I have an idea where most people might fall on this but hey you might surprise me. I'm surprised by a lot of people's reactions to this.
Is there anyone who hasn't heard this phrase? Even if not said to you, you've heard people say it? "It's just a cartoon" (or insert whatever media you're talking about). Now, this is fine if it's coming from people who aren't really into the media you're talking about. They don't get the appeal. They don't understand why you're so interested in it. No, what gets me, is when creators say it.
It is most often cartoon creators who says this. I've seen it on panels and online Q&A ect. Someone asks a perfectly reasonable question about world building or character development or glaring plot hole (and I do mean a reasonable question to the right person, I'm not including assholes who do things like bug voice actors about tiny world building details like why does this crop grow when it shouldn't be able to?) and the creator's response is "it's just a cartoon stop taking it so seriously" and to laugh.
This is rarely from shows that are purposefully nonsensical, either. No one is questioning how Phineas and Ferb do their shit. This response is overwhelmingly from creators of shows who want an adult or more mature audience and want to be seen as more mature and taking on mature and supposed controversial topics. They want to be a great epic, just animated and want to deal with things like LGBT topics, trauma, discrimination, war ect. Things like RWBY, SU and Voltron being the most controversial (and annoyingly loud) recent examples of this, but I'm sure there are others more recent. It just seems very disrespectful to your fans to say "take us seriously enough to give us you're money and accept we're a boundary pushing mature show, but how dare you expect quality".
Is there anyone who thinks we should just accept these are cartoons and therefore shouldn't expect quality? We should just shut up and accept these things? Or do you guys see "it's just a cartoon" as a cheap and pretty insulting excuse for lack of quality?