Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 279 posts

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#41

Post by CodeKommissar »

Twirrim wrote: post #32
CodeKommissar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol why was Caillou "totally banned" for your little kids??

He's go to be the most annoying children's show character ever. That's saying a lot, when you consider just how many kids characters have zero redeeming qualities. He whines, about just about everything, everywhere. Relentlessly. https://youtu.be/cGo60pp_9IM?t=6m30s It got really annoying when my wife and I watched it with some of my nieces (and saw how the show influenced their behaviour) that when we had kids of ou…

I've watched all the bus episode (from the 6:30 mark), and I don't think it was that bad. He just complained for 10 seconds that he wanted to ride the school bus.

"Minor" character flaws that I'd point out were that Caillou had to be told by his mother to say thank you to the bus driver, and that he gifted the bus driver with a drawing of himself riding the bus (what an egomaniac that Caillou).

But yeah, I don't have kids, so is normal that I never thought of supervising what tv cartoons would they watch, and now is something important that I'll pay attention in the future.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#42

Post by krapp »

colordrops wrote: post #29

Almost all the content we've got is representative of "corporate-totalitarian dystopia", because we live in a corporate-totalitarian dystopia. Thomas the Tank Engine isn't some special case.

Did we live in a "corporate-totalitarian dystopia" in the 1940s - 70s? Because that's when the stories this show is based on were written.

Simply considering all culture to be propaganda as you appear to be doing is intellectually lazy.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#43

Post by pselbert »

ux-app wrote: post #27
paulddraper wrote: post #13

Thomas & Friends is gold. The show is dignified and wholesome. It is always about respect, diligence, and humility. It isn't there for stupid antics and wacky laughs. It doesn't blast color explosions and ADHD-fueled off-the-charts mind-numbing exuburance to capture kids attention. And it's been doing that for decades (pretty much eternity, as far as kids TV goes). Not since Mr. Rogers has there been a better kids TV…

>The show is dignified and wholesome. really? I always found it to be quite creepy. The constant obsession with being a "really useful" engine. The shaming of engines who don't toe the line. Victimisation of engines who misbehave. The show makes me strangely uncomfortable for some reason.

The complement of being " really useful" never bothered me.

My kids are a bit too old for Thomas now, but we still say people are "causing confusion and delay" when they derail the rest of the family.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#44

Post by adolph »

pstuart wrote: post #30
ux-app wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The show is dignified and wholesome. really? I always found it to be quite creepy. The constant obsession with being a "really useful" engine. The shaming of engines who don't toe the line. Victimisation of engines who misbehave. The show makes me strangely uncomfortable for some reason.

And what happens to engines that are not "really useful"? I think we all know.

Yes, when the small railway was closed down Duke was left behind in a shed where he stayed until urban explorers found him and restored him.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#46

Post by krapp »

pselbert wrote: post #43
ux-app wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The show is dignified and wholesome. really? I always found it to be quite creepy. The constant obsession with being a "really useful" engine. The shaming of engines who don't toe the line. Victimisation of engines who misbehave. The show makes me strangely uncomfortable for some reason.

The complement of being " really useful" never bothered me. My kids are a bit too old for Thomas now, but we still say people are "causing confusion and delay" when they derail the rest of the family.

Machines are defined by their utility, and their value comes from their ability to do work, but children shouldn't be taught that the same applies to them.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#47

Post by grahamburger »

paulddraper wrote: post #13

Thomas & Friends is gold. The show is dignified and wholesome. It is always about respect, diligence, and humility. It isn't there for stupid antics and wacky laughs. It doesn't blast color explosions and ADHD-fueled off-the-charts mind-numbing exuburance to capture kids attention. And it's been doing that for decades (pretty much eternity, as far as kids TV goes). Not since Mr. Rogers has there been a better kids TV…

Agreed, and there are a few other TV shows that I really like for my kids for many of the same reasons: Curious George, Tumbleleaf (Amazon original), and maybe Backyardigans.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#48

Post by Stratoscope »

> In 2009, the show went completely C.G.I.

As much as I love the New Yorker, my fondest hope is that one day the N.Y.C. media will free themselves from whatever repressive authoritarian soul compels them to put those dots in every single acronym and initialism, when the rest of the country abandoned the dots long ago.

They even put them in names that once were initialisms but now are genuine names on their own: they insist on I.B.M. even though the official company name is simply IBM. And F.B.I. even though the FBI's own website calls it the FBI.

As an old ham radio operator, the one that really got me was when they wrote about S.O.S. - when in fact SOS never was an initialism at all! No experienced radio operator would ever have sent "S O S" as three separate letters in Morse code:

dit dit dit (pause) dah dah dah (pause) dit dit dit

("S" is dit dit dit in Morse, and "O" is "dah dah dah".)

SOS has always been a "prosign", that is, a single Morse code unit with no pauses in the middle:

dit dit dit dah dah dah dit dit dit

In fact, SOS is properly written with an overscore above the letters to indicate that it is sent as a single unit. Of course that is not always possible given the limitations of modern typography, but it is never transmitted as if it were the three separate letters "S O S".

Why does the N.Y.C. media follow such an authoritarian rule even when it is factually wrong? It is a mystery to me.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#50

Post by ux-app »

paulddraper wrote: post #13

Thomas & Friends is gold. The show is dignified and wholesome. It is always about respect, diligence, and humility. It isn't there for stupid antics and wacky laughs. It doesn't blast color explosions and ADHD-fueled off-the-charts mind-numbing exuburance to capture kids attention. And it's been doing that for decades (pretty much eternity, as far as kids TV goes). Not since Mr. Rogers has there been a better kids TV…

> Not since Mr. Rogers has there been a better kids TV show.

I'm too young to have watched this show. Just googled it and it really does look like a lovely, wholesome show.

Personally my gold standard is the original Looney Toons (Mel Blanc era). I could watch that irreverent, slapstick all day. I'd rather my kid take a leaf from Bugs Bunny's F-you style than Thomas' meek, obey, do what you're told and stay on the rails message.

Post reply on HN