The Flash cartoon menace!

[mmcirvin]

The author of "The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter" fulminates about violent Flash cartoons warping her children's fragile little minds. She was all liberal and everything until this happened but now, NOW society has gone too far.

I can sympathize with parents' worry about their kids encountering stuff they don't want them to on the Internet. I'm going to have to deal with something like this someday, I'm sure, and it's never easy.

What mostly takes me aback about these little moral panics is how surprised the parents always are. Who could ever be so sick as to think of cartoon characters decapitating each other? How dare they use Flash to subvert my Net Nanny filter? I thought it was safe!!

Comments

[stacebass.livejournal.com]

This woman has never seen South Park, has she?

Talk about having your head up your butt.

we have tortured every teacher; we have broken every rule

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I also wonder if she knows (1) the jokes kids tell each other in school, (2) the things they doodle on napkins, (3) the songs they sing on the school bus.

Re: we have tortured every teacher; we have broken every rule

[stacebass.livejournal.com]

And not to state the obvious, but what was she thinking putting her 6-year-old on the Internet with no supervision? This is the Internet's fault?

Re: we have tortured every teacher; we have broken every rule

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, she honestly thought that kid-filter software works.

[tempest0402.livejournal.com]

I'm struck by just how easily PC and funamentalist outrage connect.

Was this woman ever a child herself?

[mezdeathhead.livejournal.com]

That's what I always wonder. I mean, I told worse jokes and drew more penises and boobies before I was nine then I have since.

[mskala.livejournal.com]

When we showed Happy Tree Friends at the anime club, we did get a lot of complaints (from the young adults who made up the audience). Nobody suggested that there was anything wrong with the mere existence of the cartoon, however - only that they themselves didn't want to watch it.

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

Whether the content is good or bad for her kid is one issue -- but a separate issue entirely is the fact that her kid is looking at something on the internet of which she doesn't approve.

And THERE is where the big DUH comes from.

Spud has his own computer -- two, actually, a PC and an iBook. He is not allowed to use the iBook on the internet unless he's in the same room as I am. He can use his PC, but it has to be on, with the volume on and his door open, with me in earshot. If any of those requirements are not met, he's not allowed to play.

So far, he's abided by these very liberal rules -- mostly, he just wants to play Toontown and Lego Star Wars. He knows that if he misbehaves, not only will he not be able to play Call of Duty, or whatever other T-or-M-rated game he comes across, but he won't be able to play Toontown or Lego Star Wars, either.

MOM needs to demonstrate some oversight, and take charge of what her kid's doing on the computer...just as with the TV.

Duh.

[samantha2074.livejournal.com]

Which brings me to my least favorite quote from the article:

In our brief telephone conversation, Evershed told me he thinks parents have the ultimate responsibility to shield their kids from media violence. In the abstract, I certainly agree with that, but I admit I sometimes wonder if I'm actually doing my kids a disservice by spending so much time and energy chasing them off the Internet, while coaching them in empathy, manners and the Golden Rule. Because if most of their peers, who lack the luxury of moms with time to meddle, are gorging on "Happy Tree Friends," it would probably serve them better to be trained to defend themselves with firearms and karate.

See, the author is a model mom. It's everyone else who's a crappy parent and needs to be scolded about the dangers of cartoon character death.

I was also going "huh?" at the weak claim that Tom & Jerry is acceptable while Happy Tree Friends is unnecessarily violent. And here I was thinking Jerry was kind of sadistic. It's probably a result of my poor upbringing.

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

First of all, THANK YOU for the post card! It was great, and Spud loved it.

Second, I've found that a good dose of teaching can, in some cases, with some kids, help them police themselves. Spud's been darned good lately, so I finally took him to GameStop to get a game he's been wanting for, like, EVAR. A StarWars Lego game. I vetted the demo, and it's rated E for everyone. I approve of this game.

While we were there getting the game, Spud saw a poster on the wall for a NEW game that's coming out, I think, next week. The kid behind the counter said, "Yup, that's right, do you want to reserve a copy now?" Spud said, "Wait one minute! I can't get that game. It's rated T for teen. I will get it when I am a teenager, but until then, I stick with the E for everyone games."

I was proud of him, and I told him that. He was pretty proud of himself, too. :-)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

So the real subtext she's driving at is that the other kids are all being turned into murderers by popular culture because they don't have stay-at-home mothers. Which is why violent crime by children is spiraling out of control in America, except for the inconvenient fact that it isn't (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051020-5461.html).

Then again, maybe that one-year jump in juvenile murders in 2004 all came from the scourge of Internet Flash cartoons, given that, according to her, nobody ever looked at Internet Flash cartoons until that JibJab thing.

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

But it could be a serious problem. Imagine if you come home one day, and your kid has set loose five hundred or so badgers (along with the odd mushroom and snake) in your living room.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Or he's flooded Bubs' Concession Stand.

[jecook]

::rolls eyes::

By the same definition, we should not be seeing footage of the current war, because it's too violent and graphic.

I agree with kerri9494here: For pre-teens, there needs to be parental intervention or oversight for internet useage. Let's put the onus back on the parents where it belongs to raise their crotch droppings.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

This is like poo' widdle Alton Brown taking his toys and going home because mean people on the Intarwebs sent him icky pictures when he asked for something to put on his refrigator. Awwww!

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so it's all the rage to jump on people who don't "get" the Internets like you and I do. We're all hip and edgy adults who loves us some violent cartoons. She's an old fuddy duddy who wants to take our rights away.

I'm not so sure. First, well, these kinds of articles aren't real news, they're water cooler articles. This woman is the kind of author who makes money writing a few articles a year and who has to have a gimmick to get noticed.

Secondly, she clearly states that a teenager showed her 9 year old the cartoon at a summer camp, and the 9 year old showed it to the 6 year old. She was watching the 6 year old online, because she saw the cartoon turn from cute to violent, so the accusations of her not being attentive enough aren't supported by this article.

If I was a mom, I'd be mad, too. Not at the Internets but at the summer camp for not exercising more responsibility in the content shown to young children. One of her two suggestions is for summer camps and the like to have more responsibility in this area. This doesn't sound unreasonable. I don't know who she's addressing her article to -- does she want the government to regular summer camps? -- but it's a reasonable enough request.

The other suggestion she makes is for advertisers to not sponsor such cartoons. Whether you and I like it or not, that's how advertising works. Instead of people protesting advertisers who show commercials during "Maude", it's people protesting banner ads on violent cartoons. Whether any protest even happens or causes Toyota to pull their ads is a completely different story.

Yeah, the author says a lot of idiotic stuff. I'm not a big fan of her fury that the creators of the cartoon are making money. If there's an audience for the site then good for them, that's the way capitalism works and she may want to get used to it. The claim that Tom & Jerry never pulled a knife is silly. She's clearly oblivious to the classic T&J short where everyone has fencing foils and Tom gets the guillotine ("c'est la guerre!").

She also claims to be liberal but cartoons like this make her want to turn fascist. Whatever. I chalk that up to padding and inflamatory rhetoric designed to make the average reader get all huffy and pay attention to the article.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

We were marveling that there was Internet access at the summer camp.

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

They made a computer entirely out of coconuts.

Remind me to stop posting anything, you know, long and thoughtful. I'll keep it to "[blankity] sucks". No use getting the Internet gods angry.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was just thinking that posts like your long one are the reason I keep comments open.

SWEET!

[(Anonymous)]

I'll give parents something to worry about!

-The Doll

http://fearthedoll.com