Monday Chat #3 – Kid Shows Take on Reality

While this is not what I promised the next episode of Monday Chat would be about, but I did go on one hell of a weird tangent this week. For these past seven days I have been looking up a bunch of cartoons and advertisements from my childhood, seeing if I recall anything that I’ve forgotten or gotten some nostalgia boost out of it. For the most part, I didn’t – I did get Heroscape, though.

And while I did not discover anything crazy from my childhood, I did discover something else… something that I could have only discovered as an adult now. And that’s the way kid show’s try to take on serious topics in order to teach kids about them.

From what I’ve seen the greatest example of this – and the first example I’ve found – is Sesame Street. Sesame Street deals with so many topics like these at the onset its kind of hilarious. I mean, canonically within the Sesame Street Universe, Elmo received PTSD at a very young age. Also, his Uncle Jack died “in the war” (what the war is we’re never actually told) which then later causes Elmo’s dad and his neighbor Ricardo (Eduardo? I don’t actually remember his name) to join “the war” and when they come back Elmo and his father’s relationship is stunted not to mention that Ricardo doesn’t have fucking legs anymore. And beyond the deployment trilogy, there’s also other small tidbits here and there – Gina is apparently given death threats for being in a mixed-race relationship, Mr Hooper (who’s store burned down, thus giving Elmo PTSD) is later found dead, and Lil Oscars father is apparently incarcerated. These revelations just lead to more questions – what is this so called war? What are its combatants? Does that mean there’s a greater world outside of Sesame Street? Is there prosthetics in the Sesameverse? What about funerals? What is Sesame Street prison like? If there’s racism and incarceration, does that mean that there’s a Sesame Street Aryan Brotherhood? Sesame Street, however, leaves these questions up to the imagination.

But when you take the videos into the context which they are actually meant to be taken, it is equally interesting. The method of trying to teach a kid about things like death or war or racism are hard for anyone to do, so it is interesting that these cartoons and other children shows have decided to step in and help in describing such things in a way kids will understand.

Sometimes they aren’t so blatant as Sesame Street, though, and are instead worked into the plot of the show itself in which the characters directly are impacted, and their responses are used as guidelines for the children watching. Such is the case in Why, Charlie Brown, Why?, where Linus’ playmate Janice is diagnosed with leukemia.

I prefer this method (though it is more difficult) because you’re enhancing the narrative while still giving people – including kids – something to think about. These serious moments in children’s TV can help teach people how to cope when dealing with a troubling situation like this while also help develop characters and story that will engage the audience.

Of course, Janice never actually appears outside of that episode. A more appropriate example in this case would be in Doug, where Doug’s crush Patti ends up falling into an eating disorder due to constant media outpouring on how the ideal female body is unnaturally slender – a problem that was very real at the time that the episode came out.

Throughout the episode Doug struggles to get help for her from other adults, though merely throw it off, also falling into the ploy of the media. This all escalates when Patti actually passes out during a track and field match, in which the previous satirized adults now take the topic very seriously. Doug in itself is full of moments like these – which may make it good for a full analysis on its own.

And, of course, this topic as a whole has more to be discussed as well. These are just three examples of such introspection in kids shows that I find the most poignant. Of course, there’s always the lighter side of cartoons to – what makes the best ones accessible to kids and adults alike – and that might be a topic for later as well. I know I’ll probably continue this binge into next week, so there might be some sort of continuation then, but for now this has been this week’s topic for Monday Chat.

Currently listening: I have spent about 90% of my listening time this week dedicated to Scum Fuck Flower Boy and my honest opinion is that it’s just as good as any of Tyler’s other albums. I’m one of the music rogues who really did heavily enjoy WOLF and Cherry Bomb (not Goblin though, we don’t talk about that) so I’m mostly just glad that most other people now have the respect for him that I already had. I honestly can’t really tell the quality difference between this and other albums he’s done, other than that the songs are much more catchy this time around. A solid 8/10, as always. Favorite songs: See You Again, Pothole, Boredom, I Aint Got Time, 911.

Currently watching: Uh… late 2000s ads? Honestly I had a bit of an existential crisis when I found out my childhood years happened then. 2007 still seems real damn recent – I mean, I guess it was, in the grand scheme of things – but I still feel pretty comfy watching them, so I guess I’ll keep doing that. In other news, Twin Peaks and Game of Thrones is tomorrow (I am once again writing this not actually on Monday). I honestly would have dropped GoT by now since the episode was in fact exactly like the leak, but the action sequence brought me up just enough that I felt some weird purgatory state with the episode itself (which really can describe my entire feeling with the show), so this time I’ve decided if I hate the next episode OR feel “meh” about it I’ll probably drop it. I also think I watched like, half an episode of House of Cards before I remembered why I dropped it.

Currently playing: Mostly been Skyrim and Age of Empires II this week. Not that I dropped Rome Total War, but as fun and hilarious as the elephants are to use it does kind of get old of being so easily able to wipe out a massive enemy army. There’s also the fact that the game crashes 66% of the time with them in it. Mistakes were made.

Currently reading: Nothing new. I am a very slow reader and all the books that I’m reading are 500+ pages – what did you expect?