Accordions and Full House
So, I was exhausted all day at work today. I felt really sick. My back hurt (it still does). But, here it is, 2:30 in the morning, and I cannot sleep. Instead of sleeping, I am attempting to learn how to play my accordion. Which, by the way, is very difficult. But I think I'm getting the hang of it. However, I SHOULD BE ASLEEP.
Maybe it's the caffeine.
Anyway, I don't know why this came up in my mind, but I've noticed that certain episodic themes are repeated over and over again in cartoon shows and stupid, corny family shows, like Full House or Step by Step. One of these themes is the one where there is a day at school when the parent comes in and talks about his (it's almost always the father) job. However, there are always parents there who have more exciting jobs than him. The rest of the episode deals with either the father's shame or the child's shame, or both. Then it resolves itself; one or the other comes to terms with who one or the other is.
Another equally insipid one is where there is a family-counseling project and two students have to look over an egg or a sack of flour or something, and pretend it is a baby. They then have to keep the baby healthy and pretend to be married, the goal being to teach them (I assume?) responsibility, and maybe how to deal with other people in a respectful manner. It could also be to scare them away from having sex by showing them how hard it is to raise a child -- but I think that kind of depth and sophistication go far beyond what these kind of shows are actually capable of. At any rate, the children almost invariably put the egg-child into horrible, dangerous situations, and sometimes even destroy the egg. They fear they will fail, but end up passing anyway.
What I was wondering is: do these kind of things actually happen in real life? Are there really egg-child experiments / assignments? Are there really "come talk about your job" days at school? I know I personally have never done any of these things, and I don't know anyone who has. Are these things based on real events, or were they just made up by some TV person long, long ago, and have just been copied endlessly and now seem like they're real? Or maybe, they used to exist, but just don't anymore. Quite frankly, I think the egg-child one would never be permitted in California schools: it's way too Christian-Hetero-normative, someone would definitely protest against it. But maybe it did exist at one point?
Has anyone ever done any of these things in real life? Wouldn't it be scary if the answer was yes, but only because the teacher saw it on TV? That's like, unbelievably creepy to me. TV is creating us in it's own image or something. PIZZA EFFECT!
Dammit. I need to go to sleep.
Maybe it's the caffeine.
Anyway, I don't know why this came up in my mind, but I've noticed that certain episodic themes are repeated over and over again in cartoon shows and stupid, corny family shows, like Full House or Step by Step. One of these themes is the one where there is a day at school when the parent comes in and talks about his (it's almost always the father) job. However, there are always parents there who have more exciting jobs than him. The rest of the episode deals with either the father's shame or the child's shame, or both. Then it resolves itself; one or the other comes to terms with who one or the other is.
Another equally insipid one is where there is a family-counseling project and two students have to look over an egg or a sack of flour or something, and pretend it is a baby. They then have to keep the baby healthy and pretend to be married, the goal being to teach them (I assume?) responsibility, and maybe how to deal with other people in a respectful manner. It could also be to scare them away from having sex by showing them how hard it is to raise a child -- but I think that kind of depth and sophistication go far beyond what these kind of shows are actually capable of. At any rate, the children almost invariably put the egg-child into horrible, dangerous situations, and sometimes even destroy the egg. They fear they will fail, but end up passing anyway.
What I was wondering is: do these kind of things actually happen in real life? Are there really egg-child experiments / assignments? Are there really "come talk about your job" days at school? I know I personally have never done any of these things, and I don't know anyone who has. Are these things based on real events, or were they just made up by some TV person long, long ago, and have just been copied endlessly and now seem like they're real? Or maybe, they used to exist, but just don't anymore. Quite frankly, I think the egg-child one would never be permitted in California schools: it's way too Christian-Hetero-normative, someone would definitely protest against it. But maybe it did exist at one point?
Has anyone ever done any of these things in real life? Wouldn't it be scary if the answer was yes, but only because the teacher saw it on TV? That's like, unbelievably creepy to me. TV is creating us in it's own image or something. PIZZA EFFECT!
Dammit. I need to go to sleep.