Have you ever noticed that animated media like movies and TV shows as well as video games are becoming uglier? Just look at TMNT Mutant Mayhem and the upcoming TV series, Tales of the TMNT. And of course, that ugliness is leaking into the realm of toys and action figures as well. In my opinion, what makes ugliness truly nefarious is when it goes beyond just an art style or an aesthetic choice. Of course, ugliness has always been around to an extent. I mean, at the very least, ugliness has been around ever since I was born… haha... But seriously, I want to make it clear that the fact that some people or things are ugly isn’t really the problem here. The problem is really ugliness being presented as something that’s positive. And we’ll go over that distinction in this video.
Nowadays, it seems like ugliness is prevalent to the point where it is not included in media for a specific artistic, symbolic, or otherwise meaningful intent; rather, ugliness is included and even replacing beauty for the sake of ugliness. Ugliness is being included just to include ugliness. And more deeper than that, ugliness is being exalted as a sort of virtue that must be celebrated by taking a center stage in all forms of media.
As I said earlier, there are essentially two ways that ugliness can be included in media, particularly animated media and video games. The first one we’ll talk about is one that has existed since the dawn of art itself: ugliness with a purposeful and meaningful intent.
Until very recently in history, art has been associated not only with the skill and craft required to produce great works of art, but also the beauty of the artwork itself. Beauty has primarily been the way that humans judge the quality of a piece of art. The amount of effort and work you put into a piece of art is completely irrelevant if it’s not perceived as beautiful, which I concede can be subjective.
But you have to look at it this way. If it takes you three years to meticulously craft a crude drawing of sanic the heghog, it still won’t be as good as the Statue of David, which took only two years to craft. How the beauty of the end product is perceived by the audience is really what matters.
Okay, so why am I telling you all of this? It’s for one very important reason: traditionally speaking, an artist would not go out of their way to make their art ugly unless there was a very specific artistic, symbolic, or otherwise meaningful reason for it. If the purpose of art is to make beautiful things, then if you make something ugly on purpose, then there must be another layer to your art to further enhance the overall beauty of it.
For example, ugliness can be used to portray evil. Since ugliness was universally understood as not virtuous, it’s an easy way to portray something or somebody as evil. I mean, look at the The Queen of Hearts in Disney’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, for a juvenile example.
Another good example of ugliness being used with artistic intent is the beauty and the beast trope. The beast is an ugly, brooding, and often mean character. And the beauty, representing virtue, is kind, caring, and morally good. The beauty, being the virtuous one, brings out the good in the beast. And in the actual tale, the beast is turned into a handsome man, so the moral good is not only taken out of him, but the physical ugliness is taken out of him too, which further drives home the point that ugliness and vice go hand-in-hand like beauty and virtue.
The beauty and the beast trope can also be used as a way to contrast the physical ugliness of the beast to highlight the beauty of the… "beauty" character.
And of course, there are other ways to meaningfully utilize ugliness in art. Throughout the 1990s, ugliness was often used in animation for comedic purposes. Think of cartoons like Ren & Stimpy and Cow and Chicken. These shows were ugly as hell, and obviously the cartoonists and animators behind them were well aware that they were ugly, because they were ugly on purpose.
These were shows that were meant to entertain or make you laugh; in the same way medieval jesters dressed up in ridiculous and ugly outfits, these cartoons were intentionally ugly to make them funnier or sillier.
Of course, this concept is certainly revolutionary in a way. Nothing about these shows is necessarily beautiful; however, the very premise of the art direction that ugliness is funny is still a deferment to the traditional notion of beauty. They are willingly forgoing beauty to make you laugh, which is still a recognition that ugliness is not beauty.
And in a similar vein, there is one example I used in the thumbnail which is especially relevant to the TMNT, and that’s the fuggler toys. I personally don’t have a problem with the fugglers because they are supposed to be funny. They are ugly in an artistic and comedic way. The name “fuggler” comes from the slang “fugly” which means “fucking ugly.” It’s like a self-aware joke, and I can get with that.
And that sort of ugliness is very much unlike the second, and more recent, inclusion of ugliness in media, which is to include ugliness for the sake of ugliness.
Modern movies, TV shows, and video games are becoming uglier because ugliness is being included just for the sake of including ugliness.
An obvious example that I’ve talked about on this channel before is the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, Mutant Mayhem. All of the characters are purposefully ugly. They aren’t ugly to make a deeper point about beauty, they aren’t ugly to make a deeper point about virtue, and they aren’t ugly for any comedic or otherwise meaningful reasons.
And more recently, they doubled down on this by race swapping Agent Bishop from a conventionally attractive white male into an ugly black female for the sake of diversity and inclusion in the upcoming Tales of the TMNT show. And I want to clarify that I don’t mean she’s ugly because she’s a black woman. There are a lot of beautiful black women. No, I mean that they made Agent Bishop ugly, and she happens to be a black woman now. It’s kind of weird that they are going out of their way to make black women appear ugly, but that’s beyond the point of this video.
Let’s go back to the April O’Neil character — your eyes do not deceive you, she is indeed ugly. She is a bulbous monstrosity. But you’re not supposed to laugh at her. And no, she doesn’t become a beautiful princess in the end. You’re not even supposed to acknowledge that she’s ugly. You’re supposed to ignore what your eyes are telling you and believe that the ugliness that you see in front of you is actually beautiful.
In the movie, Leonardo literally calls her beautiful. And that’s not supposed to be a comedic moment. In a sane world, that would literally be the punchline, because April is obviously not beautiful. But no, that wasn’t the intention. We are meant to believe that the new April is beautiful.
And I’m sure you haven’t missed that women in video games are becoming uglier and uglier. There are countless examples. And it’s not just because technology is getting better, and so video game characters are becoming more realistic, and thus, uglier. Look at Japanese video games — they can still make attractive characters. Video game characters by American and European developers are being made ugly on purpose. It’s deliberate. But as with the Mutant Mayhem example, it’s not for any deeper meaning. It’s literally just to include ugliness.
One of the latest examples of this was with Pokémon Go. Everybody’s avatars were changed to weird, ambiguously gendered, flat, and frankly, ugly, avatars. All of the hips are gone, the hands were all made uniformly masculine, and so on. And why did they do that? Why did they make the avatars uglier? Would you believe me if I told you it was to make trans people feel more comfortable? Well, the developer did partner with an LGBT consulting firm for video games called GaymerX. I’ll let you decide if that piece of information is relevant or not.
But outside of the Pokémon Go situation, the motives of the animation and video game industries at large are crystal clear: ugliness is being included for the sake of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's not a secret. Developers and consulting firms brag about including more body types in video games all the time, as one example. And that’s not to mention all of the racial and gender stuff thrown into the mix.
To answer the title of this video, your movies and video games are becoming uglier because there is a deliberate attempt to make them uglier for the sake of diversity and inclusion. This is nothing more than an assault on beauty and the virtues that civilization has relied upon for thousands of years.
