Nice attempt to distort my words, but that's not what I said. If that were the case, then I wouldn't have a problem with Ratatouille winning the Oscar because it has a "message," too.
What I said (or, at least, what I meant) was that Persepolis is an animated movie that does something visibly DIFFERENT from the usual fluffy stuff that comes out of Disney and DreamWorks and Sony. It's an animated film that's biopic and social commentary and has a real, honest-to-goodness PG-13 rating because there's some real tough stuff in there. It's something I'd let some kids watch (depending on the kid), but it's not aimed at kids and there isn't going to be merchandising for it. It also happens to be a terrific piece of HAND-DRAWN animation (or at least as hand-drawn as anything is these days).
I would like to reward all of those things because I'd like to see more of that. Judging by how many people here say that they wish "cartoons weren't just for kids," and also complain that CGI is taking over the world, I didn't think I was alone in thinking that way.
-- Ed