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Watch out, Pixar and DreamWorks — Guillermo del Toro is coming for you. The famous director had some choice words about mainstream animation while speaking to a master class audience at the Annecy International Animation Festival.
The filmmaker and director, who recently animated and reinvented the story of Pinocchio (and earned an Oscar for Best Animated Feature along the way), aired his grievances surrounding the same ol’ expressions and mannerisms employed by animators.
“[If] I see a character raising his fucking eyebrow, or crossing his arms, having a sassy pose — oh, I hate that shit,” del Toro said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “[Why] does everything act as if they’re in a sitcom? I think it is emotional pornography.”
For del Toro, animation is “the purest form of art and it’s been kidnapped by a bunch of hoodlums.” He added, “We have to rescue it. [And] I think that we can Trojan-horse a lot of good shit into the animation world.”
Nonetheless, the critically-acclaimed animator commended three recent popular works of animation for their “rule-breaking” style.
“The three hits of [Across the] Spider-Verse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Mario are moving things, allowing a little more latitude, but there are still big fights to be had,” del Toro said.
Most importantly, del Toro called out the lack of “real life” in mainstream animation, particularly in its character development.
“All the families are happy and sassy and quick, everyone has a one-liner,” he said. “Well, my dad was boring. I was boring. Everybody in my family was boring. We had no one-liners. We’re all fucked up. That’s what I want to see animated. I would love to see real life in animation. I actually think it’s urgent. I think it’s urgent to see real life in animation.”
In terms of his upcoming projects, del Toro hopes to eventually transition to solely creating works of animation, he said.
“There are a couple more live-action movies I want to do, but not many,” he stated. “After that, I only want to do animation. That’s the plan.”
If you would like a glimpse of del Toro’s darker and realistic animation, stream Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio on Netflix.
