ONE MUST TRY TO REMAIN POSITIVE as much as one can in these complicated times. In this blog it's been a goal of mine to focus on the positive but in this instance I have to shake my head and say, "come on . . . you've got to be kidding me."
How is there any will to accept this impression of humanity. We as bobbing anthropomorphic (?) smiling food objects running through human situations in a retelling of the bible.
The industry built around this concept is a bit mind blowing. When you go to the site for the production company that creates this content (Big Idea Inc.) there's a 'Do They Know It's Christmas Time' video single from the latest computer animated Veggietales effort which features money shots of the poor -- they're more like landscape paintings of African heads hunched over Christmas gifts cross cut with singing shots of Matthew (I'm-gonna-steal-your-girlfriend) West in a duet with Amy Grant. I see this and I wonder why we have not yet evolved past this sort of exploitation. We are constantly appropriating the poor to advance something else in the narrative and it's usually cash. Isn't there some sort of moral bylaw in the world to protect the young from this propaganda? I think I know what Big Idea Inc's big idea was.
I was reading my son a Franklin book at bedtime. Franklin is the young middle class turtle who has questionable self esteem issues. He and his school mates are collecting gifts for "The Poor" as part of a Christmas drive. In the narrative it's clear that the poor are no where near the centre of the story but merely the device used to instigate Franklins own examination of conscience and meaning. The poor somehow don't even go to the same school as Franklin. Just another instance of White-man-as-the-protagonist-of-human-history.
If you'd like to see Saturday Night Live's parody of the Veggetales click HERE.
The veggie promotion you mention is an effort to get kids thinking about other kids in the world who have less than we do, and then actually reach out to them by sending them shoeboxes filled with gifts for Christmas. Is that the sort of "exploitation of the poor" that you are so against?
ReplyDeleteIndeed I am against it because it's all in the name of expanding the church. If the church was so concerned about the poor they would liquidate all the gold in the Vatican and put it into literacy, farming and clean drinking water.
ReplyDeleteI apologize if I've offended you. I also thank you for taking the time to comment.
Best, Nick
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ReplyDeleteIt's true about "the poor" idea you mentioned. So often, for children, ideas like goodness or poverty are compartmentized into pure action or a phrase "the poor". Not to say that we should make our kids watch war documentaries but i like Hayao Miyazaki's approach in his films. In them, evil and goodness can exist everywhere and in every character. The moral is in how the characters find goodness and defeat the evil in themselves while seeking goodness it out in others, not simply "defeating the evil" disney-style.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(manga)