Landis Vinchattle

I was watching an episode of Super Readers on PBS Kids with my daughters this morning, and they based the story upon a derivative of the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, simplified a bit so as to perhaps be more easily followed by younger minds and focusing less on the social aspects of not wanting to be singled out by the flock as less competent (and thus going along with ridiculous suggestions so as to “appear intelligent”). The simplification of the story was OK, but it did make me think about the impact of the first time we hear a story, song, etc, and our very common acceptance of that as “right”, and versions we hear later as being “wrong”. I think the adaptation angle of that is OK, and it’s a good mental exercise.

What really got me thinking, though, was the aspect of puppetmastery exercised by a lower level advisory body (in this case, the tailor) to the decisionmaker. I never really caught it in the original story, nor even thought about its being there. But it was somehow exacerbated in this version, such that the tailor seemed to hold the emperor in contempt and believed his importance to be higher than that of the emperor. While that happens in everyday life (look at what some of the advisory councils and cabinet members have been able to push our presidents and congresspersons to do), I hadn’t directly thought before about the subtle or subliminal impact some of these observed relationships – even in entertainment as simple cartoons – can have on kids; I was focused more on the “higher level” message of the programming (in the case of this particular episode, the message was clearly stated as “speak up” – let people know your thoughts and feelings). My real problem in this particular episode was the subjugation of the emperor, and the assimilation into “flock thought”, especially of someone who should be a thought leader and decisionmaker, and thus putting this in the realm of being even more acceptable and appropriate for John Q. Public.

I’ll admit our kids watch some cartoons, and in a perfect world they would watch less and we’d have greater real interaction with community, family, and friends, rendering cartoons and shows to a merely “entertainment” scenario. I will also acknowledge that there is a decent amount of educational value in many of the shows. I know it’s overthinking a simple cartoon, and I suspect I’m reading a lot of what I see as societal problems into my interpretation. I do think there is too little thought put into the decisions we’re making and the direction we’re heading, and it disturbs me and leads me to overanalyze cartoons.