Mark Evanier on groupthink and cavaliers

[spatch]

An interesting and scary bit from Mark Evanier, a veteran television writer. In this article on his website, POV Online, he discusses writing for the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon and, more importantly, on the messages he was ordered to deliver to the impressionable tiny tots:

The kids were all heroic -- all but a semi-heroic member of their troupe named Eric. Eric was a whiner, a complainer, a guy who didn't like to go along with whatever the others wanted to do. Usually, he would grudgingly agree to participate, and it would always turn out well, and Eric would be glad he joined in. He was the one thing I really didn't like about the show.

So why, you may wonder, did I leave him in there? Answer: I had to.

As you may know, there are those out there who attempt to influence the content of childrens' television. We call them "parents groups," although many are not comprised of parents, or at least not of folks whose primary interest is as parents. Study them and you'll find a wide array of agendum at work...and I suspect that, in some cases, their stated goals are far from their real goals.

Nevertheless, they all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain "pro-social" morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant "pro-social" moral was as follows: The group is always right...the complainer is always wrong.

This was the message of way too many eighties' cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get-Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn't get along with the gang learned the error of his or her ways.

We were forced to insert this "lesson" in D & D, which is why Eric was always saying, "I don't want to do that" and paying for his social recalcitrance. I thought it was forced and repetitive, but I especially objected to the lesson. I don't believe you should always go along with the group. What about thinking for yourself? What about developing your own personality and viewpoint? What about doing things because you decide they're the right thing to do, not because the majority ruled and you got outvoted?

We weren't allowed to teach any of that. We had to teach kids to join gangs. And then to do whatever the rest of the gang wanted to do.

What a stupid thing to teach children.

Comments

[mykwud.livejournal.com]

EVEN STUPIDER: in one of the G.I.Joe-esque public service announcements at the end of an episode of JEM, Jem advises some young female bicyclers to bike on the left side of the road so "you can see the oncoming traffic."

[spatch]

Actually, that's often taught in bike safety courses -- whether it's to keep kids from dicking around and swerving out into a car they didn't know was coming up fast behind them, or to help a new generation of kids grow balls of steel, I'm not sure.

[mykwud.livejournal.com]

Well, then, why does Jem then offer the aforementioned bicyclers a "BODY MASSAGE"??? Explain THAT, mister smartypants!!

[spatch]

Cause she's Mr. Body Massage Machine.

Next!

[nathanjw]

When I was learning to bicycle, on winding dirt roads in rural Virginia, I was taught this rule (which applied to walking on the roads, too). It's not really so you can see oncoming traffic - it doesn't really help with that - but it's so that the traffic you can't see, coming up behind you, is on the other side of the road.

[genarti]

I was taught that for walking on the roads, too, in rural Vermont. But not for biking; Vermont law is that bikers have to keep to the right and obey traffic laws as if they were cars.

Not sure what I would have been taught there as a child, since I grew up and learned to bike while living in suburban Ohio. I have a feeling it would be on the order of "Biking on the road? Uh, honey, don't do that, please." At least given the drivers on the roads near my house.