Abstract

A large body of knowledge and literature suggests that philosophy is an integral part of storytelling. There is not however, research done on specific philosophical ideas that are present within storytelling, and in this case adult animation. This research's main task was to examine several shows through the philosophical lens of truth to determine whether or not it was present in modern adult animation. The sample consisted of 5 shows with high ratings on rotten tomatoes(A critic review site) and IMDB(A media database). The shows were then analyzed with the content analysis method and coded for key events that reflected truth. The findings were in overwhelming support of my hypothesis with 4 out of the 5 shows containing evidence of truth and two conclusions were drawn. One - Character driven narratives are more likely to have embedded philosophy, Two - relative truth is the most central form of truth that occurs in adult animation. With further research it would be interesting to see if the conclusions drawn within this research stay constant with a larger more genre varied sample size.