The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T Response - Childsploitation

The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T is fascinating because it appears to condemn paternalism in theme, but relies on the fine-tuned performance of children doing the bidding of adults to convey it. Notable for being the only full-length screenplay written by beloved children's poet Dr. Seuss, it is about a boy named Bart who is forced to take piano lessons from an unpleasant and overly-entrepreneurial piano teacher, Dr. Terwilliker. The boy seems to express no genuine interest for playing the piano, but because of Terwilliker's predatory and fascistic personality, his mother would never be able to detect it. I personally loved this movie because I saw it as a post-modern allegory for parental consignment and wage slavery.

Perhaps I connected with this movie as many middle class children did because my parents felt that learning piano was in my best interest. Though, I never asked to try it, and my intrigue towards the instrument was merely percussive ennui. The consequent listlessness also inhibited me from accurately expressing my true interests, and I was taken away to equally boring piano lessons. So, I understand Bart's plight. But Bart's plight is a universal one, for even in his fantasies and nightmares, Dr. Terwilliker, who can be likened to monolithic enterprises who offer basic living amenities for their cooperation. He torments Bart with industry and authoritarianism, for his own personal gain and ego; Bart is learning about wage slavery.

Youthinks me overdramatic, and perhaps I am, but either way, this story is also about growing up, and figuring out your own interests. Without my mother coercing me into learning piano, I likely would have never discovered the fun in composing music. Piano certainly wasn't my instrument, but it paved the way for me to learn other instruments, and gave a pathway for me to pursue my favorite hobby as a child, poetry (since we all know that no one ever makes a living as a poet). Imagination begins by planting ideas, and it's parents that plant those seeds because children do not know how. Issues arise however, when parents will nurture those talents and hobbies for the child. The child will even connect with these pursuits in their subconscious, vociferating in their sleep, acting on awakened impulses, as does Nemo in his adventures in Slumberland.

The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T is a finely crafted movie about the pursuit of adolescent. It is unkind to authority, but encourages a mutual discussion between passionate children and compassionate parents. Happy children are busy children, especially those who use their youth for self-discovering hobbies.

God Bless the Child Response - The Shadow of the Olive Tree

Watching this film at home, I reflected often on my own experience being evicted, and struggling to maintain my school enrollment with a morsel of dignity. Although I was grown enough to fend for myself, my now-wife and I scrambled with busy school and work schedules to find a home willing to accept us despite all of the blacklists we have been placed on since our eviction. Not long after being expelled from our houses on short notice, I was laid off from my job, and my car stopped working. Amy and I felt helpless and debilitated by the one institution that we thought was there for us to redeem us when we fell. In our darkest hour, I would write:

Expectant mothers on the street cast from the synagogue,
Jobless fathers on their knees, repentance cumbersome
Their laws breed lifelong rats, these godless bureaucrats
I hope they know responsibility; where is the Honor in that!?

My wife would write in this time of trouble as well:

The windshield weeps in the shadow of the olive tree
And while we wander in search of refuge
The raindrops appear as His blood.

Though written separately, the pain apparent in these bleeding, angst-ridden notebooks was that of faith in crisis. Though we loved our families, and though we loved our friends, and though we came to accept their hypocrisies as a beautiful profundity in the realm of religion, we could not reconcile our belief in divine inspiration - or even mercy - with the draconian methods the Church and its programs took to deprive us of our lifelines despite the reason for our punishment being substantiated by mere rumor. Surely, God will convey our innocence to the right people, we prayed. God save us. But our prayers were unanswered. We were forced to evacuate the premises in three days, with no place to go.

At the time of our eviction, it was the middle of winter semester and the height of the return-missionary influx, and we couldn't find anything. We squatted our first night in Amy's cousin's empty apartment before his roommates had moved in. Although we were not sick or in extreme poverty, we were given no help or support by Amy's staunchly Mormon family. We had nothing but each other, and good friends. I don't believe it would be right of me to suggest that God abandoned us, but from this experience, I've come to understand an idea that resembles deism: laissez faire divinity. God Bless the Child would have us believe that siblings are there to care for each other. I would have to agree with this sentiment, emphasizing its eternal significance. As spiritual brothers and sisters, it is our duty to care for one another, even when God - or he who is meant to represent him - is not dependable.

