Fun with Christian children's shows!
So last night I was babysitting, as usual, and I had a lot of cleaning to do (they pay me extra to tidy up the house if it's dirty fuck yeahhhhh) so I plopped the kids in front of the tv and let them watch one of their videos for an hour or so. They were just in the other room, and I was checking in on them a lot while I cleaned, so I got to see and hear some choice bits of what they were watching.
I have to say, I'm a little worried about the messages those movies were sending.
This particular DVD was part of some tv series about talking cars. The general format is this: one of the cars has a bad behavior, bad things happen, then the other cars help that one car solve the problem. It seems like a good idea at first, but the two episodes I saw were just downright terrible at teaching any kind of useful life lesson.
The first episode they saw had all of the cars taking driving school. Now for part of the driving school, they had to follow the driving rules exactly, or else they would get a ticket. This was taken up to ridiculous proportions, even going so far as to give a car a ticket for 'stepping on the grass'. So what do all the cars decide to do? They decide to make a 'no rules' club, where the only rule is that there are no rules. This goes over about as well as expected.
But how do they teach the cars that following rules is a good idea? Well, the older, mentor-car takes one of the cars to an overlook over the town, and he gives this big lecture on how the town is nice and pretty and how it's a great place to live. Then he says something like "But only cars who follow the rules can live in the city" and the younger car is like "Okay, I'll follow the rules now!" And that's it. That's the end of the episode. They don't explain why you should follow rules, or how rules are often in place to keep you safe. No, they just leave it at everyone follows the rules, so you should to. HERD MENTALITY GET
The second episode was about stealing music from the internet. They took a different approach, though, as apparently the creators didn't expect the kids watching the movies to know what the internet is. Instead they had the scientist-car invent a device that 'catches music in the air, like how a fisherman's net catches fish!' Then he calls this invention 'the net.' Really subtle there.
Most of the rest of the episode was actually pretty decent, to be honest. The mentor-car set up an idea contest, then stole an idea from another car and submitted it as his own. Then at the end he explained that he did that to show that ideas can be stolen, and that taking something without permission is still stealing, even if you think nobody will get hurt by it. Which makes sense in the context of the episode, since the cars illegally downloading music were claiming that the stores wouldn't suffer from a lack of sales, since the money they didn't spend on music would be spent on other things at the store anyway.
But what really bugged me was the final conclusion. How did they solve the problem of illegal downloads? Did they teach the cars that they had to be responsible and not use 'the net' to steal music? Did they explain that using 'the net' to preview music was okay as long as you supported the music industry by buying CDs? No, they just shut down 'the net' and went on their merry way. Instead of addressing the fact that the problem comes from within and that we need to learn self-control, they just shut down everything and got rid of the tool that was used to get the music in the first place.
It just kind of bugs me. Both of these episodes had real potential to teach a good message to kids, but they were lost underneath what actually turns out to be very bad messages. Don't understand why you should follow the rules? Well just buck up and follow them anyway, you don't need an explanation. Having trouble with using a tool responsibly? Don't even try to learn self-control, just get rid of the offending object.
I guess I just never expected that something created specifically to teach good morals would end up teaching terrible ones instead.
I have to say, I'm a little worried about the messages those movies were sending.
This particular DVD was part of some tv series about talking cars. The general format is this: one of the cars has a bad behavior, bad things happen, then the other cars help that one car solve the problem. It seems like a good idea at first, but the two episodes I saw were just downright terrible at teaching any kind of useful life lesson.
The first episode they saw had all of the cars taking driving school. Now for part of the driving school, they had to follow the driving rules exactly, or else they would get a ticket. This was taken up to ridiculous proportions, even going so far as to give a car a ticket for 'stepping on the grass'. So what do all the cars decide to do? They decide to make a 'no rules' club, where the only rule is that there are no rules. This goes over about as well as expected.
But how do they teach the cars that following rules is a good idea? Well, the older, mentor-car takes one of the cars to an overlook over the town, and he gives this big lecture on how the town is nice and pretty and how it's a great place to live. Then he says something like "But only cars who follow the rules can live in the city" and the younger car is like "Okay, I'll follow the rules now!" And that's it. That's the end of the episode. They don't explain why you should follow rules, or how rules are often in place to keep you safe. No, they just leave it at everyone follows the rules, so you should to. HERD MENTALITY GET
The second episode was about stealing music from the internet. They took a different approach, though, as apparently the creators didn't expect the kids watching the movies to know what the internet is. Instead they had the scientist-car invent a device that 'catches music in the air, like how a fisherman's net catches fish!' Then he calls this invention 'the net.' Really subtle there.
Most of the rest of the episode was actually pretty decent, to be honest. The mentor-car set up an idea contest, then stole an idea from another car and submitted it as his own. Then at the end he explained that he did that to show that ideas can be stolen, and that taking something without permission is still stealing, even if you think nobody will get hurt by it. Which makes sense in the context of the episode, since the cars illegally downloading music were claiming that the stores wouldn't suffer from a lack of sales, since the money they didn't spend on music would be spent on other things at the store anyway.
But what really bugged me was the final conclusion. How did they solve the problem of illegal downloads? Did they teach the cars that they had to be responsible and not use 'the net' to steal music? Did they explain that using 'the net' to preview music was okay as long as you supported the music industry by buying CDs? No, they just shut down 'the net' and went on their merry way. Instead of addressing the fact that the problem comes from within and that we need to learn self-control, they just shut down everything and got rid of the tool that was used to get the music in the first place.
It just kind of bugs me. Both of these episodes had real potential to teach a good message to kids, but they were lost underneath what actually turns out to be very bad messages. Don't understand why you should follow the rules? Well just buck up and follow them anyway, you don't need an explanation. Having trouble with using a tool responsibly? Don't even try to learn self-control, just get rid of the offending object.
I guess I just never expected that something created specifically to teach good morals would end up teaching terrible ones instead.