Life As A Dignified Young Man

The vagina that is America’s youth is gaping. Soon, it will be wide enough to fist.

           

            When I was a small child, there were two television shows I watched religiously. The first was a little series known as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The mere mention of these shelled warriors to any guy in their early twenties will elicit a smile faster than the phrase “coed jello wrestling”. Most guys can recite the main characters, including the reptiles in question, their talking rat sensei, the main bad guys, and the weapons they each had. They know that Bebop was the warthog and Rocksteady was the rhino and that Krang was a reference to the talking brain in the dude’s stomach that sounded a little like Yoda. They had the toys, played the video games, and spent much of Kindergarten pretending to be the characters at recess (when they weren’t eating crayons or putting glue on their fingers so they could peel it off when it dried).

 

            The second, and my personal favorite, was Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters of course is based on the ingenious 80s live action movie staring Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Ramis and that Black Dude. The movie was popular with all ages, including four and five year olds who couldn’t grasp half the jokes, but liked the idea of zapping ghosts and getting to play with slime on a regular basis.

 

            These shows played major roles in my early development, along with that of many others my age. We learned valuable life lessons like survival in the face of extremely adversity, whether it is a wave of ghosts or mutated talking animals. We also learned about friendship and teamwork, and that to survive, we must stick together. I personally also learned a fair amount of crude karate that I used freely on unsuspecting kids on the playground and developed a love for pizza.

 

            Other favorites from that time include Transformers, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,  and Thundercats. Similar lessons could be gained from all.

 

            Over the years, the shows changed, and we got older. All the newcomers seemed stupid and immature (this coming from us in middle school). They made less sense and got more violent. This all came to a peak with a show called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, a show the united kids from different races that all went to a school together (the school looked like they had recycled the set from Saved By the Bell’s The Max). When they weren’t in school, they joined together to fight something, I’m still not sure what, but I think there were aliens involved, a long island-ish woman with bad skin and big shoulder pads, and there may have been a talking helmeted pig at one point too. They used laser tag guns and machines that looked like dinosaurs.

 

            Basically, the show got lazy and said, “Okay, kids like guns, fighting, dinosaurs, aliens, The Max, and horrible acting. Let’s just throw all that shit in a pot and see what comes out.” The fight scenes weren’t even filmed for the show; they actually just cut in scenes from a Japanese show and dubbed over them. So it became apparent that the show was about nothing more than violence and getting to watch a frisky Amy Jo Johnson occasionally do gymnastics (nice, even though she’s almost 40 now, Jesus Christ, how’d that happen?).

 

            Then all the school shootings started happening. People wanted answers. Why was this happening? Where was all this unchecked aggression coming from? Rather than point the finger at themselves, parents decided it had to be violent television shows, video games, movies, music, etc. All I know is that I watched tons of violent shows and video games when I was little and have never felt the slightest desire to bring harm on anyone else (besides Bill Engvall, and I consider that completely understandable). 

 

            So what happened after that? Networks needed to find shows with less violence to appease the angry soccer moms. This gave to the rise of an already existing entity, a large purple turd known as Barney. Barney was a foam dinosaur that danced around a playground with children and sang and taught important life lessons like manners and crosswalk safety. He wouldn’t dare fight anyone or have a disagreement, because nobody likes a disagreeable dino. He was just big and friendly and huggable.

           

            What else was Barney? Fucking creepy. His songs would be complimented nicely by a hand full of valiums, he hugged kids he had never met (where were the parents?), and had a gut churning giggle that made me want to punch things. Barney made me feel more rage than any violent video game or movie ever could. In eighth grade, I wrote an outline for an episode of Barney where a jealous Grimace, tired of having his thunder stolen, comes to the playground all the way from McDonaldland and bashes a guitar over Barney’s skull. I sent it in to the network, but it was strangely rejected. Not many shows could draw that kind of ire from me. Add that to the fact that nobody would be surprised if Barney took off his mask and was revealed to be R.Kelly, and has the situation with children’s programming really improved?

 

            It gets worse though. The following generation was given (granted at an earlier age) a show called Teletubbies. The teletubbies are in that same vein of sedated  muppets as Barney, except worse. They are chubby little guys that run around into each other and laugh and make guttural noises until a baby’s face appears in a sun and the show ends. Not only does the show have no violence, but it has no dialogue, plot, or theme. Occasionally, they do some clapping, but there is nothing that can really be learned from the show or its characters.

 

            So, how does this change in children’s television affect society at large? Simple. Children grow up.

 

            My generation has reached adulthood. For the most part, we have our own places and have some kind of job. It’s still a little too early to judge, but to be honest, I expected a little more from us. I include myself in this, because I know that at my age, my parents had been on their own for years, were married, and had started careers that they still have today. Times have changed, and we’re waiting longer to get into the careers we want and taking longer to find Mr. and Mrs. Right. The whole idea of being ourselves, finding something we love to do, and aiming for that perfect life have made it difficult for us in the sense that we know where we want to go, but aren’t really sure how to get there. So we jump from job to job, mate to mate, and don’t really commit the time probably necessary to make the leap we’re looking for. Basically, we’re in no rush to grow up. It’s a very crab-like state. At my age, I have the feeling that my parents and most of their generation were being far more productive than me and mine are now.

 

            This is okay, because I’m confident we’ll eventually figure it out.

 

            I do know one thing though: Nothing I have done in my life has ever been accomplished due to good manners (and I do have them) or my ability to share. It might make me less of a jerk, but no more productive. Everything good that I have done, I’ve needed to appeal to a more competitive spirit, find a sense of assertiveness, and use the ability to be part of a team and above all, survive. The desire to survive in the world, in this sense more figurative, as in bringing in enough money to provide for yourself, is what sustains most people to achieve at least marginal success.

 

            My parents didn’t grow up watching any television shows. They spent their youth outside, playing with real kids, learning about life by going out and living it. My generation grew up “living less”. This one now is almost completely on autopilot, and one has to wonder if they’ll ever develop those important survival skills. What it could lead to is an overall inept class of Americans in about fifteen years, polite wimps who will keep looking for other people to take care of things for them.

 

            At least they’ll know how to say please and thank you.