No Way This Was Made for Kids?: Our Confused Ideas About Media Maturity

The scene that inspired this article comes from the Season 3 episode “Grudge Match” from Justice League Unlimited (Source: Warner Bros. Discovery).

Another day, another essay over-analyzing a social media post.

I tend to avoid the Reels section of Instagram, but one day recently, my finger slipped and rather than scroll down, I scrolled to the side. The first thing I was greeted by was a clip from Justice League Unlimited, one of my favorite childhood shows. Naturally, I watched.

The clip showed two characters, Hawkgirl and Vixen, working out together. Vixen warns Hawkgirl to be careful when lifting weights, since men tend not to like a bulky figure on a woman. Hawkgirl, sarcastically, responds that she’s “just trying to maintain [her] girlish figure.” Then, looking down at her chest, she adds, “my girlish, girlish figure.” The conversation then goes toward their views about men, and their mutual romantic rivalry over John Stewart, the Green Lantern.

On its face, Hawkgirl’s comment is a cheeky joke that most younger audience members won’t get, or just assume she’s self-conscious about her weight. For adults, it’s clear what Hawkgirl is talking about. But what I found interesting wasn’t the brief hit of nostalgia, but the comments:

“There’s no way this was meant for kids!”

“We were too young to understand!”

“How did they get away with this?”

The second reaction expresses surprise at discovering a second meaning to a joke. The third can question how television censors missed a particularly egregious moment. But the first expresses a more totalizing notion: that any hint of mature subject matter, be it a mild swear, subtle sexual innuendo, a trickle of blood, or a hint of substance use, automatically places the work in the latter category.

Before we pick this apart, we should differentiate between three ideas that are often mistaken as synonymous. There is whether a work is made for children, meaning that children are an intended or primary audience. There is whether the work is appropriate for children, meaning that children can reasonably watch and engage with the material. And there is whether it is made exclusively for children, meaning that the material is designed only with children in mind, with no consideration for older audiences. These are not the same thing.

Justice League Unlimited was a children’s animated series that could also appeal to adults. Its complex plots, mature relationships, deep characterization, violence, and occasional suggestive humor did not transform it into an adult television program.

This is hardly a novel phenomenon. Media aimed at children has included material aimed at adults while still remaining largely family-friendly for ages, going as far back as Betty Boop.

Consider three examples of cartoons that often get the “we were too young to understand” treatment. One is a one-off joke with a potentially adult double meaning, one is a deliberately risqué joke, and one is an intentional implication that adds depth to a major character’s story.

In the Powerpuff Girls episode “Super Friends,” the girls introduce their new neighbor, Robin, to their father. Bubbles tells Robin that Professor Utonium “made [them] in his laboratory by accident.” When the professor gets embarrassed, Robin reassures him by saying, “don’t worry, Professor, I was an accident too!” The shock of the revelation causes the professor’s eyes to widen in surprise.

The more blatant example comes from the episode “Canned” from Rocko’s Modern Life. In that episode, Rocko gets fired from his job and takes on a series of other jobs in order to earn money. One such job is that of a “specialty phone operator.” The audience is treated to a scene of him saying “Oh baby, oh baby” in an unenthusiastic voice while a poster in his cubicle reminds him to “be hot, be naughty, be courteous,” making it clear that his new workplace is meant to be a phone sex line. The scene ends with him recognizing the voice on the other line as someone he knows, at which point both people hang up.

These two examples demonstrate something we already know: sometimes, children’s cartoons contain adult jokes. Others, like our next case, address more serious realities without explicitly naming them because naming the reality is considered inappropriate even if hinting at it is acceptable.

A page from a leaked early show bible for The Patakis, which was turned down for being too mature for the Hey Arnold! audience. The use of phrases such as “rock bottom,” “sponsor,” and “program” make it clear that the show would make Miriam’s trait of being a recovering alcoholic much more explicit (Source: Hey Arnold! Fandom Wiki)

The Hey Arnold! character Miriam Pataki, Helga Pataki’s mother, is strongly hinted to be an alcoholic (shown in the show as “smoothies”). Miriam is portrayed as depressed, lethargic, and ditzy, and speaks in a slow and drawling voice. Unlike other examples, Miriam’s alcoholism was confirmed by Hey Arnold! creator Craig Bartlett to be intentional (in the cancelled sequel series The Patakis, Bartlett said Miriam would be shown as “twelve-stepping”), but they were unable to explicitly show her drinking given the show’s target demographics. Her alcoholism is shown from a child’s perspective, and unlike other shows that might simply have her alcoholism as part of her character, we see that Miriam’s addiction stems from deep regret over lost opportunities – she gave up her passions for swimming and bull-riding and got married at a very young age to an abrasive and misogynistic man.

Miriam’s example is the most important of the three. It is not a sexual joke, but rather shows that “adult content” can encompass serious experiences that children may encounter in their real lives. I am sure that at least some young viewers of Hey Arnold! had parents who struggled with addiction and substance abuse. Regardless, there remains a difference between recognizing something new as an adult and discovering that a show was not really intended for a child audience. A viewer’s interpretation can change with age, but this does not mean that the show’s intended audience changes with it.

Does the presence of these jokes or themes mean that The Powerpuff Girls, Rocko’s Modern Life, and Hey Arnold! are adult cartoons in the vein of South Park or Family Guy?

