Up@dawn 2.0

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Lessons and Philosophy in Children's Cartoons

I chose this topic because I feel that animated television usually gets deemed as content for a younger audience and is therefore shallow but I believe that while there are thought provoking cartoons for adults, even topics in children’s cartoons can be deep. We had a group whose midterm report was over philosophy in cartoons and that was very interesting to me but I wanted to go deeper into the concept and expand upon it.



The first show I would like to use as an example would be Adventure Time, a lighthearted adventure show in a mystical land called Ooo. Or at least, that what it had initially started out as. Our main hero, Finn, has experienced many things throughout his adventures which range from fighting a punk-rock vampire to listening to a princess-stealing wizard tell stories of your life with everyone in it gender-swapped and in love with him. In one episode he learned that it takes cooperation to please everyone. Upon visiting a village of marauders and engaging with some friendly roughhousing, Finn hears crying coming from far away and finds a mountain with a face weeping over the violence. Finn, remembering a time someone helped him which inspired him to be the helpful hero he is, declares that he will find a way for the marauders to be able to roughhouse and not be violent. Initially, he helps them soften their blows by tying animals to their hands but the mountain is even more hysterical because the animals are getting battered, so Finn goes to propose another idea and gets them to pat each other. The problem here is they men pat each other raw and return to roughhousing. So throughout the episode Finn goes around this area solving problems with his solutions creating a new problem for someone else. After being told to give up by his best friend and adopted brother, Jake, Finn recalls his dream and goes throughout the village getting everyone to work together until they are all satisfied. This shows a difference between Finn and Jake that is shown throughout the show frequently. While both love to fight monsters and help out the people, Finn does it because he enjoys giving back to the people and it gives him joy, while Jake is more plausible to go into a situation that he can gain from or he has interest in. The lesson learned is this episode is that a community has to work together to prosper, and while this isn’t 100% an adult topic, it is an important message.

In the episode City of Thieves, themes of purity and impurity in a society are Jake come across a city where all the citizens are constantly stealing from one another. Before heading in the two are warned not to go into the city as they will become impure and fall into the woes of the city. Of course the two adventurers don’t listen and run straight into the city. Whilst inside, our heroes run into a young girl named Penny who says she has lost her basket and that it is very dear to her. The two then go about the city chasing various thieves attempting to get a basket. Penny then tells them about aking thief who takes things from little girls and keeps it in a castle protected by a magical barrier that keeps out thieves. Around this time the two notice Jake is wearing a pair of red boots and realized he has become a thief and cannot go in. Penny says she is scared of the castle and doesn’t want to go in so they send in Finn alone. Thinking he is simply getting things back for Penny, Finn brings out the treasure, only to discover that it was all a trick by Penny who was a conniving thief the whole time. Finn revolts and vows to (in the literal sense) cleanse the city but only gets to cleaning Penny, and himself and Jake in the process, after which Penny immediately returns to stealing. The whole episode seems to be about purity, but sends out the message that true “purity” is only a state of what you view another person as. To one person their actions can seem “impure”, but to that person they are doing something that is of their norm.

Children’s cartoons are made with the intent, usually, to entertain but, in most, also to teach a lesson. As someone who watched a lot of cartoons as a kid, I personally understand how shows can try to enrich the youth or even open on a topic that, at a time was once not the norm. With the rise in visibility in the LGBTQ community and more open dialogue about gender and sexuality, cartoons have started to reflect this change with the portrayal of certain characters. In some cartoons, characters such as Him from “The Powerpuff Girls” or The Red Guy from “Cow and Chicken” (one being trans and the other frequently cross-dressing), are depicted as the devil, thus associating sin or badness with that behavior. Classic cartoons like Tom and Jerry or Looney Toons depicted frequent cross-dressing, usually as a means of deception or escape, but at times it could be taken as a jab to anyone who may exhibit this behavior.

The rise in more openly LGBTQ characters is evident in shows like “Steven Universe”, which hosts a whole race of aliens, called gems, who present as as female. The show focuses on a child named Steven whose mother came from another planet and after saving the Earth from her own kind, falls in love with Steven’s father and then….. becomes Seven. The show often talks of freedom as the Gem Homeworld is a place where everyone and everything is designed for a specific purpose. Steven’s mother, Rose Quartz, loves the Earth and the humans and their freedom to be whatever they want. She falls in love with the way things can change and how certain things can end in a beautiful way to create something new. And the best example of this is the birth of Steven. While I could go in depth about his birth, the man point is that to give “birth” to Steven, Rose Quartz had to give up her physical self to create Steven. This clearly alludes to the theory of reincarnation, which is touched on several times throughout the series. But back to the topic of gender and sexuality. As mentioned, on Earth Gems are free to love and this is exemplified in the character Garnet who is essentially made of love. Garnet is a fusion of the two Gems, Ruby and Sapphire who would never have such a union on Homeworld. On Homeworld fusing is deemed as a method for Gems of a similar cut to group together to perform a task more diligently and a fusion of different gems is highly looked down upon. Garnet is introduced to the show as a single Gem but is never revealed to be a fusion until later seasons, with Steven reacting in a way, not of surprise or confusion, but encouragement and joy. The show even dips into the subject of polyamorous relationships by introducing a fusion of multiple Gems who stay constantly fused like Garnet. Touching on these topics in children’s cartoons makes it easier for children to have conversations with those necessary about sexuality and offers them representation and the social reinforcement that they are free to love who they love and be who they are.

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