Should Puppetry Be a Genre?

[D'Snowth]

I'm reminded of how animators such as Brad Bird feel that animation isn't, or shouldn't be its own genre, but I got to thinking, if animation is given its own genre, could or should puppetry be an actual genre as well?

I notice quite often that a puppetry program is almost always listed under the fantasy genre, which is probably mostly due to the fact that a lot of puppet projects ARE fantasy oriented, but other than that, they seem to be listed under animation a bit itself (notice how Sesame Street is under the cartoon section of FanFiction.Net, or how these Krofft shows are refered to as "Saturday morning cartoons").

So again, what I'm asking is do you feel puppetry should be a genre itself? Personally, I can understand why animators wouldn't want animation to be its own genre, but my thinking is this - if animation has to be its own genre, then I believe puppetry should be too.

 

[Frogpuppeteer]

I've thought of this myself,
back in college when i enterted award shows i was always put under the animation category and it kinda made me upset
but thanks to me my school now has a better view of what puppets can actually do

 

[practicecactus]

I'd say Puppetry isn't a genre because it combines too many aspects of performance and makes it hard to catagorize as it's own thing.
Animation is what you see on screen and that's all you see on screen. If you're watching puppetry, you're seeing any number of crafts and talents that bring the puppet to life.

Maybe puppetry's serious and ancient origins make it exempt from trivial catorgorization in mainstreme media.

This reminds me of the video 'Chasing Arm-y' here.

 

[The Count]

Hey guys... Poll's now attached, feel free to vote.

 

[Drtooth]

So again, what I'm asking is do you feel puppetry should be a genre itself? Personally, I can understand why animators wouldn't want animation to be its own genre, but my thinking is this - if animation has to be its own genre, then I believe puppetry should be too.

I don;t think either should be a genre. And whoever made that cockamamie rule up had to have been the laziest, most ignorant categorizer in human history.

Genre refers to what something is, dispite medium. Otherwise, Live action would be a genre, and you could lump Citizen Cane and Biodome together as something from the same Genre, as you'd do with Snow White, Akira, and that obscure (and for a good reason) toy commercial Stone Protectors. I think, among other things, that lumps things that shouldn't be together.

Puppetry should be classified as a medium, much as animation should be.

 

[practicecactus]

You summed that up brilliantly with your final sentence. Yes! A medium, not a genre. Gawd, that's what I was thinking but couldn't put it so sussinctly.

 

[D'Snowth]

Hey guys... Poll's now attached, feel free to vote.

Thanks Eddo!

 

[Scurvy Dave]

I know no one is really arguing about this...so this isn't a rebuttle, but I just had to voice my opinion about this. Animation, and puppetry are unequivocally, undoubtedly, unflappably, forever and ever in perpetuity... MEDIUMS. There is no question of should be or has to be or maybe it is maybe it isn't. It's a medium. You can call it a genre...but you'd be wrong. You can call a dog a cat too. It doesn't make it a cat. In both fields, if we even entertain the question then we validate the idea. And I don't think we should underestimate the harm that is done to us creatively when animation or puppetry is thought of as a genre. It is one of the most stifling things that the industry does, and it takes about 75% of life's experiences and makes them off limits, and leaves us to either do weird fantasy nerd stuff, or children's stuff...or vulgar adult stuff. Subtlety, art, intelligent discourse all go out the window. Calling animation or puppetry a genre is a way for the studios to pidgeon hole and control the mediums, and to let executives feel like they understand something of the two disciplines. If they admitted that it was a craft, a medium that they know little to nothing about...they would forfeit all of their power to the dreaded "creatives". We're the gelflings to their skeksis. Sorry for ranting...btw...this is my first post. love the boards! Hi all!

 

[MuppetMazz]

I would like a 4th option to vote, neither should be a genre. I agree completely with Drtooth that it isn't a genre. You can have animated comedy, drama, action, etc the same way you can have puppetry in each of those actual genres.

 

[D'Snowth]

You can have animated comedy, drama, action, etc the same way you can have puppetry in each of those actual genres.

Exactly, those kinds of shows and movies ARE billed as "animated comedy", "animated drama", "animated action"... at least on Comcast's program info anyway; you look them up on IMDb, and one of the first things you see listed in genre is "animation".

Funnily enough, getting back to puppets being refered to cartoons, I remember an animated promo for H.R. Pufnstuf on TV Land with all of this talking food, and at one point a jar of mayonaise (who sounded a lot like Arnold Stang) talked about how he hated Krofft shows because of all the silly voices, and he added "How can us cartoons be taken seriously if this is how we're always depicted?" But again, they're not cartoon characters, they're puppet characters.