Partizan's Martian Blueberry Turns Animation into a Molotov Cocktail

With the ability to go beyond the limitations of live-action and set fire to perceived social norms, Carl Jones, Co-Founder of animation studio Martian Blueberry, explains why animation isn't just for kids.

Viral vids, algorithms, and clickbait dominate our lives, making authenticity an endangered species. But piercing through the noise there’s one raw, unfiltered art form that’s still screaming into the void, and that’s animation.

Western audiences shoved animation into a safe and friendly kids' zone, but it can be a dangerous flamethrower. It can set social norms ablaze, distill human truths, bend reality, and make us laugh at things we’d normally cry about. Great art sometimes holds up a mirror to society. The best art breaks that mirror and makes us pick up the pieces.

I’ve used animation to laugh in the face of censorship and sometimes at the human condition. The beauty of the medium is that it lives outside the boundaries of the real world, with no live-action limitations. In animation, a kid can swing through multiverses as Spider-Man. A talking horse like Bojack Horseman can expose celebrity culture. And The Boondocks can make MLK Jr. drop the n-bomb on national television.

That’s the kind of disruption that only animation can pull off. It slips under the radar of political correctness, disguises razor-sharp commentary in punchlines, and slices through bullshit with surgical precision.

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