The Bowes Library Corner: *Cartoons - subliminally attacking our children's relationships*

My husband loves cartoons. I’m not convinced he actually watches them, but uses them as a way of switching off from the world as the myriad of colours dance past his eyes.

Husband, eldest daughter and his brother, sister and niece watching TV

I was editing this morning and glanced up to see two interesting alien characters having a conversation about love on our TV and my husband laid on the floor with his glazed eyes trained on the screen. He used to claim the children had it on, but well...we've been on our own since the beginning of the year...with Spongebob and these colourful aliens. Just sayin'.

Ooh, this is a bit different, I thought, tuning into the two dimensional drama. It was basically a scene in which a sexy lady robot had been encouraged to have feelings for a human dressed in blue lycra with pointy ears. Without ceremony and with only a hinted at apology, the blue lycra human dumped the poor sexy robot lady, with a lame excuse and an attempt at humour. The word ‘love’ was used numerously and the poor lady was left with a fried computer component, unable to process the awful rejection.

Cut to the next scene and the sexy lady robot is exacting her revenge. She’s saved the world, turned off her emotional component and is intent on ruling a group of other robot misfits as their queen. In other words, she's throwing herself into her work.

Sucks to be you, human with pointy ears in blue lycra.

Off she flies, spitting venom and the animation of the blue guy’s face hints at guilt...but not for long.

Interesting.

So, let’s get this straight, the message to this vulnerable next generation is: when rejection comes, which it will, wrap your heart in barbed wire and wreak havoc on everyone around because you have the right.

As if that wasn’t disturbing enough, the following cartoon depicted more two dimensional people with unusual triangular faces. They were also talking about love in disturbing images.

“I don’t love my special friend anymore,” one character claimed.

“That’s ok,” said his orange friend, “cash it in and get another one.”

Oh my goodness! And we wonder what’s wrong with the world? Seriously?

Yes, as a parent I was guilty of using the TV as an unpaid babysitter while I cleaned, ironed and prepared meals as the mother of four children under four with a husband who worked odd shifts. Fortunately for me, although I didn’t think so at the time, our house was freezing during the winter months and the only place I could take my coat off was the living room, which was heated by an open fire. So when the weather outside was the wrong side of unpleasant and playing in the snow not something anyone wanted to do for more than half an hour, I sat with my cartoon-watching children and peeled potatoes into the washing up bowl and breastfed.

I’m embarrassed now when I remember thinking Johnny Bravo was more hot than jerk (yeah, I know) and that Ed, Ed and Eddie were actually funny. I sat through cartoon Spiderman and non-cartoon versions of other things which we all still remember fondly. The Queen’s Nose, The Worst Witch, yeah I had my fill. Choked off, would be more accurate.

Follow link below to see more cartoon memes

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/8d/8ded210a02269ef16b65132e791be442a7f185b8e739b749558bdc623504c96f.jpg

I can’t watch so much as a Disney movie now and dread having grandchildren that want to go to the movies instead of making brooches, painting pictures or chalking outside on the pavement to play hopscotch. But I’ll deal with it when it comes. I’ll be that grandma!

Maybe cartoon makers back when my children were young made as much effort to subliminally alter their view of life and what’s more worrying, is they probably succeeded without me realising. Would I, as an exhausted mother who probably hadn’t enjoyed an unbroken night’s sleep for four years, actually notice some cartoon character making free with my children's view of life, love and friendship?

Nobody said it would be easy

No way.

I was just glad of the chance to have my own thoughts for a moment before the next onslaught of tears, snot or poo.

What I watched this morning was worrying.

Does anyone care that the next generation is being influenced by hidden messages which attack the nature of relationship, whether it be between family, friends or potential spouses?