And I do mean loves. And he also loves TV now, but he only wants to watch things that involve:
a) Raffi
or
b) Charlie Brown
It started with A Charlie Brown Christmas in December. He watched it with me once and fell in love. Hard not to; it is a cute movie. But anyway I got tired of that one quickly so we tried out a few other Charlie Brown specials and even the Academy Award-nominated feature film A Boy Named Charlie Brown (which I remember watching as a kid but didn't remember any details of the plot).
Personally I am liking Charlie Brown more and more every time I see him and witness what he goes through. Charles Schulz was a genius. Lucy's Psychiatric Help stand? Seriously. But--and I'm sure I'm not the first to realize this--it's not for 2-year-olds...at least not for this one. Do you know how mean those girls are to Charlie Brown? Do you know? I know that was kinda the whole point of Peanuts, but I didn't remember it being so brutal. It's worse in the specials than it was in the comic strips, and worse in the movies than it was in the specials. Fortunately Schroeder and Linus are always good friends to him. But I don't think I want any more of this seeping into Theo's brain while he's still learning to talk:
"Stupid"
"Blockhead"
"Failure"
"You can't do anything right."
(the most popular insults slung frequently by Lucy, Violet, Frieda, and Patty)
There's even a song called "Failure Face." The girls dance in circles around Charlie Brown while singing: "You’re so impossibly dumb/ In history books your name they’ll erase/ Or else they’re bound to call you/ Failure Face./ And in the race to be stupid/ You’d set a brand-new kind of pace/ We’d like to christen you, Charlie/ Failure Face."
They're good shows for older kids and adults, maybe even made better by the meanness. This whole train of thought kind of reminds me of when I picked up Catcher in the Rye at about 10 years old and had barely finished the first page when my mom all but grabbed it out of my hands and told me I could read it when I was older.
I liked these interviews with Matt Groening and Jonathan Franzen reminiscing about Peanuts. Charlie Brown is a great character and I love the subtleties. A Boy Named Charlie Brown has some psychedelic animation sequences ("Moonlight Sonata" being my favorite), as well as some poignant symbolism. But...they're just so mean to poor Charlie Brown. I think I'd rather Theo watch them when he's old enough to appreciate subtlety and feel compassion for Charlie Brown rather than incorporate "stupid" into his daily vocabulary just because he's heard it so much.
Am I thinking too much about this? Don't answer that. I've already decided.
4 comments:
I never thought about the language.
I would guess though, that a 2 year old is not picking up the other subtleties.
But I could be wrong.
What I meant when I said "subtleties" was more in a positive way, like the subtle humor and the subtle ways that, to me, make the meanness OK, similar to how the subtleties of Catcher in the Rye make it a "good" story despite all the "bad" stuff that happens.
I don't think the meanness is subtle, I think it's pretty obvious.
I love Charlie Brown. My dad and I were talking about Charles Schulz last night and how sentimental a man he was.
Hmmm...as I started reading your post, I thought, "Oh! We LOVE Charlie Brown and own lots of the DVD's that we can let you borrow." But then I kept reading so maybe you don't want to :-) Tom always felt like he can identify with poor Charlie Brown. I guess I'm more like the Christmas Queen! I agree, though, maybe it's a little old for little Theo.
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