# Are some genres "for kids"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 18, 2021, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228 "2021-02-18T14:18:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/21 "2021-02-18T19:34:33Z")
Being an adult means having to do to things even if they are not enjoyable. It does not mean that you may not do things purely for enjoyment. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/22 "2021-02-18T19:41:51Z")
I agree with this quite strongly. There, IMO, certain things that qualify you as an emotionally and mentally mature adult. Liking super heroes or cartoons or action figures are immaterial. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/23 "2021-02-18T21:15:51Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > But science fiction, fantasy, and superhero stories have become so mainstream in the US that they comprise a significant chunk of our storytelling–and probably the majority of our mythical storytelling (outside of explicitly religious circles). While they were once more geared toward children, my impression is that these three genres are much wider than that today. I’m not sure I agree that they were historically aimed at children - for example, Frankenstein & The Invisible Man are sci-fi (or were at their time). Those aren’t children’s stories. Superhero stories feel like myths which weren’t solely for children. There are specific works in various genres that are clearly for children, but not the genre as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/24 "2021-02-18T21:30:51Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > I’m not sure I agree that they were historically aimed at children - for example, Frankenstein & The Invisible Man are sci-fi (or were at their time). _More_ geared toward children. This has been true at some points in our history, but not all. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/25 "2021-02-18T21:47:28Z")
I’ve always loved that quote. I recently did a re-read of the Narnia books and noticed a distinct parallel between it and the dedication to his goddaughter, Lucy, for whom he wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It reads: > [@](#): > > My Dear Lucy, > I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say but I shall still be > > your affectionate Godfather,” And, true enough, when she ended up confined to a hospital bed with MS for the last years of her life, her brother would come visit and read the book to her over and over again. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/26 "2021-02-18T22:23:11Z")
I’ve found a curiously pervasive belief that ‘cartoons are for children’- I get a lot of books and cheap DVDs second hand from charity shops. These often, in the UK, have a separate section for kids stuff- the number of times I’ve pulled stuff like [Viz comics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viz_(comics)) and anime cartoons that are clearly labelled as rated for 15 or even 18+ from the midst of the Paw Patrol and the like is quite impressive. I actually volunteered at a charity bookshop for a few years, and found a staff member who was doing it there- she was very confused at my telling her that she really needed to start checking what she was putting on the children’s shelf, after pulling a set of Viz annuals off there, because they were _comics_, of course they were for children. I had get her to read one, and I think all she took from it was that some people are disgusting and disguise adult material as harmless fun for kids. Mind you, I also had the same staff member come up to me once and tell me, with a confused look on her face, that she’d just sold a sci-fi novel to an adult woman. Watching her try to backtrack when I pointed out that I was the person who managed the sci-fi section, and the book she’d just sold was one of my favourites was pretty funny. It’s not the genre, it’s what you do with it that counts. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/27 "2021-02-18T22:30:42Z")
Science fiction and mystery and so on are literature. As are historical dramas and Shakespeare and whatever else you care to include. Sure, some elitists think that there’s some distinct category of “literature” that most writing never achieves, but those folks are wrong, and their opinions are not worth entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/28 "2021-02-18T22:32:34Z")
I think China Mieville coined the term [mimetic literature](http://urchin.earth.li/~twic/cgi-bin/wiki/view.pl?page=MimeticFiction), a not-especially-popular genre in which everything that happens could plausibly happen in the real, modern world. It has a small but rabid fan base, with university departments and everything. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/29 "2021-02-18T22:51:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > As are historical dramas and Shakespeare and whatever else you care to include. Of course, Shakespeare is full of ghosts, witches, fairies, and so on in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, MacBeth, Hamlet_ and others. