quote:...and the nation that gave rise to Teletubbies is automatically three rungs ahead of everyone else on the class ladder.
Well then...
quote:The alarm bells started ringing a few years ago. I was showing a friend around my campus when we encountered a group of undergraduates absorbed in watching Teletubbies in the bar.
Normally, the sight of a group of 18- to 21-year-olds indulging their taste for a programme aimed at toddlers would not have made much of an impact on my imagination. But my then two-year-old son's attachment to these sickly-sweet characters meant that I had become all too familiar with them; and the previous evening I had made a futile effort to wean my son off the Teletubbies by offering him some more challenging visual alternatives. It didn't work - and I was struck by the thought that it wouldn't work with these 21-year-olds either.
I could have sworn that playing video games and reading comic books and watching cartoons wasn't a bad thing.... I mean, there are wayyyy worse things you could be doing with your free time. They're saying that to be an adult, you have to have NO FUN AT ALL...
quote:They're saying that to be an adult, you have to have NO FUN AT ALL...
I don't think that's what the author is saying. He's pointing out that much of what we (us twety-somethings) do reflects our lack of resposibility and our focus on ourselves. In some ways it is good to be childlike, but the idea that one should have fun all the time and that things shouldn't be difficult is not a sign of childlike innocence, but merely childishness.
Annie:
quote:Oh dear, I think I have successfully proven my status as a "kidult." Part of me wants to grow up, but I fear I am far, far from ever getting there.
Yeah. Me too.
quote:Is this a serious issue, do you think, or just a funny way to mock my childish behavior?
Well, I don't know about you, but I find it to be a serious and very personal issue. There's certainly plenty of room to play around with the subject, but on a more serious note, as I get older I find myself lacking in many "adult" areas. At times I'll go out of my way to avoid responsibility, I'll over-indulge in things that make me happy and I'll obsess over shallowness. It really bothers me how childish I am, and yet I'm so slow making any positive steps. I fear that at 40 I'll only manage to be as "adult" as I thought I'd be now.
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I fear I'm underqualified to comment on this issue, being only 18, but I think that the idea that you must do everything in moderation is a very adult way to think.
If you're doing these things in a way that doesn't interfere with your life, it's all right. If you percieve that you have a problem with responsibility, God, keep that in mind. The only way you can change it is to remember that you want to change it.
Of course, as I said, I'm rather underqualified. (Especially considering how much of my time I spend on anime... ^^; Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Amen Icarus. Most kids shows are nothing but sugar and accharine. No redeeming value at all. Sesame street is one of the exceptions.
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Do you think this whole phenomena is what is causing more educated people to have fewer kids later?
I have been thinking about this because of Christy's thread. The truth is, I don't want children at this point in my life. But, my reaction is totally visceral, I can't come up with logical reasons why I shouldn't have a kid other than the selfish, "I just don't want one and don't want the hassle." There have to be better reasons than that, but I haven't found them.
Anyway I do think parenting is probably one of the most unselfish activites in the world when done correctly.
posted
The value of Teletubbies to college students:
In my last semester of university, some of us often got to Latin class a few minutes early, as there was no class in the room just before our class met. Turning on the television to watch the Teletubbies for a few minutes served to relax us and get us in the mood for an hour of Latin. It also helped rev our senses of humor up, as our Latin professor has, shall I say, a rather warped sense of humor himself. Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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I'm going to give my carefully-thought-out reasons for enjoying children's entertainment, and naively assume I represent my demographic.
Here we go.
I was reading Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water today, which is a book of essays on faith and art. Interestingly, she also discourses on being a "children's author" in a way that I really enjoy. Children's lit (art, entertainment, etc.) in its best form is thoroughly enjoyable to adults as well because it showcases important moral values, and holds lessons for all age groups. This is why current popular movies like Toy Story are such a big hit - they don't pander specifically to any one age group and it works! They can have adult humor (let's forget the awful connotations the adjective form of "adult" conjures up these days) and be intelligent and kids still get it!
So, on to my premise:
I personally enjoy children's lit by the likes of L'Engle, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, Lewis Carroll, Frank L. Baum, and Frances Hodgson Burnett because these authors know how to tell a story and convey truth without relying on human misery and shock value to appeal to an action-loving adult audience. Similarly, there are "mature" authors like, well, OSC, Asimov, LeGuin, Dickens, Jane Austen, and even Shakespeare that can appeal to a family audience and still be highly intellectually stimulating and artistic without resorting to human misery.
And that, my friends, is why my generation is so in love with the past. We've been raised in this post-Vietnam climate of cynicism, decadence, doubt, and untrust and it's made us long for the days where things were simpler, not because people were idyllically happy and nothing ever went wrong, but because we had the faith that the good guys would be OK in the end. We long for a resolution that is lacking in the core of our culture. We may be morbidly fascinated with this postmodern mess and take dark forays into true crime and illicit nastiness, but in our hearts we want to know that there is an answer to this empty existential quandary that Sartre dumped on us. And for most of us, the way to find that is to revert to the psychic harmony (as Poe would have it) of our youth.
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Know what Icarus? I really like "Bear in the Big Blue House."
"Everybody, everywhere has to poop sometime." "If you think you have to go to the potty, it probably means that you DO have to go to the potty." -Words of wisdom from Bear
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Woa, did Bear really say that? Don't you think that's a little...um...I dunno, weird for some delusional guy in a bear suit to say on television to the audience on millions of little kids...well, bigger ones, too
"Remember, the enemy's gate is down"
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Yep...it really threw me off the first time I saw it.
More nuggets: "You look so suave and debonaire in your pair of underwear, it's time to get to know your potty chair." -Bear
"Let's see... I pooped, I wiped, I washed my hands... I forgot to flush!" -Tutter
This is my favorite! Tree-lo: Bear, why doesn't Tree-lo wear a diaper anymore? (Yes, he talks about himself in 3rd person.) Bear: Because you learned to use the potty. Let's see, I think I have a picture of you in a diaper. Tree-lo: (surprised) Tree-lo wore a diaper???
He doesn't have very good short-term memory.
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quote:And that, my friends, is why my generation is so in love with the past. We've been raised in this post-Vietnam climate of cynicism, decadence, doubt, and untrust and it's made us long for the days where things were simpler, not because people were idyllically happy and nothing ever went wrong, but because we had the faith that the good guys would be OK in the end.
Hmmm...
"Do not say, 'Why were the old days better than these?' For it is not wise to ask such questions." -- Ecclesiastes 7:10
It's interesting that you say, "this post-Vietnam climate." Do you think Vietnam specifically had such a large effect as to turn our culture into one of "cynicism, decadence, doubt, and untrust?"
As to having "faith that the good guys would be OK in the end," it seems to me that "postmodernism" gets the blame for shattering this idea. Honestly, I'm not so sure. I think the postmodern question would be, who exactly are the good guys?
If we live in a culture where the cowboys always defeat the Indians, are we labeling the cowboys as the "good guys?" Such a culture that believes that the good guys will always win in the end has to be a bit of a son-of-a-bitch, and I think, generally speaking, America is that still.
quote:We long for a resolution that is lacking in the core of our culture. We may be morbidly fascinated with this postmodern mess and take dark forays into true crime and illicit nastiness, but in our hearts we want to know that there is an answer to this empty existential quandary that Sartre dumped on us. And for most of us, the way to find that is to revert to the psychic harmony (as Poe would have it) of our youth.
You might be on to something here...
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