Animation has held a special place in the arts ever since its inception and official birth in the United States. From the beginning, this fine American invention has produced countless works of high art for many generations to enjoy. Whether you agree with what the medium has become or the companies who benefited from it is beside the point. The point is that animation has been not only an avenue to tell stories but to now make the stories a reality; like that of a moving picture book. Which is why it is very saddening to see the unfortunate state of things. That being, the US no longer produces or creates animation at the same rate the great masters of before did. Instead the animation of the nation has been bought, sold and exported out of her into other countries for fractions of the cost. While foreigners may use the medium now to tell wonderful stories and import them back into the US, this is still no excuse for us to be so ambivalent about it. In this day and age, there is a high importance to bring said talents back into the arms of America; less we fail to our own future.

It is an open secret that the entire West has failed on its cultural entertainment path as it has spiraled out of control towards a cesspit of leftist ideas and morals. Animation, whether for children or for a more mature audience, has unfortunately been the abused medium of this time. Artists who could have made it big before now have to settle for cheap jobs in a competitive foreign labor market. Artists who have made it within the big studios, have to settle with working in projects that recycle material time and time again in order to keep the lights on. Combine these two and we have the perfect brew for a plague of bankrupt imaginations which leads to the death of the creative. The west is experiencing this today. It is unnerving that so many young people do not have hope in the future. They have not been taught that at all by even the simplest of stories. 

To say that animation is not profitable is also a lie because foreign nations have shown that it is very profitable to invest in animation.. The culture can be shaped by it and the proof lies with what the youth have been watching out of their own volition. This includes the shelves of supermarkets plastered with foreign characters not even created in the United States. The market is there, ripe for the taking, and in the past, American Animation dominated most of the world; it was honorable to want to be like the old cartoons. 

So what is the solution? Simple: we must support the artists. Yet this answer irks most of the older generations because it devolves into two camps. Either all artists are degenerates and there’s nothing good out there, or art is not important and we can live without it. Both are false.
An artist who revels in their own degeneracy and refuses to use their talents for the true and beautiful will be very hard to convince to create something else. It is very unfortunate that many artists have also had to start their careers in such heinous places, because it was the only way to keep the lights on. “Sex sells,” as the saying goes, but it is not the only thing that generates revenue. As no one besmirches a hard worker toiling for their daily bread in a grueling environment, we too cannot act so stricken with disgust when an artist comes from these places but are willing to put in the effort to create something different. To put that creative energy towards the good and the great, suddenly we would see a creative transformation from the artist – even down to their very soul. 

To tackle the second point, yes you do need art. Hypocrite is he who posts constantly everyday about the need to return to beauty and to standards of the old but has made no effort to commission such works. All the greatest of works have been major commissions, from fine art to architecture-even our places of worship are considered commissions. This is how the artistic world is financed, thus how can it be said no one is willing to make the desired arts if we are not giving the artists any support? 

We must reject the failure the older generations had with artists. Reject that it is not a skill, it certainly is one, and that a pursuit in it is a welcome reward like any other skill out there. We must become more than just a commissioner, but turn to a connoisseur and showcase what artists can do with their talents. In other words, we must become the new patrons of art and only this way can we return to the beauty of works and hopefully in the future the beauty of animation can return. Even if it’s not for the artist, we owe our children good stories. 

For if we can’t tell our children, “…dragons can be killed,” through the use of fairy tales in a colorful medium, how will we expect them to then believe in the power of destroying vice in the dour world?