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/30 "2021-02-18T23:44:03Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Genre is mostly for entertainment. Literature is mostly for higher values. That’s mostly true, and says nothing. Is entertainment strictly for kids and childish adults? What are these higher values and who gets to say that they’re higher? > [@Chronos](#): > > Science fiction and mystery and so on are literature. As are historical dramas and Shakespeare and whatever else you care to include. The distinction that Exapno may have been trying to draw is between **entertainment** on the one hand, and… there isn’t a good, universally-accepted word, but **literature** or **Art** on the other hand. The way I think of it, entertainment value is what you gain from a work _while_ you’re experiencing it. The other kind of value (literary value, or artistic value, or whatever you want to call it) is what you take away from it after it’s over: it’s how you benefit from _having seen/read_ it. Some works offer both kinds of value. But anything, to be worth reading/watching, has to have at least one or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/31 "2021-02-18T23:54:41Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I think China Mieville coined the term [mimetic literature](http://urchin.earth.li/~twic/cgi-bin/wiki/view.pl?page=MimeticFiction), He says he loves the term, implying that it was already around. It’s probably about 50 years old because I remember seeing it when the first generation of interested academics started making the case for science fiction as a teachable literature back in the 1970s. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/32 "2021-02-19T00:10:05Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > Frankenstein & The Invisible Man are sci-fi (or were at their time). Nope. This is purely back-formation, applying modern terminology to books whose authors and readers had no such notions and would have fought them fiercely if they heard them. There are thousands of examples of what today are usually called proto-science fiction, but when they were written were merely stories with a scientific idea\* that drove that plot. They ran next to regular stories in regular magazines and garnered no especial comment unless they were unusually well done. They didn’t even have a name until the late 19th century when some called them scientific romances (when a romance was another term for an adventure story). Nobody thought of them as a specialized or separate genre of fiction. Hugo Gernsback really did create the genre of science fiction with stories in his Science and Invention magazine leading to Amazing Stories. But that wasn’t until the 1920s. \*And it’s stretching things to say that Frankenstein has a scientific idea. The creation scene takes place offpage and gives no hint of how it’s done, although Shelley surrounds it with sufficient natural philosophy that people backform a scientific aura that is nowhere in the book. The creature may as well be a golem or an enchanted statue, as in previous stories about the non-living coming alive. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/33 "2021-02-19T00:46:52Z")
And the swordsmiths of Damascus didn’t have any clue what vanadium was, and yet we can still recognize that that’s the element that made their blades so special. Just because the first examples of a genre didn’t realize that they were a genre doesn’t mean they weren’t part of it. Your argument could be extended to inductively prove that there was no work that was the first science fiction work, because if there were a first, the genre didn’t exist before it, and if there was no first work, there is no science fiction at all. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/34 "2021-02-19T00:55:36Z")
My friends, I have the perfect case study. **Sr. Weasel** is obsessed with the X-Men. His love started in his youth, with comic books, and the comics grew with him. Whenever there’s a lull in conversation that’s where his brain defaults. I admit that, even though I enjoy comics, I don’t fully understand what spurs a grown man to fill his home with action figures. We have five full - sized posters framed on our living room wall. Jane Foster’s Thor, Storm v. Colossus, a Sentinel, The Dark Phoenix, and for myself, She-Hulk. Childish, right? But this man is very much an adult. He’s a child clinical psychologist who specializes in OCD and tic disorders. He is responsible for most of the household revenue, he is running his own business, and he’s a conscientious spouse and father. He has sooooo many spreadsheets. He’s one of the most “adult” people I know. So, I asked him. It went like this: Me: I have a question that I will almost certainly regret asking. Him: _jumps up and down on the balls of his feet_ Please let it be about X-Men. Please let it be about X-Men! Me: (sigh) It’s about X-Men. What about the X-Men appeals to you _as an adult_? After a 90-minute conversation (sigh), I have synthesized his responses for our edification. - Relates to the profound sense of alienation and rejection based on personal identity (linked to experiences as an adolescent, mostly for being a nerd) - Pushes him to think more critically about social justice issues, including race and gender. Example given: The moment he discovered that “Xavier is Martin Luther King, Jr. and Magneto is Malcom X” parallel was ignorant and reductionist spurred him to develop a more nuanced understanding of MLK and other racial justice leaders - The X-Men put the lie to the idea that “the arc of the moral universe bends always toward justice.” Out of all the Marvel characters, the absolute worst things happen to the X-Men because of who they are. Evil often triumphs. Relates this to being liberal in real life and watching evil triumph despite our best efforts. - Even when the X-men set aside a whole country (Krakoa) and just want to be left to themselves, people still hunt them down just to fuck with them. They will forever be hated for what they are and they will never be able to escape persecution (reflects reality.) - BUT despite this bleak reality, the serial nature of comics gives us always another chance to dust ourselves off and fight again\*\*\* - The X-Men take a very clear and consistent stance on right vs. wrong. Discrimination based on immutable identity is wrong. Always wrong. - The thing that sets the X-Men apart - their unique abilities - is also their greatest strength. He