Animation: beyond entertainment to accompany growth

Animation is an important part of most people's childhood memory and growth.

Cartoons are a way for some parents to "kill" time for their children.

Cartoons will inadvertently shape children's value orientation and behavior, which is of great importance to children's growth. This "June Day", let's talk about how to let children watch cartoons better and see better cartoons——

Recently, the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission (hereinafter referred to as the "Consumer Protection Commission") carried out an investigation on violations of minors' growth safety consumption in the animation field, and found that 1465 problem points were sorted out in the 21 cartoons investigated, mainly focusing on terms, scenes, plot, etc. For a while, netizens heated up the debate. Some people believed that some cartoons really had a lot of content that was not suitable for children to watch, and it was urgent to find out. Others believed that cartoons had little impact on children, and should not be alarmed.

Why do cartoons have these "problem points"? Song Lei, director of the Development Research Department of China Animation Group, believes that the so-called "young" cartoons for children are the most difficult to do. "It needs a strong theoretical foundation of color, sound and psychology behind it, and many of our domestic 'young' cartoons are written by the writers simply according to their own preferences, and the directors simply shoot according to their own ideas, so there will be a variety of inappropriate language, action and plot investigated."

　　 1. The plot is green and healthy, can cultivate aesthetic sentiment, and see the world with imaginative eyes——

　　 Children's cartoons should meet three levels of needs

He Li (not her real name) found her son was particularly fond of fighting cartoons when he was four or five years old, and usually used toys to imitate scenes in cartoons. Referring to the impact of these fighting scenes on her son, He Li "wasn't very worried", but she was more worried about the simple settings of cartoons that would make her son "stupid". "Many cartoons have presets. It is assumed that the world should be like this, but in fact it is not. There are many possibilities in the world. And these cartoons are the same routine. I don't think they have a good understanding of children.". He Li said.

Zhong Xiaolin, associate professor of the School of Primary Education of Capital Normal University, often accompanies children in kindergarten to watch cartoons. In her opinion, cartoons are about aesthetic education, moral education, as well as life experience and common sense education. Zhong Xiaolin is very concerned about the sense of lines in cartoons

"Moral education in cartoons not only refers to the value orientation of the overall content, but also is reflected in the speech behavior of animated characters in many cases. For children before the age of 5, the character image of right and wrong, black and white, is more conducive to their acceptance, wrong is wrong, good is good. If the characters are designed to be too complex and vague, it is not good for children of this age to distinguish right from wrong. " Zhong Xiaolin said.

However, Zhong Xiaolin also said that sometimes it is difficult to judge a cartoon from individual bad pictures. "Maybe there is a plot that a child bullies another child. The important thing is how this behavior affects the bullies. If the bullies find that they have no friends, they can educate the children watching cartoons and let them know that bullying has bad consequences. But if there is no positive value guidance after bullying, such cartoons are certainly not good. "

Different parents will value different characteristics of cartoons. How can they be considered as cartoons suitable for children? In this regard, Song Lei pointed out three levels of requirements that children's cartoons need to meet: "The first level is safety. The plot should be green and healthy, and the action should not have fantasy violence elements that are easy to imitate, the voice should not be big and small, and the light and color should not flash too fast. The second level is beauty. This kind of beauty should meet the psychological needs of children. It should have a sense of beauty in character design, props design, scene design, sound design, etc., and can cultivate the children's aesthetic sentiment. The third level is creativity. Animation is an art of imagination, which requires full creativity in plot structure, worldview structure, etc. Look at the world with imaginative eyes. The screenwriter of children's animation needs an angle that children can accept, so that the plot can develop beyond expectations but reasonably. I hear many primary school students complain that some cartoons are too childish. This kind of 'childishness' is actually no creativity, no imagination. "

　　 2. The social cognition and creative consciousness cannot keep up, and the grading will not have a good implementation effect——

　　 Grading system of animated films needs to be gradual

In the survey of Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission, around the question of "whether the screening scale of cartoons on the market needs further strict control", 828 parents said they need it, accounting for 80.7%. 562 parents expressed great support for the introduction of the animation grading system, accounting for 54.8%; 389 parents expressed their support, accounting for 37.9%.

Animation grading system refers to the system that distinguishes and grades different audiences of animation works according to their ages, and stipulates the corresponding broadcast scope, broadcast period and audience for animation works of different levels.

In order to allow people of all ages to watch suitable cartoons, there was also public opinion that cartoon grading system should be adopted. At the 2018 NPC and CPPCC, Wang Jiajuan, a deputy to the National People's Congress and teacher of Liaoyang No. 1 Senior High School in Liaoning Province, pointed out that in order to attract more people of age, some cartoons were mixed with violence and vulgarity, but also could attract older audiences. She called for the implementation of a grading system for domestic cartoons, so that children can learn true knowledge in the process of watching cartoons, develop correct outlook on life and values, and give children a happy and healthy good work, rather than just satisfying temporary entertainment.

