“Just for kids” is a phrase that everyone has heard at some point or another. It’s often used to dismiss the quality of a piece of content that’s considered “immature” or “inferior” just because it can be watched by people of all ages. Personally, I’m reminded of this phenomenon every time I try to watch classic Christmas movies, like How the Grinch Stole Christmas or The Charlie Brown Christmas, but this phrase isn’t exclusively contained to them. This occurrence even applies to highly acclaimed media like Pixar movies. Ratatouille and The Incredibles are adult projects, but are limited because animation is more typically associated with children. All of these are enormously successful movies, but they’re often looked down upon because they’re “just for kids”.

Why do we instinctively turn our nose at something simply because it’s available to all age groups? In the case of shows like Dora the Explorer and Thomas the Tank Engine, this makes sense. These programs intentionally target infant viewers by talking down to their audiences, like asking them where the map is even though anyone over three years old knows where it is. These can be painful to watch because no one wants to feel like they’re being talked down to.

However, there’s a distinct and very important difference between shows like Thomas the Tank Engine and The Charlie Brown Christmas Special. Charlie Brown never talks down to its audience. It never feels like the directors of the show thought “maybe we should simplify this for the kids.” They never limit their creativity based on the limited understanding of a kid. They just want to make a short film that appeals to ALL age groups, which happens to include small children.

Yes, there’s a lot of physical comedy that a lot of young children happen to enjoy, but it’s not the only humor the creators include. The kids in Charlie Brown don’t talk about frivolous school-related issues, like what Sally said to Harry and vice versa. They discuss really relatable problems, like love, loss, not understanding why you’re sad, or being the outsider in a group. These problems don’t feel like they’re exclusive to kids. They’re what many people experience as daily life.

The music in all Charlie Brown specials reflect this as well. Vince Guaraldi, the composer for every Peanuts short, didn’t simplify any of his jazz music so that it would be better appreciated by the children he knew would be watching his short. If you look at the chord structures and melodies in the music of Charlie Brown, they feel just as intricate and complex as most jazz standards made at the time. It’s not as if those jazz standards were dismissed as being “just for kids”.

Pixar is similarly famous for refusing to compromise their creative vision just because they know kids will watch their films. The best example of this, in my opinion, is The Incredibles. In reality, The Incredibles is not just a superhero movie. The superhero movie is masquerading behind a complicated family drama about a man who is no longer happy with his life. It’s a perfectly interwoven story that just happens to appeal to children as well. It’s clear that the writers intended to make a story that would be good, regardless of the age group that would be watching it. And yet, for all the accolades and praise this movie got, a lot of people discredit it as being for kids because the intricacies are lost in the superhero backdrop. If anything, The Incredibles is more of a story for adults, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Even if the argument is that The Incredibles is for kids, what’s so wrong with that? What makes kid content so repulsive that no one wants to watch it? My theory? It’s pride. There’s an unconscious phenomenon that all of these pieces of media are a victim of: people want to move away from what they did in the past. Since humans change so drastically over long periods of time, it creates a constant feeling that we have to move away from the things we’ve done in the past. From the beginning of a lifetime all the way to the end, humans change in almost every possible way. Because of this, it’s only natural that people want to move away from the things that defined their childhoods; they consider themselves completely different people now. 

Although this makes sense psychologically, I want to challenge that perspective. Knowing that this bias exists is precisely the reason why everyone should ignore it, because it has nothing to do with the actual quality of the content. There’s obviously nothing wrong with not liking The Charlie Brown Christmas Special or The Incredibles or even Lego, but the excuse that they’re just for kids doesn’t hold any water. Even if someone truly believes that a piece of media was specifically made for children, it’s not a valid excuse because they’re not judging the content. They’re simply saying that it’s made for kids and therefore inferior, which is a weak argument. So the next time you watch something that’s supposedly “just for kids”, remind yourself that you don’t have to exclusively watch content that’s “just for adults” either. Just watch what you enjoy.