admits this is a bit juvenile but still feels good to read - The women are incredibly powerful. Enjoys that throughout its history as a comic run, X-Men has gotten a lot of things right including women with a high degree of agency. Enjoys critiquing what they have gotten wrong. (Can confirm: Storm is a _badass_.) - Pure escapism \*\*\*I relate this to Derrick Bell’s assertion that despite the inevitability of white supremacy, “in the struggle lies liberation.” The X-Men reflect how the struggle for justice is, in itself, liberating (that’s MY observation.) You could argue that one or two of these things are a bit adolescent, but this strikes me as a pretty sophisticated and adult analysis overall. * * * Besides, I write fiction. _Science fiction romance_, the two ‘‘lowest’’ genres combined. Being a writer is basically playing in a sandbox. My action figures live on paper. So I have room to talk. And I take my writing just as seriously as he takes his X-Men - that’s the subject _he’s_ afraid to bring up. In my personal opinion, the best literary fiction is the best genre fiction. Even stuff like Dickens’ _Bleak House_ fits the crime genre. When someone can deliver a nail-biting, page-turning plot imbued with depth and meaning and meditations on the human condition, I am _sent._ ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/35 "2021-02-19T03:20:09Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > The women are incredibly powerful. But not so great with the tools. [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/UJ5zz.jpeg "Jean Grey is terrible at identifying hardware tools (Uncanny X-Men #28)") ](https://imgur.com/UJ5zz) ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/36 "2021-02-19T03:22:11Z")
Yeahhh we kinda pretend nothing happened before _Giant Size X-Men._ But if you haven’t seen Storm in a mohawk shank Callisto and then _with no powers whatsoever_ wrest leadership from that asshole Cyclops, ooh, you’re missing out! ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/37 "2021-02-19T04:38:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Science fiction and mystery and so on are literature. _Some_ science fiction and mystery and so on are formulaic. And _formulaic_ genre fiction may be entertaining, but it generally doesn’t have much of lasting value, much that you can’t get from dozens of other things written to that same formula. Which I suspect is part of why genre fiction is often looked down upon, although not all genre fiction is formulaic. And which is, as far as I can tell, a totally separate issue from what age audience it is for. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/38 "2021-02-19T05:10:34Z")
I think it is relevant because the original claim was that genre fiction is juvenile because it lacks depth. I guess it depends on how we define formulaic. All stories signal to the reader in some manner what they should expect from the book they are reading, and good writing rewards the reader by giving them what they expect in a way they didn’t expect. I’m reading this book by George Saunders called _A Swim in A Pond in the Rain._ It’s a close analysis of Russian short stories. Chekhov et. al. _Literary_ fiction. You can see all the ways the author manipulates the reader and lays the groundwork for what is to come. A former mentor preaches that genre fiction came to a “surprising but inevitable” conclusion, but is that not what Chekhov delivers in _In the Cart_? It couldn’t have ended any other way. (spoiler! It’s depressing.) I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. What’s the difference between Chekhov and, say, a romance novel? In the right hands, maybe nothing. Maybe it just really comes down to skill. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m still pondering. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/39 "2021-02-19T12:01:57Z")
When Robert Redford was asked to be in _Captain America The Winter Soldier_, he was reluctant, because in his mind comic book superhero films were something he dismissed as not his kind of thing, childish if you will. He had an outdated idea of what they were, not seeing what they had evolved into. But then when the Directors told him it was actually an espionage story, he saw a way in, as it was the kind of movie he had done many times before. Genres are just settings, neither for a particular generation, nor against. The stories they tell are what matters, and they are timeless, able to fit anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2021, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228/40 "2021-02-19T12:41:20Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > When Robert Redford was asked to be in _Captain America The Winter Soldier_, he was reluctant, because in his mind comic book superhero films were something he dismissed as not his kind of thing, childish if you will. He had an outdated idea of what they were, not seeing what they had evolved into. But then when the Directors told him it was actually an espionage story, he saw a way in, as it was the kind of movie he had done many times before. Speaking of Redford, consider westerns: you _can_ do a kid-friendly white-hat-vs-black-hat story, possibly with singing cowboys doing rope tricks; but you can also do an Oscar-nominated drama built around shades-of-grey characters — just like you could do a movie with plenty of light comedy, and do another movie as a brutal tale of rape and revenge. Sure, they’d all feature quick-draw gunslingers who ride around on horseback and ain’t never heard tell of an aircraft carrier; but there’s no mistaking a William Witney serial about the adventures of Red Ryder for Quentin Tarantino’s signature schtick. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-genres-for-kids/933228.md?page=3)