children's media is cool... adults should grow up and read them...

[highimpactsex]

i've been watching Nick Knacks, a retrospective detailing the rise of children's television (not just nickelodeon), by poparena and it's made me think about my own excursion into children's literature when i took up a class for writing for children.

writing for children is very tough not just because you have to get what the kids are into but also the fact you're tempted to be condescending. it's easy to talk down to kids in this genre of media. you subconsciously want children to be something they may not want to be: you think of them as mini-adults, infants, property, malleable objects that can be twisted and turned into what you want to be. in general, i think researching how kids react and express themselves has made me thought deeply about what stories for children should be. take Pippi Longstocking and Dennis the Menace for example, they're enjoyed by kids all over the world if they knew but parents view them as naughty entertainment. these are strong characters who resist authority and do whatever shit they want. and a lot of kids want to rebel and do what they want too, but this is the kind of narratives adults dislike.

instead, they're forced to read books like Pollyanna: learn to be polite, obedient, and happy. it brushes off the negative emotions children feel in favor of what a "good" kid should be. i can't help but view this kind of literature as two things: 1) propaganda 2) works for adults who think this is what kids want.

we see in this genealogy of nickelodeon: the early years weren't so successful because they were basically a PBS you paid for until the slime stuff happened. the few interesting shows that worked in this period were the ones that actually dealt with subject matter kids would be able to relate to.

the most impressive episode is the one on Vegetable Soup, a show that was fondly misremembered as having "scary puppets" when it's actually one of the most diverse shows that ever aired on tv. here are episodes explaining and depicting the experiences of life under a prejudiced usa: there's one on puerto ricans being ganged up by white kids so they learned karate, then there's another which had a bunch of people of color cosplay as indigenous people stereotypes and then learning this is just them playing racial stereotypes that would affect them in a different way, and so on. you never get the impression these shows talk down to kids about how "prejudice is bad, m'kay" because they have a keen ear for what kids want to see on tv.

i find children's media -- the one that's actually for kids -- utterly fascinating as a result. the good ones are rarely the ones shown in school; they're the ones adults have thought about for ages how to explain this or that to kids. these works are honest in ways i doubt a lot of adults can ever write in. to be taken seriously, adults must engage in self-deprecating and irony. but children? you can be refreshingly honest and direct. shows like Hugtto Precure deal with gender themes more powerfully than adult media ever will for this reason. after watching a few of these shows, most people i'm sure will agree adult media is not as edgy, provocative, and enlightening as they may initially believe.

hence, my main point of contention: i'm always sad that adults don't look into children's literature besides what they've read in school. while there's a few books i know that were taught in school that remain pretty good (Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, Stuart Little by E.B. White), i think people are missing out on works like the Mary Poppins series by P.L. Travers, which is a delight to read; Waterloo and Trafalgar by Oliver Tallec, which features comedic sketches of how kids imagine what these historical battles might be like; The Red Book by Barbara Lehman, a superbly imaginative world depicting urban life.. and i'm sure there's more i have no idea about since i haven't been keeping up with the Bologna Children's Fair.

and i know i haven't really touched games for kids made recently. while i know people will bring up the Putt-Putt series, there's certainly more no one's talked about. on the interactive fiction side, there's Six by Wade Clarke, Snack Time! by Hardy the Bulldog and Renee Choba, etc. i can at least vouch for Lost Pig being a romp meant for silly adults like me but is also very friendly to kids (see the top review especially). the fact there's a few games that are kid-friendly makes me kinda happy.

and consider that shows as complex as Princess Tutu aired for the kids. here's a show that dealt with metafiction themes and how we engage with fairy tales, just for the kids. kids can understand this shit, even if they lack the vocabulary to express it.

indeed, i think adults just don't take children's media seriously unless the works become somehow "relevant" to them. which is a shame because there's so much to kids' media that i still don't know about. poe's law is a real thing and kids do watch trash, but once in a while, when the creative control is given to people who want to communicate with kids, then something magical happens.

i sometimes think about how my interest in niche media is actually similar to my interest in children's media for this reason: people can make magic if they want to be honest and speak to the audience. i wish adults (and i'm including myself because i have my own biases) understand what kids want: the good stuff that they can engage with.