Concepts of Ages

I’m beginning to write a story which involves a grandmother telling her granddaughter a story. A real conceptual change occurs to me that I hadn’t realized before.
Grandma and Grandpa are no longer the people who lived through the Great Depression or the World War II decades. Grandma and Grandpa are now the ones who protested for equal rights among the races and genders, went to Woodstock and fought in Vietnam. Drive-ins and disco are now what grandparents know.
What’s even stranger is that in only a few years (if not already) Grandma and Grandpa will be the ones who played arcade games and listened to cassettes. Individually, these concepts of age shifts have happened to many people. It’s only now that the children of the late 60s, 70s and 80s are in their 30s and 40s. Mainstream society is accepting the shift in age concepts. Even the people who aren’t parents can’t deny the generational shifts.
That’s a lot to think about. To us “grandparents” listened to the radio and worked to support the war effort. To our kids, “grandparents” watched the original airing of Howdy Doody, Star Trek and Batman as well as living through the Red Scare, Nuclear threats and the space program.
On the one hand, the shifting thoughts of the generations are disturbing because it means that we’re progressing through the ages of society. In another sense, it’s rather fascinating to see the age thought shift in action. It’s a gradual change. But I feel like I’m just now really beginning to understand the age shift as a mainstream thing.
Creepers, I’m getting old. Oh well. HEY YOU KIDS, GET OFF MY LAWN BEFORE I BLAST SOME R.E.M. DOWN YOUR EARLOBES!

Care Bears Teach Broken Aesops

According to “Tv Tropes”, a ‘broken Aesop’ is “a story where the moral presented just doesn't match the moral that the story actually contained”.

I bring this up because I encountered it over the weekend.

The Care Bears have received, yet another, incarnation in 2012’s CGI animated “Welcome to Care-A-Lot”. Admittedly, the drawing style is reminiscent of the old 80s Nelvana Care Bears series brought into a more 3-D form. Looks-wise, it is rather appealing.

Sadly, that’s about the only good thing about it. The bears have been reduced to single layered character stereotypes. Instead of just helping kids overcome issues, the bears usually have to learn moral lessons themselves. Um, why should a child listen to your caring preaches when you have to learn the lesson yourself?

Some folks may wonder why I’d watch some show aimed at the preschool sect. The simple reason is that I was a child of the 80s. I like to look in at the reboots of old shows. Plus it’s amusing to check in on what they try to shove at little kids every so often.

The episode that I caught this weekend was called “Welcome to Grump-A-Lot”. Grumpy Bear prepared to watch the ‘Honey Bowl’. He laid out a great snack spread for himself and made himself nice and comfortable. Just as he started to watch the game, Funshine Bear came along and helped himself to Grumpy’s snacks. Then he invited himself to watch the game with Grumpy all the while still hogging the snacks. Next, Harmony Bear showed up asking Grumpy to build something for her. When she found out he was trying to watch a game, she invited herself to watch as well...and wouldn’t shut up. Then we see Share Bear, Cheer Bear and, the obligatory obnoxiously precocious child character, Wonderheart Bear each show up to further prevent Grumpy from watching the game.

Naturally, Grumpy finally became extremely upset with everyone. His tummy symbol released a nasty storm cloud which changed everyone to negative versions of themselves. Poor Grumpy is forced to fix the situation because the annoying forest creatures wouldn’t leave him alone since the other bears weren’t around to coddle them. For some reason, the production crew felt that Grumpy Bear was the one in the wrong and needed to learn a lesson about controlling his frustration.

I’m sure their intentions were in the right place. Unfortunately, their presentation was very badly done. This episode showed that it was ok for others to walk all over a person without regard to their personal space or feelings and that person should accept that.

Now I know that the moral values and attitudes have changed quite a bit since the 80s. But is that really the kind of lesson we want kids to learn? I guess the Care Bears think so.

Footnotes:
Thanks to the following sites for info and images.
Tv Tropes tvtropes.org
Internet Movie DataBase http://www.imdb.com
Tumblr tumblr.com

Resurrect: Reboot: Repeat

Besides being a 1994 CGI animated series, ‘reboot’ has become Hollywood’s buzzword for the 21st century. With remakes like Frankenweenie and Dark Shadows as well as series reboots like Steel Magnolias, GI Joe and Scooby Doo, it seem that Hollywood has well and truly given up the ghost on new concepts.

Of course, remaking previously told stories in some ‘new’ way is nothing new for Hollywood. Thomas Edison’s The Great Train Robbery (1903; directed by Edwin S. Porter) has been remade at least four times over the past century. Even Thomas Edison chose to ‘remake’ the movie with a child cast as a 1905 parody.

Let’s not forget the more than 20 incarnations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Each version tried to ‘reimagine’ the story in its own unique style.

Have you ever been stuck for an idea? Go meet Dracula. From Abbot and Costello (1948) to Batman (2005) and an original cast in the Monster Squad (1987), tangling with Dracula has become a quick buck mainstay of many studios. (He who mentions Billy the Kidd gets a boot to the head.)

What some people may not realize is that story retreads aren’t just a Hollywood thing. The comic book industry ‘reimagines’ its characters so often that they’ve resorted to designating parallel Earth numbers to each version. All over the internet, there are servers overflowing with ‘alternate version’ fanfiction tellings of series, movies, plays and books.

The idea of rebooting a story goes back even further than Hollywood. Classic books like Little Women (1868 & 1869), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and the beyond infamous A Christmas Carol (1843) all have been ‘reimagined’ by various playwrights.

It could be argued that story reboots have been going on since humanity began telling stories. The legends of mythology went through many remakes as they advanced through geography and time.

What truly amuses me about the current crop of reboots is that they stem from the 1980s. 80s programming has been denounced as being too merchandise driven. Yet here we are watching My Little Pony, GI Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and many other “25 minute toy commercials” being rebooted and remade as some supposedly new thing.

Has the century produced some new things? Yes, we’ve seen the rise of brilliantly told series like Invader Zim (2001), Avatar the Last Airbender (2005) and the Walking Dead (2010). Even the horror genre got a nice little revival in Ring (2002 – originally Japan’s Ringu 1998), Saw (2004) and Paranormal Activity (2007).

Some people may be tempted to blame the Writers’ Strike of 2007-2008 for the influx of reboots. Considering that the entire decade has seen reboots of series like TMNT (2003), Scooby Doo (Take your pick), Care Bears (2004) and others, this argument is void. It’s even less valid when you consider that the Writers’ Strike of 1988 didn’t stop the innovation of the 1990s with shows like Chip’n’Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Animaniacs, the PowerPuff Girls and the Simpsons.

So come on, Hollywood! Get the dead out and find some new concepts again!

Footnotes:

Thanks to the searching powers of
Amazon.com
Internet Movie Database
Wikipedia