have necessary storytelling in it:
“The man with the scraggly beard gave me a long, look in the eye. A look that conveyed nothing but serious emotions.”
The beard implies that the character is rough around the edges. Describing the glare implies his seriousness, as it could’ve been interpreted as a loving look or something had that not been described. A movie can throw all of this detail into one frame, but a book lays it out. They still both express ideas and support the story with detail in a frame or on a page.
As for live action, I think iCarly is a pretty terrible example. There are countless live action films with deep, realistic, and interesting characters. And it certainly does not always go for reality. Just look at Scott Pilgrim (which is STILL on my mind). A movie tries to paint a believable, but not necessarily realistic world. This applies to live action as well as animation.
It’s a filmmaker’s decision to create an “unaltered world” in a movie, and most of the time it is a more unrealistic or fantastic world (even in live action), so I’m not sure what you’re saying.
I agree that books can be very boring, but I won’t bash them because I like The Doll Mage and A Child Called It, and I don’t want to seem ignorant and offend anyone. I often prefer cartoons as well, but I find Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, as well as 2001:A Space Odyssey. I can understand you feeling the need for offense towards things you don’t like(I do that, too), but this could offend some people.
It’s a shame you don’t read much, The Chicken Man. I find the more I read, the more pleasure I find in reading. Obviously, it depends what it is you’re reading, but there’s some amazing stuff out there. You sound like the kind of guy who’d enjoy a bit of Kafka (ironically). He takes describing things to the extreme, but there’s a sort of fantastical element to his works, despite them being grounded in reality, that is so different from a lot of stuff nowadays.
Books are my favourite medium out of the three mentioned. They’re the hardest to do well, but when done well, the most amazing results can be produced. Books are a commitment, but a worthwhile one.
Thanks, The Chicken Man. Kafka is actually the name of the author- Franz Kafka. He never actually wrote an entire book before his death, but a compilation of his shorter works can be bought. To start off with though, it’s probably best if you try Metamorphosis, his most famous short story. It isn’t particularly long but it’s the perfect example of Kafka taking a wholly fantastical idea (the main character one day wakes up as some sort of a cockroach-like creature, and the general gist of the story is that he and his family have to learn how to adapt and deal with this) and making it seem so…rational. Reading it, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was a real life account!
Of course, it’s understandable if you give it a go and don’t enjoy it. It’s just that as you said, you’ve got a great ability when it comes to reading and perhaps the more every day stuff doesn’t challenge you enough, whilst Kafka is challenging indeed. I’d love it if you gave Metamorphosis a try and let me know what you thought of it.
Ah, reminds me of Junior year in High School. We read it in English. Let’s just say that Kafka is not my cup of tea. I’m not a Kafka or Metamorphosis fan.
But I do recommend reading it. It is a really strange and out there book, that brought me out of my comfort zone as a reader. The illusion of a giant beetle living in a house is too much for me to handle sometimes. The ending of the book and what becomes of the beetle is very, interesting.
I also agree with lizardgirl that personally, for me, Books are my favorite of the three mediums you described. They’re my favorite for the old cliche reason “Books are adventures that take you to new worlds”! I have a giant bookshelf full of books, and I have so many I have to hide some in my closet! My all time favorite book is “Gone With the Wind” (which happens to also be my favorite movie)