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
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