Too Cool for Disney
< div>On the responsibilities of giving my children
culture.
a remote South Pacific Island to protect our children from the influence of the
Power
Rangers and Pokémon . Our Tivo means that I can provide
the boys with more educational television than they can watch in a day, or even,
thanks to the joys of cable television, particularly the station, Noggin , that I could bring them up
entirely on children’s shows that I watched in the 1970′s — the Electric
Company, 3-2-1-Contact, Ghostwriter, Flipper, Little House on the
Prairie…
But without ever having seen
an episode of Power Rangers or Pokémon, I’m sure both boys could explain
the major plot points and characters of both, just from playground play. It was
strange the first time I sent Aodán to preschool and he came home singing
songs I didn’t know… up until that point I had been the filter through which
my kids got all of their culture, but the gates were opening. My objections to
these shows, and to many of the Disney movies, are at least partly aesthetic,
the bastardizing of classic stories, the moral simplifications, the portrayals
of girls as objects, the casual violence. But I guess I could take (do take)
all of these things in movies I really like. No I just had a certain pride in
not bringing up my kids on Disney.
It
has gotten easier to compromise. I can live with them playing Power Rangers
because Xander also loves to run around shouting “I am Theseus, son of Aegeus!
Die, Minotaur, die!” They have seen all the Star Wars movies, we love the Harry
Potter books, movies, video games, we are taking part in mass popular culture.
But there are quirky things thrown in there too. We watched King Kong together
tonight, Aodán cried when the ape died, and I got to hug him and talk to
him about why they would make a movie with a sad ending and who was really the
bad guy. There’s a joy to sharing with our kids the cultural artifacts we have
loved and also a joy to watching them discover their own loves, whether they are
robots and spies or talking animals or pirates. I was terribly gratified when
Aodán told me he loved riding in the car with me because he liked the
music I listen too (Tori Amos, that day) even though I know that one day he’ll
bring home music I find painful to listen to.
