In this age of Dreamworks Animation and George Lucas plying us with "cartoon" movies that you would swear are live-action, my kids are hypnotized by...
Popeye.
And Tom and Jerry.
And Scooby Doo. (The old one, not the lame, "updated" one.)
And Hong Kong Phooey, the Smurfs, the Flintstones, the Adventures of Captain Planet...
and I'm noticing things as a 37-year-old woman I never took note of as a seven-year-old girl.
Like Olive Oyl's abusive love/hate relationship with Bluto. I'm pretty sure she belongs in a battered women's shelter.
Or how about the black mammy-maid who threatens to put Tom out of the house with her broom and aproned tummy, all lawn-jockey-black arms? And missus-will-be-home-soon proclamations following some cat-and-mouse chase scene? I could swear Tom & Jerry lived on a plantation in the Civil War South.
As for Daphne and Thelma - I guess the point was that pretty is dumb and smart is nerdy? Can we get some post-feminist translation of their contributions to the gang?
Hong Kong Phooey might as well be running around screaming, "Flied lice! Flied lice!"
Smurfette is definitely the animated world's first concubine. And Papa Smurf bears a striking resemblance to Warren Jeffs, if you ask me.
And can we talk about Wilma? Her machinations to get her way with Fred are simply brilliant. I'm going to try them on my man, I think...
And finally, had we paid more attention to Captain Planet thirty years ago, maybe, just maybe, our planet would like us a bit more than it does now.
Just a thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment