05.23.08
When Loquacious Guest Bloggers Attack
Earlier, I was looking at my Netflix queue (what am I, British?) trying to decide what hallmark cartoon/film of yesteryear, fresh to DVD, I want to subject my son to this week. Most recently he finished a season of Thundercats, and before that, a season of Dungeons & Dragons. He’s been through Ghostbusters, Transformers the Movie (old and new), E.T., and Short Circuit (“Mom, you made me cry for nothing! He didn’t even die!”). He has eagerly thus far endured 2 seasons of MacGyver, and five, count them five, seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and a handful of the original series randomly caught on television on Sunday afternoons
I need to clarify, this is over the course of years. He’s not chained to a television until the course of my own childhood viewing is done, but having executive power of The Queue, I pick things I think he’ll like. This cyclic resurgence of twenty/thirty-something nostalgia has made this inheritance incredibly easy. All the remakes—the Scoobie Doo’s Transformers, Batmans, D&Ds, Justice League, the upcoming GI Joe film— all facilitate the infliction of the cultural artifacts from my own formative years onto the next generation, and I admit, I fall prey to this highly transparent marketing tactic. Like a chump. Just as the 90’s were full of the 60’s and 70’s fashion and paraphernalia meant to entice my generations’ parents into being good profitable consumers buying new VW Beetles and pint-sized bell-bottoms and peace-sign pendants, I’m buying up 80’s box sets like they’re coming back in style. . In this scenario, the Star Wars franchise is its own separate animal.
I’m digressing. It’s not my intention to BS some long treatise on capitalism and consumerism and sentimentality, though the subject clearly begs someone more qualified in cultural and economic theory to do so (I’m sure that someone has, but I’m too lazy to look for it). I was going somewhere else with this.
Re-watching these zillion hours of television with my kid, answering his questions about Sith traditions and Klingon cuisine, I see the huge impact the embedded philosophies of these stories had on my development. My sense of morality is purely a product of The Rodenberry. When I think of humanism, or ideals of “Humankind” as they appear in the most optimistic of philosophies, in the back of my mind I see Jean-Luc Picard on the bridge of the Enterprise, standing poised, eloquent, brow furrowed and jaw firm, making the hard call and sacrifices to do What’s Right. I think of Data’s neverending quest, an ongoing definition of what it even means to be human. Debates of geo-politics and multiculturalism take me though the logic and reasoning of the Prime Directive. Granted, I’m obviously a gianormous geek. And these comparisons are never direct, or even conscious. But watching the now-often-cheesy and obvious storylines with a few more years under my proverbial belt, I recognize the framework of my moral paradigm.
Between TNG and MacGyver, by the time I was 13 I was hell bent on being a theoretical physicist. I studied quarks and quasars until the covers fell off my physics dictionary. I had a plan. Eventually, my fixation fell to the wayside in the overwhelming novelty of grunge and boys and drugs—not surprising given the power of puberty. But looking back, I see the huge impact my entertainment choices had on my development. If I had watched more 90210 or Charles in Charge, and less Dr. Who, what kind of lessons would have permeated my schemas? What is this Harry Potter and LOTR generation absorbing?
I’m curious—thinking back to your own childhoods, what shaped your own paradigm? I didn’t have the luxury of cable (still don’t), so I know there are whole genres out there I completely missed out on. The first music video I ever saw REM’s Losing my Religion while on vacation at the beach. Was MTV developmentally influential? Did comic books hit harder than television? I wouldn’t know where to begin with books…
Cangrejeros likes lists. I need to do something to make up for this retardedly long and psychologically and nostalgically masturbatory abuse of adverbs and online real estate. Let’s make lists.
Top 10 Most Powerful Cultural Influences, A Personal Inventory (he’s going to kill me)
1. Star Trek TNG (Every imaginable lesson to be learned)
2. MacGyver (Science is cool!)
3. Piers Anthony Phaze-Doubt series (Hard to pinpoint)
4. Jack London’s The Sea Wolf (Perpetual human struggle of Altruism vs. Hedonism)
6. The Physics Dictionary (worlds within worlds)
5. He-man / She-Ra (always a moral to the story. stupid orko.)
6. The Smurfs (Justifying my socialist tendencies, solid foundation of archetypes)
7. The Littles (I KNEW they were watching me. We’re never alone. )
8. The Giving Tree (I still personify everything, even sporks)
9. Scooby-Doo (there’s no such thing as ghosts—it’s ALWAYS a disguise)
10. Dynasty and Dallas (that’s honest to god what I thought it was like to be a grown-up)
This concludes my overly verbose confession of personal media absorption. Please, feel free to share so I’ll feel slightly less self-absorbed.
