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Even with the rise of cartoons like The Simpsons and South Park, there's still this idea that animation is inherently childish and "for kids" in the Western World, to the point where RICK & MORTY has been spotted in the kids' aisle at least once! This is despite the fact that Japan has never had to deal with this ghetto in the first place and shown to us so well that animation can utilized completely for adults and only adults with fabulous, succusful results, that we have weebaoos and otakus – huge anime fanbases consisting of Westerners fawning over anime, manga, and practically every piece of Japanese media – and yet, we somehow still aren't succesfully changing our own animation for the better ourselves, despite being more than capable of, and having done so a little bit before! I know that large corporations like Disney are responsible for this, having largely introduced this trend and stayed in shallow waters due to their fear of change and what it could risk for their company. But surely, they must have observed the success of large anime studios and thought "Maybe we could try that…?" first, right? I mean, with the whole 'Twist Villain' trope becoming more common in Disney stuff, you can tell that – little by little – they're trying to subvert expectations. So why not go all the way and make something primarily aimed at teens or even young adults? I know they might be nervous to rock the boat, but think of how much of a game-changer this could be if they were to succeed? Like, Disney's been around for a while. Imagine if – in a similar vein to Samurai Jack – they took a bunch of their old animated features and continued them for teens or adults, seeing as how those who watched them as children are probably grown up now? Even if it was a flop, they're well-off enough to survive it at this point. But even outside of Disney, there's gotta be SOMEbody out there who is willing to actively work to destroy this ghetto and its repressive effects on Western animation, right…?

I think the Animation Age Ghetto is slowly but surely dying. It's definitely not as bad now as it was during the late '70s through early '90s.
I'd say gens Y and Z have a more open attitude towards animation than the previous ones, especially if you see the diversity in both childrens' and adult animation, as well as more exposure to it thanks to the Internet (If you think web animation is big right now, get ready for the next five years.)
to;dr don't worry about anyone getting rid of the Animation Age Ghetto cause it's dying out by itself.

It largely depends on what the companies decide on what cartoons to make. I agree that there needs to be more animation targeted towards the teenage/young adult audience and the Internet might provide the perfect platform for that. It also depends on what an aspiring cartoon director wants to envision and present.

However, I don't think we should only be concerned with US and Japanese animation. I think European animation has a place as well, and I notice that it doesn't get as much exposure here besides Wakfu and maybe some others. I get that "Western" also encompasses Europe, but your commonly cited examples are of US production, so that's something I want to bring up.

Anyway, if this Animation Age Ghetto is slowly dying then I can only say that I'm glad the situation is improving.

Just my thoughts.

Because in the Western Collective Consciousness, in order for something to be mature it needs to involve sex. It can be as violent as it wants, but if no tiddies or asses get shown, then its just another kids thing.

Sausage Party is considered an "Adult Animation" but it's about as immature as it gets. It's about as edgy as a George Carlin album in 2018 and all of the jokes, almost universally, revolve around Sex. That's the reason people think of it as adult, because the food makes the sex and talks about the sex.

Japan, frankly, really doesn't seem to give a crap about sex. Girls have boobs, guys have penis's, these are things children in japan are taught early, and it shows in some of the jokes of their shows, or how they can draw something like a Naked Goku and not have a huge freak out over it airing on tv. It's a difference in culture where sexually explicit content is fine, but violence is the big taboo for japan. You show blood, dismemberment, any of that stuff, your shows gonna become a mature or at least teen rated show.

What this allows is, ironically enough, a more interesting and deep style of story telling. People want to hear stories of revenge, of violence, and retribution for violence, these are all elements that make for engaging conflicts in stories. This allows animes to, when they want to be mature, approach the act of Violence as the big mature point, allowing it to focus on the raw emotion behind the fighting.

Cartoons need to use violence to sell action, and so most violence is done in order to draw out the time of an episode. It robs the mature conflicts an avenue to express themselves that doesn't happen in anime. If Cartoons attempted to tell mature sexual based stories it wouldn't end well. Nobody wants to go through cartoons talking about a Rape and dealing with that as a central conflict, and neither does anime, but in the West, it'd kinda have to in order to be Mature.

I share your sentiments a lot, the animation ghetto is a cruel mistress of sorts. what people cite as adult animation is a bunch of immature shlock full of dirty jokes and toilet humor that a child would like.

and people wonder why some folks turn to anime.

now, i'm not big on overly serious shows and if a overly serious cartoons comes out, i'll barely watch it. all that entails is dumb melodrama and people dying like flies. but ya know what's funny, it didn't stop me from watching shows like castlevania or bojack. i guess they manage to execute it in a way that makes it engaging (if you have a strong stomach of course).

Okay, that’s why the ghetto is still around.

Now how the Hell do we get rid of it?!

easy, we fight against the odds and make good shit. if things like…"rwby" managed to make buck then maybe a more western, independent show could do the same.

we just have to be lucky of course.

Honestly pretty much what has already been stated in this thread: by not worrying about it.
The "Animation Age Ghetto" is dying already, no point in really worrying or complaining about it.

Though if you want a "better" answer (which knowing you of course you do), praising animation that tackle mature themes in a tactful manner is likely a good start. Yes, that includes anime, as that is kind of necessary example if you want to kill off the whole "animation is for children" attitude here in the States too, though you, specifically you I mean, shouldn't do that since you've never watched any.

I think it’s more appropriate to ask how can we accelerate the death of the animation age ghetto

You can't. Best you can do is praise animation, but that's it. Outside of that there's really no way to accelerate the death of a mentality that is extremely common place and has been around for almost a century by this point

It's not gonna take over night to change that, let alone like, 3 people on a meme site complaining about it.

We really need another Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi took risks with animation during the 70's.