There Are Too Many Animated 'Sausage Parties'

Seth Rogen's next project is yet another sausage party. No, really, it's called Sausage Party. The movie is an R-rated animated film about a sausage's quest to find out where he came from (yes, really). The name, the medium, Seth Rogen... everything about this movie stinks of dude-bro. Rogen's projects have been their own sausage parties, and the adult animation genre is like bratwursts in Oktoberfest.

Adult animation has been a transformative and experimental genre, but the bigger it's gotten, the more it's been populated by bros. The Simpsons was (and sometimes still is) a hugely influential show, but for every Simpsons, there's at least two The Cleveland Shows or Robot Chickens. Women may be taking over the world of comedy in the movies and in TV, but when it comes to animated fare, they're nowhere to be seen. And it shows.

Some of the funniest, most creative shows exist on Fox and Adult Swim, but many adult animated shows and movies exist as man-boy fantasies, stories written by men who never really grew up. Hell, that's practically the entire plot of Ted (give or take a nagging girlfriend trope).

So where are the women and women's stories in late night animation? Some characters exist as part of larger family shows with smart and empathetic writers; that's how Lisa Simpson came out of The Simpsons and Tina and Louise Belcher came out of Bob's Burgers.

And as for women creators, they're just getting started. There's a talented women coming out of Cartoon Network's newer, weirder shows that aren't targeted to kids as much as they're accepted by kids. Rebecca Sugar, one of the biggest creative forces behind Adventure Time, has a new show called Steven Universe coming out this fall. And another female Adventure Time crew member, Natasha Allegri, created Bee and Puppycat , a cartoon web series for Cartoon Hangover that's not exactly a kid's show, but isn't outright vulgar — it's a show about a twentysomething girl thrown into the mystical world of her puppycat.

The current offerings from female animators may be few and far between, but they're well-made projects that offer a different perspective. If Cartoon Network keeps supporting shows like those, hopefully someday soon we'll see an adult animation project with fewer sausages (and fewer Seths).