Well their performance takes focus off gun matters and that may be what they are seeking to do... Alex
I've heard this sort of thing before, and it's bullshit. "Thomas the Tank Engine is an anti-capitalist, socialist diatribe! The Fat Conductor represents the government, and the trains work hard to be "Really Useful Engines" without being paid! They work purely out of fear of being killed (scrapped.) It's the classic 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' nonsense. Karl Marx would be ecstatic." "No, it's the usual liberal drivel about how rail transportation is superior to personal vehicles. Thomas is always racing road vehicles - and winning. It's a trick to get children to support liberal tax-and-spend public transportation, instead of roads that benefit everyone." The "it's a lecture about diversity" is just as much bullshit. It's a kid's show. They had an engine from Japan because the Mikado engine was well known among rail enthusiasts (and as you mention, quite a lot of people who should get out more would appreciate that.) They had an engine from India because there was an international rail show, and an international rail show using all English engines would have been stupid. They had a train from Kenya because they did a special where Thomas was traveling around the world, and he went through Africa. And again, having Thomas meet all English engines in Africa would have been stupid. And it's not just this show. Pixar movies get the same sort of clueless attacks. The Pixar movie Planes was attacked as "too PC" because they showed aircraft from around the world . . . during an around the world race. Good thing the NRA didn't decide that one of the characters was black in that show, or we'd be seeing attacks on Pixar. We live in a smaller world these days. Having a black (or female, or Indian, or Chinese) character in a show isn't "sending a message" - it's reality.
"Frozen" was about a lesbian, everybody knows that. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
It's not remotely faithful to the books. They are (were) quintessential British stories. The decision to make it international is ludicrously out of character, unnecessary and , I'm sure, motivated by message-sending. But what the books had is gone, clearly. It's now a "show" on kids' TV and that's that. Just like Winnie the Pooh.
Yep, the first animated series was different from the books. The books they made from the animated series were also different than the original books. The specials made after Mattel acquired them are different. I am sure that in the future there will be new "Railway Series" related works that will be different too. And in every iteration there was probably someone complaining about the authors "trying to push an agenda." Female trains in 1945? Feminist agenda! Why use a child's book to push that sort of political propaganda?
I am sure they did. And there were female pilots (WASPs) who ferried aircraft for the Air Force during World War II. Twenty seven died on duty - but were not given military honors at their funerals because they were women. The program was finally cancelled; politicians felt it was too 'feminist.' In the Army, the WAAC did something similar, although there wasn't much flying. They mostly ran radios at airports, 'manned' switchboards, and worked as mechanics and clerks. This went well for a while until, in 1943, a massive slander campaign against them started. The campaign against them was led by conservatives who feared social change, religious leaders who feared that this would spread immorality and sin among the troops, and politicians opposing Roosevelt's social programs. Even many soldiers opposed it, worrying that their sisters and wives would be seen as "lesbians or prostitutes" and that, in general, their manliness would be called into question if a woman could do a similar job (even if the job was fixing Jeeps.) Unfortunately, there is a long history of any increase in rights among woman and minorities being labeled as "moralizing propaganda" or "trying to send a message." They desperately needed troops - and women provided an opportunity to supplement them.
Yes,maybe you are right. I just hate to see the innocent books of my childhood turned into money-making vehicles and changed out of all recognition by people from the film industry. I'm getting old. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I have a couple of copies left of a box of Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories", in an unusual unexpurgated printing. That means with the "nigger"s left in, and Kipling's original illustrations. They are really good read-aloud stories - he had a poet's ear - and the illustrations are some of the best I know of (not a "counter fly" opinion - in their draw for children). The film industry has not been kind to Kipling's stories, neither has the revision of bad politics industry - the central problem seems to be lack of respect for writers and writing, by people who can't write and seldom read. When brought to NRA levels, it almost seems to be a species of Dunning-Kruger Effect. But I don't read the "nigger"s out loud - they'd damage the story. There is no innocence left in that word, if there ever was any.
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Isn't all literature for children supposed to carry a message? Aren't we meant to teach children our culture's values and principles?
There was, once. It is just the Latin for black after all, anglicised with two gs. And we are still allowed to say "black", at least in England. But of course, especially in the USA with slavery etc, the accretions of meaning since have made ni**er unusable*. The Just So stories were favourites of mine too, especially the Sing Song of Old Man Kangaroo, which is basically in blank verse. But they are of their time. We shouldn't read history backwards and judge Kipling by what we think today about race etc. In his day theories of racial superiority were commonplace. Kipling in fact shows great respect to all races in his portrayals of characters, and his feelings of empathy for the working man are famous, cf. his ballad "Tommy", about the common soldier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(Kipling_poem). I think Kipling is ripe for rehabilitation, as we get farther away from the Victorian/Edwardian period and feel less embarrassed about it. * My teenage son told me about a boy at school who was annoying another one (who was black) by repeating everything he said. So the black kid started getting him to say increasingly embarrassing things. Finally he said "F*** off , ni**er!" That shut him up.
It does, and we do. Inevitably. The values and principles "taught" by those who require that children find pleasure in bad, crude, bombastic, emptyheaded, manipulative, and unremittingly dull storytelling, are disturbing.
Are the children objecting to Thomas and his friends? If they don't like it, they probably won't read it.