When we say a work is “mature,” we are expecting a single word to do the work of describing two very different dimensions. Is the work “mature” because it contains explicit sex, violence, profanity, or substance use? Or is it “mature” because it contains moral complexity, sophisticated narratives, deep themes, or a complex plot? These two dimensions – sophistication and explicitness – vary independently. Some works are straightforward and non-explicit, like SpongeBob SquarePants, others are both sophisticated and explicit, like BoJack Horseman. Some non-explicit works can be very sophisticated and some straightforward works can be quite explicit; an episode of Batman: The Animated Series tells a more sophisticated story than a typical episode of, say, Family Guy.

When I say “sophistication,” I refer to the degree of interpretive depth a work’s storytelling employs, not necessarily its artistic quality or the intelligence of its audience. Sophistication is not the same as seriousness; there are a great many sophisticated yet lighthearted works. Likewise, a serious work is not automatically sophisticated. When I say “explicitness,” I refer to what is actually shown on screen, not simply alluded to or mentioned. These two axes are not binaries; there are a great many shades of gray between simple and sophisticated and restrained and explicit. To argue otherwise would be to pretend that a single off-color joke in SpongeBob SquarePants is the equivalent of the sustained profanity, sex, and violence of Family Guy.

Explicitness refers to the directness and intensity with which a work presents sex, violence, profanity, or other potentially offensive and inappropriate material. It is also not a proxy for sophistication. Both Batman and BoJack occupy different positions on the explicitness axis, but both explore complex psychological and moral questions. Both SpongeBob and Family Guy also occupy opposite ends of the axis, but both tend to favor episodic humor and straightforward plots.

Let us return to Justice League Unlimited, and the wider DC Animated Universe of which it represents a climax. Yes, shows in the DCAU contain subtle adult jokes, intense violence, and heavy themes, but I want to focus now on its writing. The DCAU represents a high point in children’s animation writing, demonstrating that media aimed at younger audiences can explore complex themes and challenge viewers’ assumptions in a way that is still appropriate for its target audience. The DCAU is an exceptional example of children’s entertainment and is not typical of children’s television, but it demonstrates what is possible within the confines of the medium.

Children are capable of understanding serious subject matter, and the mere presence of mature themes, when handled judiciously, does not make a work unsuitable for children. In the JLU episode “Epilogue,” Batman is tasked with killing the antagonist of the episode, Ace, a young girl whose uncontrollable psychic powers threaten countless lives. But rather than just killing her off, he chooses to comfort her in her dying moments. He recognizes her fear and her stolen childhood, something he too experienced when he was young, and he held her hand so that she did not have to die alone.

In the same series, the long-running Cadmus arc explored political accountability and the dangers of unchecked power, questioning whether the Justice League’s extraordinary abilities give it too much power over ordinary humans. Neither side is portrayed as entirely beyond reproach; even the antagonistic Cadmus raises legitimate concerns about accountability, even as its methods become increasingly heavy-handed.

Finally, in the Batman: The Animated Series episode “Heart of Ice,” Mr. Freeze is transformed from a campy one-note villain with an ice gimmick into a tragic figure driven by grief over his wife and revenge against the corrupt businessman responsible for his suffering. The reinvention proved so influential that it shaped the character’s portrayal in subsequent media and earned the episode a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program.

The award-winning Batman: The Animated Series episode “Heart of Ice” ends with Mr. Freeze, in his cell at Arkham Asylum, lamenting his failure to avenge his wife. The episode demonstrated that children’s media can handle heavy topics as well as portray sympathetic villains (Source: IMDB).

Death, power, grief, and revenge are not simple subjects. Yet all three of these stories explored them in a way that children can follow without stripping them of the complexity that makes them meaningful for older viewers. A child does not have to understand everything about a story to gain something meaningful from it. Perhaps the problem is less children’s alleged inability to appreciate sophisticated storytelling. Perhaps it is our reluctance as adults to acknowledge that something intended for children is still worthy of appreciation.

Why do we say “there’s no way this was made for kids?” Perhaps we are looking for ways to legitimize our continued appreciation for media we enjoyed in our childhoods. As adults, we are encouraged to put aside childish things like cartoons, video games, and toys in favor of more “sophisticated” pastimes, so we have an incentive to reinterpret our childhood favorites in a way that reads as more “adult” to justify our continued enjoyment of them.

This is unnecessary. Adults are allowed to appreciate works that are not strictly adults-only.

I recognize that many people who interact with these posts are simply enjoying a hit of nostalgia. Others may be genuinely realizing that a joke from their favorite show has a second, adult meaning, and perhaps others are genuinely praising writing that appeals to viewers of all ages. I do not object to any of this. My objection is converting these observations into a false conclusion about the work’s intended audience.

What does it mean for a work of media to be mature? We know now that one suggestive joke does not automatically mean a TV show, movie, book, or video game is inappropriate for children. Likewise, a show being explicit in its depiction of sex, drugs, and violence does not mean it is sophisticated. Children, teens, and adults can appreciate the same work for different reasons. In fact, creating a piece of thoughtful entertainment that is still appropriate for children is, itself, an immense artistic achievement.

Just because Hawkgirl made a cheeky joke about her breasts does not mean that Justice League Unlimited was an adult cartoon. It was a show aimed at children whose writers trusted their young audience enough not to talk down to them.