Film Analysis - High School (1968)

Once again, as a student at the cusp of college graduation, I often compare what I remembering knowing from high school on what I learned in supplementary courses, and I can't say that it has been all that much scholastically. The majority of what I learned in school was based in my own capability. How much work can I handle? How long can I put this off? What is the best way to structure my problems so that I can sort them out in a timely manner? I would probably argue that the finals years in high school were formative in a similar way. The monotony of a daily routine was educative if not for the social exercise that it gave me. Frederick Wiseman's 1968 documentary High School, one of the first in cinema verite style, is the right kind of exercise.

Slow-moving and uneventful, this documentary chronicles the typical process of the high school year: class time, break time, and social flow. We watch teachers speaking low to their students, and students returning verbal blows or acquiescing to their power. To some it may appear that this is condemning abuse of power, but I think it simply portrays a condition in its organic environment, seeking not to choose sides. One of the most crucial questions to ask about cinema verite is whether the presence of a camera will change the natural course of events. In this case, I would defend High School as one that did not change the course of events just because a camera was present. Students and teachers alike, without trying to gain or give attention to the documentarian, are behaving normally.

An interesting angle to approach children's education than taking the same scientific approach that the camera's lens does. It is present on scene just as our own vessels occupy reality as a looming and betimes intimidating figure suspended in a moment in which broken and injured souls are projected in all of their virtues, beliefs, and hypocrisies. From the flawed and limited perspective of a 90-degree window into reality, we must draw intimate conclusions about our social atmosphere, those in front and those behind, those above us, and those below. Wiseman's window into 1960's high school life bears the similitude of an authority staff member at the school. Some might say that the camera's presence examines and scrutinizes them and affects their behavior therefore; however, I would argue that the camera is no different in this setting than another person in a throng of people.

Book Analysis - The Catcher in the Rye

As a student at the cusp of graduation, feeling all of the angst that builds somewhere in the abdomen before freefall, I can say that I deeply relate to Holden Caulfield as a character. Allow me to clarify, however. I feel that Holden is the embodiment of a student of ill character, but at times, and with the same level of hyperbole he is known for, I fit and even aspire to his level of cringitude. Though better judgment implores me to refrain, Holden is the personified embodiment of our most lost selves, prone to argue, complain, and quit when the going gets too tough.

As trivial as we might make adolescent problems out to be, they are of monumental importance to adolescents. To us, the brand of jeans that one wears to school is hardly a concern. Nor is the tidy nature of our living space. But for Holden, whose primary guiding emotion in all that he does is disgust, how he looks around Sally Hayes, and whether Ackley cuts his "goddam crumby nails over the table" is of extreme importance. Holden's insistence on self-reliance and his capacity to lie signals a problem as overseers of children and teenagers whether they have their own best interests in mind. Holden's confident diction would prove that he probably is a good liar, and I must admit that when I first read this book in high school, I believed most of what he said; however, as a man approaching middle age, I can testify of the same insecurities that bring most of the bullshit that Holden says into a glaringly self-cynical light.

The book has been criticized by many different school boards and frequently gets rejected in public classrooms because of its use of profanity and seemingly promoting rebellion. Without the proper supervision of an adult mining into subtext and context, a student would be liable to get this impression, because the narrator is a peer. Nevertheless, with the aid of a teacher with adult insight and a seasoned ear for deception, students would be well-equipped to see the book as it really is: a satire on angst.

As often as Holden likes to pretend like an adult, he also falsely flaunts his lack of direction as a badge of honor. While aimlessly traveling on public transit, he ogles an older women during which he offers this pitiful insight, presumably to an older actually sexually-active male: "Women kill me. They really do. I don't mean I'm over-sexed or anything, although I am quite sexy." It's lines like that that, when pointed out to youth, are flagrant examples of poseurism.

The novel is a wonderful example of adult media about children. It plays out very well, as the type of children's media that ought not go unsupervised for fear that the rich and sardonic thematic material might be mistaken for being of a serious nature. It truly s a shame that this book is lambasted by administrations who judge it on its adult substance, when in fact it presents bounteous lessons that would be mostly helpful to youth in their youth.

