This morning I’m making a French toast breakfast when I peer up towards the television and see a vision that nearly knocks me off my feet. Normally, I don’t allow TV during the week. We don’t even have cable. If my kids want to watch a movie now and again, I don’t mind as long as it is appropriate (rated G). I understand the need for my kids to wind down, but I prefer this winding down exercise to be done over a book, painting, or family time in the kitchen, not mindlessly staring at a television. But every now and then I do allow a DVD to be popped into the TV, especially Sunday mornings. After 25 hours of shared family time on Shabbat, I figure an hour or two wasted on a movie on a Sunday morning won’t kill my kids.
So I look up and I notice my boys watching a cartoon. Harmless. Super hero cartoons. Harmless. Bad guys fighting the good guys. Harmless. Until I notice these characters look like some colorful porn show. The women are half dressed in these costumes they can hardly squeeze into, with their cleavage spilling out, and the men are so muscular, their leotards are as taut as a balloon skin with helium. I wonder who designed these cartoon characters, and if they understood that their target audience were seven and ten year olds. Is it not enough my kids have to be exposed to these naked visions while driving on the 405, or accidentally walking through the mall? Now they have to be exposed to cleavage and buttocks while sitting safely in their living rooms with Superman and Batman?
Then I thought, what would happen if these characters were wearing prettier modest outfits? Sure, the cape already gets in the way causing accidental stranglulation, making long skirts a liability as well. I understand the need for leotards to help with the super hero’s flight speed and velocity when flying high towards an enemy engulfed in radiation, but couldn’t someone come up with a happy medium? What about drawing these characters a little less curvaceous? Do they have to be so muscular? The show is for kids. Most kids associate strength with awesome tennis shoes. Couldn’t the superhero girls have a really nifty pair of pink high tops, leg warmers, and a large tent shirt that doubles as a cape blouse? Is it really necessary that her breasts are oozing out of her superhero costume? I think our kids would still be entertained without the x-rated suggestive uniform.
Couldn’t we make the men a little more like the ones we see at school recitals- a little bulkier, heavier, without the steroids? Our kids think their dads are pretty awesome even with that little bulge, trust me they’d be just as entertained if Batman was wearing trousers and an oxford while sporting a little extra tummy. In fact, I would dare say, they’d think he was even cooler. Batman beat the Iceman, even with that second helping of ice cream? Now that’s heroic!
I could go on, but my kids just turned on some A-team episode from 1975 that they ordered without me knowing off of Netflix that I now have to go turn off. I’m so happy not having cable has “protected” my kids from sex and violence.
