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

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

#151

Post by dao- »

thatsethnz wrote: post #113

Once upon a time, there was an engine called Henry. Henry was asked to help but refused. So Henry was put in time out. Henry didn't enjoy time out and wanted to be let out. So was let out, and learned to be responsible and helpful. The reason you teach a toddler this should be blindingly obvious. Once upon a time, there was a journalist called Jia Tolentino. Jia was a special kind of stupid. Allegory, you see, was en…

> The reason you teach a toddler this should be blindingly obvious.

Not at all. People should help out others out of altruism, because they understand that society is cooperative, or because they value other people. "Be helpful or be punished" isn't a lesson I'd want to teach my kid.

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

#152

Post by Godel_unicode »

ux-app wrote: post #125
Aloha wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an engineer, being "really useful" is a goal that fits within my worldview as good and noble.

sure, that's a great characteristic for things. Not so sure about implying that people should be assessed the same way.

You don't think people should strive to be useful? What virtue/goal would you replace usefulness with?

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

#153

Post by paulddraper »

glenstein wrote: post #68
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…

>it was still evident that he wasn't left in their forever, as he showed up again next time. "We shall take away your rails," he said. "And leave you here for always and always and always." They definitely wanted the viewer to believe it was permanent for purposes of that episode. And if you watch the scene (linked to elsewhere in the thread), the dominant emotional themes are stubbornness, arguing, physical confront…

I should have been more clear. The very next episode ("Henry To The Rescue"), Henry agrees to help, and leaves the tunnel (which conveniently, The New Yorker writer forgot to mention).

https://youtu.be/dWtNGzGZTCo?t=2m28s

I agree they left it kinda weird, especially if you only ever watch that one episode. And that's why it was later edited.

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

#154

Post by paulddraper »

clouddrover wrote: post #9

Henry gets bricked in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO6qIM2WO6k That's hardcore.

And then is unbricked

https://youtu.be/dWtNGzGZTCo?t=2m28s

Which The New Yorker would know if they had watch more than a tiny clip.

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

#155

Post by andrewem »

WalterBright wrote: post #126
colordrops wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seriously think that there is no corporate agenda in the US? It's not even conspiracy theory. A good chunk of the daily news stories are related to the topic.

I've been involved with various corporations. I have yet to be informed of what the national "corporate agenda" is. When I read the business news, it always seems that corporations are at each other's throats, always suing each other, trying to get the government to run each other out of business, lobbying against each other, etc. I'm curious if you can provide a link to the national corporate agenda. Maybe it's lowe…

Here you go - for a link to a national "corporate agenda" that applies to large companies, see the conveniently titled "2017 American Growth Agenda" put out by the US Chamber of Commerce, the major big business lobbying group in the US: https://www.uschamber.com/about-us/the-2017-american-growth-...

The fact that corporations battle with each other doesn't change the fact that groups of them work together to advance their interests, as above.

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

#156

Post by colordrops »

peteretep wrote: post #142
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.

> we live in a corporate-totalitarian > dystopia Right. This year is the worst . Except for all the preceeding ones.

We have always lived in a corporate-totalitarian dystopia, though it has been called different names in the past, such as colonial rule, monarchy, feudalism, samsara and Babylon.

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

#157

Post by Godel_unicode »

viraptor wrote: post #53
twiss wrote: post #7

The next episode [1], aired two days later, contains the conclusion of the story, and he gets out of the tunnel. I do agree that 2 days is rather long to leave kids with the conclusion of that first episode though. The final lines are: "Henry doesn't mind the rain now. He knows that the best way to keep his paint nice is not to run into tunnels, but to ask his driver to rub him down when the day's work is over." It m…

Regardless of the story, I find it weird when kids shows split the story across episodes. As an adult I watch series in the right order. As a kid, I didn't know there was any timeline behind the shows. I watched every episode as a separate story, would miss a few, would watch the repeats of what I already saw on different channels, etc. Maybe that doesn't apply to everyone, but I wouldn't expect young kids to connect…

I watched highly episodic TV shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle, and remember being excited for the next episode. My fiancees nephews watch anime and are super into the story (sometimes annoyingly so :) ) I think it just depends on what you watched.

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

#158

Post by teekert »

Well, probably still beats growing up with fairy tails where giants eat children or where 2 children eat from a candy house and 1 ends up feeding the other until he is fat enough to be eaten by the witch. Or that nice one I heard at school where a woman turns into a salt pillar because god told her not to look backwards at the collapsing Sodom en Gomorra. And afterwards the two children that did survive get their dad drunk and have sex. Ok, I only heard that last part later.

You know, children hear stories from a wide variety of sources and they have parents to help interpret them and give them a place in their world view. Children ask questions to tweak this view and I don't think we should be to whiny about stories that don't seem to hit the exact educational, politically correct, wholesome, inclusive tone that you had in mind when your kid was born.

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

#159

Post by arethuza »

ux-app wrote: post #140
geowwy wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the Bible pretty well. I couldn't get realer.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Examples_of_God_personally_kil... seems pretty fked up to me :) I don't know anything about rationalwiki.org, it's the first site that showed up when I googled "old testament character punished" Each statement is linked to Biblical verses though, so any objections would be to the spin they put on it rather than disputing whether those passages are actually there. Basically, old testament…

"In the late stages of the Second World War, Evelyn Waugh was trapped in Europe in the company of Randolph Churchill, the boorish son of the wartime prime minister. "In the hope of keeping him quiet," he wrote to Nancy Mitford, "Freddie and I bet him £20 that he cannot read the whole Bible in a fortnight. Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has never read any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps reading quotations aloud... or merely slapping his side & chortling 'God, isn't God a shit!'."

We were taught the bible every day by our splendid primary school headmaster, who had been a Spitfire pilot in WW2, and he seemed to focus on the most unpleasant bits of the Old Testament - even at at tender age this did not create a particularly positive impression of G. Years, later I did wonder if old Mr C was being just a wee bit subversive with us.

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

#160

Post by Tloewald »

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…

I have fond memories of Mr Rogers, but really find it pretty unwatchable (and so did my kids when they were of age). They loved Thomas for a while and fortunately they didn't absorb the ideological disaster embedded in virtually every storyline (Topham Hat is a stand in for God and explicitly judges everyone at the end of most episodes based on being "useful" -- to him -- and obedient). There are no significant female characters (my children are girls so that was particular;y annoying; although Dora is more annoying despite having a female main character) and the merchandising is horrible (multiple redundant and incompatible sets of trains and tracks that are all horribly over-priced)

Spongebob is a far better show in all respects (I hated it until I had kids). Aside from being hilarious on several levels, it is remarkably socially conscious without being preachy. Oh and it even has some recurring non-pathetic female characters.

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