Here Comes Science Response - They Might Be Poison

My political opinions don't occupy the left-right political spectrum. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the worldwide proliferation of internet resources, such a narrowly-scoped view of modern politics has become increasingly obsolete and irrelevant. What was once a deeply important question in civics has now evolved to a centralist vs. decentralist issue. My personal beliefs can generally be summated to decentralist, more specifically, anarchism. So, you can imagine my alarm when I subjected myself to witness the music video album from They Might Be Giants' and their bleeding leftist agenda to indoctrinate children. While their videos are educational and visually engaging that nominally inspire children to be creative, it ultimately stifles or limits creativity through imitation and paternalistic liberalism.

The series had a strong start: "Science Is Real" places its viewer in an objective reality where what can be immediately sensed is real and unchangeable. It explains the fundamentals of science, while implicitly explaining the complex dichotomy in life in which we can choose personal pathways, but must adapt to unchangeable circumstances. Elementally, this is an important neutral zone between discussions in civics explained simply enough for toddlers to understand. "My Brother the Ape," and "Meet the Elements" are incredibly inventive songs, fully of irony, and simply explain important scientific truths (notable because it indelibly ignores creationist notions) but unfortunately, songwriter John Flansburgh digresses as time goes along. "Electric Car" is the most egregious of all offenses. Not only is it repetitive, and leads the discussion nowhere, it promotes expensive consumerism. One might argue that it condemns useless gas emissions and destruction of the environment; however, children are hardly divested of the resources to make a lasting difference for environment - I would argue that they never will, regardless of how old they are. It also fails to explain in enough detail the benefits of berating parents into buying one. Reserve to two isolated lines, "On verdant green/no diesel, no steam, no gasoline," "Electric Car" serves no practical use than to subliminally insert leftist capitalistic ventures into children's skulls.

Such repetition stifles creativity in children. Though songs like "Put It to the Test" inspire inquisitiveness, and positively encourages children to treat life like a scientific method, it restrains the breadth of their experimentation with songs like "Here Comes Science," whose order in the tracklist baffles me. It seems to have been a fitting place for the first or last track, but its penultimate placement in painfully self-promoting, as if to assert dominance of a child's learning time. When I heard, I heard nothing but They Might Be Giants implanting their role as babysitter and educator in the household, an educator that insists upon bludgeoning children with dull melodies and disputatious democratism.

Naturally, this is the type of low-budget material Disney has been aching to sell in the shelves in lieu of children's music. Between T-Squad and Kidz Bop Volume 370, Hollywood Records really struggled to connect with contemporary households, eventually settling on the quinoa-inhaling pseudo-hippies to turn over some bills for their uncreative children. Spare me the agony of another "educational" song from They Might be Giants, who hasn't done a good thing since it wrote music for Homestar Runner. With self-promoting narcissism and over political poison, Here Comes Science has not only angered me, but successfully warned me against buying records from from Walt Disney Records post-2000.

Pinocchio Response - A Morbid Tale of Paternalism

A secular viewpoint as well as a moral viewpoint is always important when examining the merits of children's media. Media itself demands a mediator, and this mediator must accept the duty to examine the merits of a certain story with intense skepticism. A positive message about an underdog rising to fame and glory can potential be a harmful message to ill-equipped dreamers with systemically social, physical, and financial disadvantages, as it is harmful to those who merely believe and act to others as disadvantaged as the character they connect with in a movie. I turn my attention especially to movies for children, because children are impressionable, and often don't recognize subliminal messaging when they see it. The story of Pinocchio as one told for children is replete with paternalistic ideologies regarding the creating myth, agency and accountability, censorship, and subservience.