In this regard, Zhong Xiaolin believes that cartoons need a bottom line, and those that violate the core socialist values, laws and basic family ethics must not be included. When grading cartoons, we also need to consider the objects. For example, children of different ages, such as preschool, lower primary school, middle and upper primary school, should also be differentiated in watching cartoons. From the content, value guidance, music, picture color and other aspects, there needs to be some indicators to measure.

"It is an international practice to implement grading management on cultural content products, which is the trend in the long run. The establishment of grading system is conducive to our protection of children in the domestic cultural market on the one hand, and it is also conducive to our products being connected with the international market on the other hand, so as to produce children's animation works that are more in line with international needs and can go overseas." Song Lei introduced.

However, Song Lei maintained a prudent attitude towards the grading system. "The establishment of the grading system will not be achieved overnight. First, its policy cost is relatively large. The upgrading of hardware and software related to grading, knowledge popularization, etc., all require huge investment. Second, its implementation effect depends on the overall level of cultural quality of Chinese audiences. There are many parents calling for grading, but how many parents really know what grading is, and how to guide children's cognitive grading? From the enterprise level, do you understand the characteristics of works at different levels and have you the ability to create works at different levels? I'm afraid it's very difficult. It is very likely that the government has promoted it, but the social cognition and creative awareness cannot keep up, so it will not have a good implementation effect. "

In the absence of a grading system, how to ensure that cartoons can have a positive impact on children? "Gradual progress is still needed for the grading system. First popularize the knowledge of grading and classification, and first encourage and guide enterprises to create by classification without grading, and then the audience to watch by classification. It may be better to spread out comprehensively after the overall social cognition meets the requirements of the grading system and the enterprise's creative ability reaches the level required by grading." Song Lei believes that, First, we should focus on the theme. Create more works on Chinese excellent traditional culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture, and imperceptibly sort out children's cultural identity and cultural self-confidence by relying on the content of the subject matter. Secondly, we should consciously implant value orientation. Children should experience the true, the good and the beautiful through watching animation. Finally, let the animated characters play the role of behavior demonstration. Children are easy to imitate the language and action of characters in animation, so we should give full play to the behavior demonstration function of animated characters. Sometimes, animated characters say "thank you" and "excuse me" more, which may make children form the habit of being polite to others. On the contrary, if animated characters are not clean in language and rude in behavior, it is also easy for children to be adversely affected.

　　 3. The "free education" of "mobile phone shaking" can save parents' efforts, but it cannot guarantee the efficiency of children's information reception——

　　 Parents need to handle the relationship between gatekeeping and children's independent choice

"Under what circumstances will children be allowed to watch cartoons?" According to the survey results given by Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission, more than half (50.9%) of parents checked the rewards for their children who can't attend to other things and have spare time after school, and 45.6% of parents will allow their children to distract their attention when they are noisy. This "free hand education" of "mobile phone shaking" undoubtedly saves parents' energy, but cannot guarantee the efficiency of children's information reception.

This phenomenon has also been confirmed by Zhong Xiaolin. She found that in most families, if cartoon is used as a family learning method, it is a spontaneous, observation and imitation based, immersion learning method. "Therefore, such a daily learning method can hardly see the purposeful and conscious educational design of parents. In the play style learning, children are in a relaxed stage and absorb the information conveyed by cartoons with their interests gradually accumulated in their own lives."

What Zhong Xiaolin doesn't agree with is that parents have done too many purposeful, planned and introductive designs and settings when their children watch cartoons. "Cartoons can be used as a free time for children to arrange, and they can be positioned in the family's entertainment life. Children can also learn in such entertainment time," said Zhong Xiaolin. "And as children learn and grow from infancy to primary school, they will gradually form their own appreciation. From this perspective, children should have more autonomy in what kind of cartoons to watch."

"But what parents really need to do is to check the periphery of cartoons." Zhong Xiaolin believes that in the scene where parents and children watch cartoons, it is better to adopt a more compromise approach. It is necessary to respect children's choices and give positive guidance. Zhong Xiaolin often takes the approach of watching with children. For example, if the characters in the cartoon have angry words and behaviors, Zhong Xiaolin will patiently say to the children: "Is it noisy and uncomfortable to hear like this? That means this kind of behavior is wrong." "Timely downplay the bad influence to the children", which is what Zhong Xiaolin calls "participatory intervention".

"Parents need to deal with the relationship between gatekeeping and children's independent choice, properly guide children, and let them re understand and re learn the behavior scenes presented in cartoons. The most natural family education is like this," said Zhong Xiaolin. (Yang Sa)

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