Episode 114 - Children's TV Shows With Horrifying Implications

[JulyDiaz 2797]

Last week on the site, Daniel O'Brien told us why Pinocchio was a

about a monster-boy thrust into existence by a bumbling old man who probably shouldn't be anyone's legal guardian. To become a real boy, he's expected to prove himself brave, truthful and unselfish. But he's like, 30 seconds old, how would he know anything about that? None of us have these virtues and we're not wooden little puppet-devils.

 

Inspired by last week's video, Jack O'Brien, Daniel O'Brien and Soren Bowie sit down for a conversation about the ways children's entertainment was either secretly horrifying, or simply giving us awful life-lessons. They talk about how the Nickelodeon shows of the 90s led to a generation of depressed loners, JK Rowling's subtle misanthropy, how the early Disney princesses were awful representations of women, and how Winnie the Pooh set back how we deal with mental health.

[belovedleader 9]

It's funny when you guys get to talking about how the hard-working team in some young adult movies (Karate Kid, Mighty Ducks) don't win even though they worked hard. I wanted to shout oh! oh! and raise my hand because all Pixar movies actually share the opposite theme. In all Pixar movies, if you work hard and do your job well, then everything works out okay. All their movies could be re-titled (boringly) as "How to be a good toy", "How to be a good monster" or "How to be a good metaphor for a juvenile brain" (It's almost as if the writers live in some heavenly work campus where everything is great as long as you're at work and doing your job.)