- Sep 22, 2013
- 4,956
- 250
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What we let our kids watch on TV is important for this age of media and entertainment/consumerism culture.
Do we want our kids to appreciate classic cartoon-films aired on TV such as The Care Bears Movie? Do we allow our kids to indulge in recently rather graphic comics-adapted films such as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?
Kids spend a good deal of time sitting at home and watching TV, while their parents go out to eat or go out partying on weekends. Parental-controls on cable-boxes offer more supervisory-oriented options for parents to monitor/control what their kids will have access to on TV while they are out partying and leaving their kids unattended, especially if their kids do not have babysitters or their babysitters are not depended on to closely-monitor what the kids are watching on TV.
This is an important issue that politicians should address seriously so Americans can more consciously focus on filtering media to make entertainment more educational/inspiring. The other day, I noticed that a simple Google image search yielded numerous pornographic images open to the public and free for anyone to find. A junior high-school student might easily find such images while recreationally surfing the Internet for free at a public library.
Controlling media is a 'hairy' issue indeed, but if we ignore the cultural and social ramifications, we're in danger of being too 'lax' about why media-access is a boon in a democracy!
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The Care Bears Movie is a delightful 1985 cartoon-film about the idealistic magical 'Care Bears' who watch over a visiting human brother and sister who have lust faith in the potential of human beings; the Bears encourage the siblings to think more optimistically while dealing with an evil wizard in the realm who seeks to fill the Earth with concrete. This is obviously a modernism-symbolic values-driven cartoon-film which parents may enjoy with their kids or allow their kids to watch on their own. However, if we don't 'guide' our kids as they navigate through media/entertainment, they may find ideas/images that are not as conducive to lifestyle-inspiration.
If you think about it, our pets and kids(!) watch more TV than we adults. They even watch more TV than senior citizens at a retirement-home, for example. Because kids have so much access to TV/media these days and notice all the kinds of movie-trailers being presented in TV ads, we have to keep a better watch on what we suggest to them is 'valuable American entertainment.'
TV is a great American pastime, and entertainment/broadcasting itself has a rich tradition with intriguing sociocultural stories and symbolism such as the television Quiz Show era of the 1950s and the Little Orphan Annie radio-show era of the 1930s. Therefore, observing what our kids are watching on TV these days is as politically symbolic as, say, entertaining school-uniform clothing policies in private/public high-schools. The more proactive we are in supervision, the better our kids will feel about being 'guided' by the 'adult-world.'
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Do we want our kids to appreciate classic cartoon-films aired on TV such as The Care Bears Movie? Do we allow our kids to indulge in recently rather graphic comics-adapted films such as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?
Kids spend a good deal of time sitting at home and watching TV, while their parents go out to eat or go out partying on weekends. Parental-controls on cable-boxes offer more supervisory-oriented options for parents to monitor/control what their kids will have access to on TV while they are out partying and leaving their kids unattended, especially if their kids do not have babysitters or their babysitters are not depended on to closely-monitor what the kids are watching on TV.
This is an important issue that politicians should address seriously so Americans can more consciously focus on filtering media to make entertainment more educational/inspiring. The other day, I noticed that a simple Google image search yielded numerous pornographic images open to the public and free for anyone to find. A junior high-school student might easily find such images while recreationally surfing the Internet for free at a public library.
Controlling media is a 'hairy' issue indeed, but if we ignore the cultural and social ramifications, we're in danger of being too 'lax' about why media-access is a boon in a democracy!
====
The Care Bears Movie is a delightful 1985 cartoon-film about the idealistic magical 'Care Bears' who watch over a visiting human brother and sister who have lust faith in the potential of human beings; the Bears encourage the siblings to think more optimistically while dealing with an evil wizard in the realm who seeks to fill the Earth with concrete. This is obviously a modernism-symbolic values-driven cartoon-film which parents may enjoy with their kids or allow their kids to watch on their own. However, if we don't 'guide' our kids as they navigate through media/entertainment, they may find ideas/images that are not as conducive to lifestyle-inspiration.
If you think about it, our pets and kids(!) watch more TV than we adults. They even watch more TV than senior citizens at a retirement-home, for example. Because kids have so much access to TV/media these days and notice all the kinds of movie-trailers being presented in TV ads, we have to keep a better watch on what we suggest to them is 'valuable American entertainment.'
TV is a great American pastime, and entertainment/broadcasting itself has a rich tradition with intriguing sociocultural stories and symbolism such as the television Quiz Show era of the 1950s and the Little Orphan Annie radio-show era of the 1930s. Therefore, observing what our kids are watching on TV these days is as politically symbolic as, say, entertaining school-uniform clothing policies in private/public high-schools. The more proactive we are in supervision, the better our kids will feel about being 'guided' by the 'adult-world.'
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