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Where Are All The College-Set TV Series?
'Grown-ish,' 'Dear White People' and 'Deaf U' are TV shows set at college. Showrunners and execs posit why so few such series exist.
variety.com
I found this interesting article about the rarity of college settings in television shows, so I figured this would be an interesting topic to talk about in animation. Let me explain.
For any show that has a school setting, you often have somewhere between preschool to third grade (preschool shows), elementary to middle school (most TV-Y7 rated shows though PG shows can also have this), or high school (most TV-PG shows, though TV-Y7 shows can also have this). What about college settings though? How often do you have a college setting play a huge role in a show? The answer is not that much. Most kids shows generally don't go beyond high school at most. Heck, even adult shows don't go beyond high school (like with Family Guy) or it shows the characters already out in the world and trying to get by in life (like Close Enough, which focuses on young adults with their similarly aged friends and their kindergarten aged daughter).
I think there are a few exceptions, but they do have some wrench thrown into them. One is Winx Club, a show that does take place at Alfea College, and the characters are about 16-17 for the most part. However, it's worth noting that the show is made in Italy, meaning that it's probably more normal for 16 year olds to go to college compared to America where the minimum is usually 18. Plus, Winx Club is a magical girl, action show about fairies, something that's probably less difficult to market than a straight college show.
A character example would be Isabel on Elena Of Avalor, where she attends some college classes starting in "Class Act", but it only shows up a few times. Plus, she's also a child, and it's explicitly mentioned how she's much smarter than kids her own age, as in elementary school, where she usually goes to school.
You could also see this in The Loud House, where Lori has had less screentime due to being in college, and many of the "oldest sister" conflicts have been given to Leni.
I want to bring up some interesting quotes from this article that might explain why showing college in television (and for the sake of this thread, also animation) is rare.
"While many audiences are comfortable in the recognizable settings of high school hallways and white-collar cubicles, college campuses may not be as appealing or intimate, especially for those who haven’t attended university."
"Additionally, “Grown-ish” showrunner Julie Bean says college-age adults often experience internal conflict, based on ideological growth and existential reckoning, which can be difficult to portray on screen in an accurate and compelling manner. In high school settings, however, visually interesting drama is ripe for the picking."
“It’s very easy to do a fish-out-of-water story in high school,” Bean says. There’s a “protected bubble of college, sort of this utopia that you live in for those four years, that people just think, ‘Well, there’s not enough conflict there’ or, ‘What are the stories you’re going to tell besides the love stories or the partying? College is going to class, drinking, partying and so forth.’”
What do you think though? Why is college a rarity in animation? What do you think could be done about it?