Pinocchio tells a dreary tale about a boy, carved physically as a wooden puppet by a lonely clockmaker, and spiritually embodied by a magical fairy traveling on icy stellar bodies falling through Earth's atmosphere. The duality of his nature lead him into troubling circumstances, being lead by a perfect stranger vagabond who solemnly imposes himself as a "conscience," an employer looking to exploit and eventually yoke to bondage, a totalitarian radical who hypnotizes boys with the promises of pleasure, and a monstrous metaphor for parental guilt. More than a story for kids to warn them of stranger danger and disobedience, it plays out as a cautionary tale for parents: know their secrets, pull their strings, or you will lose them forever. In fact, the most compelling focus point of the story is not so much how Pinocchio became a real boy, but how Jiminy earned the right to control Pinocchio's thoughts and actions. 

The film very slickly passes to the audience that Jiminy the Cricket is a legitimate conscience, despite the much more intuitive notion that Pinocchio as a body of wood with intelligent human characteristics (talking, walking, judgments of character) was born with a conscience, and the ability to make decisions for himself. For the most part the legend of Pinocchio condemns the imposition of evil strangers on youth, yet fails to acknowledge the fact that Jiminy cricket is a stranger. Or perhaps it is the exuberant lifestyle of the rich or the reckless that appalls Walt Disney Animation Studios. The most apparent criticism in Pinocchio as Keith Booker asserts in his book "Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children's Films," the pleasures of the working class, of vaudeville, or of pool halls and amusement parks, led to a life as a beast of burden," and to convey the "middle-class virtues of deferred gratification, self-denial, thrift, and perseverance, naturalized as the experience of the most average American." 

For some reason, we have been conditioned to believe that Disney has the best interest of youth in mind and that animated allegory is suited for children, almost as intrusive as the insect that snuck through the crack under your door and is sleeping in your little boy's bedroom. If there is anything apparent in Pinocchio, it is the message of graduating from one set of ideals to the next continually. It is important to question your guiding system of influence, whether it be your whimsically-minded father, your greedy boss, your jackass best friend, your own selfish pleasures, or a gargantuan media enterprise.

Son of Rambow Reponse - What Am a Childrens?

As we approach the realm of children's media, off we must madly go again into the circling realm of semantical discussion. "What is a child?" they ask. Present in this question are a fistful of compelling concepts: maturity, corruptability, and accountability. Examples abound on both sides of the spectrum, in which children percieved to be plagued by mature, violent content, act out in violence against others, yet a preponderance of youth can go outwardly unaffected by graphic imagery or heavy thematic material. Most importantly, lack of parental guidance in selection of media,  a child's ability to comprehend the intensity, horror, or morals the media presents, and psychological development can affect the potency of such imagery. In the light-hearted mood of Garth Jennings's indie sleeper hit Son of Rambow, we get to look at this question through the eyes of a fictionalized youth remaking - or swede'ing - the bloody 80s blockbuster, Rambo: First Blood.

After an arrangement with the Lee Carter, the school bully, Will Proudfoot, a sheltered boy from a fundamentalist Christian family, agrees to act as a stunt man in a movie to enter an amateur film festival. The movie in question is First Blood, a movie which hardly is for children's eyes, let alone his precious virgin eyes. His parents and his community reject media depictions entirely as heathen, and all attempts to view it stem from the devil's temptations. So, for Will, his watching of First Blood - likely over and over - was about as horrifying as it was magical. He ascends in scale from 0-100 with a great deal of difficulty along the way, as he must pursue his short-term goal in secret from friends, authorities, and his own family.

As Will and Lee continue in a loose friendship/acquaintance they run into trouble with popular school kids and staff, usually resorting to violence, a language which Lee and Will they have gained a great deal of credence from abusive paternal relationships, and media choices, respectively. The continued level of abuse apparent in the Carter family can be deduced not to come from media depictions of violence, but from parental neglect. Realizing the sad state of affairs of their own parental neglect, Will's family leaves the strict Christian sect, so that she can mitigate his participation with media.

I would suggest that childhood is an objective state that may appear consciously in adults as a recollection period. Children are greatly susceptible to graphic depictions of language, sex, and violence, particularly if it the depictions do not lay out consequences. In most cases, I would suggest that PG-13 violence does greater harm to 13 year olds than R-rated violence, because PG-13 conveniently leaves out the gory details of firing machine guns into large crowds. R-rated content is wasted on the old because it depicts ideas they yet understood, when it could be greatly effectual to children who would wish to avoid such perils.