This “morals in children’s shows” talk reminds me of a children’s show I’m not entirely too ashamed to admit I watch, Gravity Falls on the Disney Channel.
A few times, it actually goes out of its way to subvert the “little kids learn a moral and are better for it” trope.
For instance, there’s a stereotypical obnoxious rich girl character. Her family has an ancestor that, as far as everyone knows, founded the town they all live in. She’s a huge ass to the two main characters, a set of twins.
Eventually, the twins find some information that the town wasn’t founded by her great-grandfather, who was just the town idiot and a janitor. The sister decides that she won’t tell the rich girl, because she knows the truth, and you shouldn’t seek out revenge on people.
At which point the brother promptly tells the rich girl her great-grandfather was a fraud, and proclaims,
“I don’t know why everyone says revenge is under-rated…that felt GREAT!”
The problem is - as always - if the kid hears it on TV for the 1st time and then makes a mental image of it (perception) that, at that early age, has a tendency to hover for a long time.
Anecdotally speaking, it happens more often than not and certainly, more often that we would like to.
There are some things we just don’t tolerate on this board.
What struck me about that pic is that every last one of them – even the guy – is standing there with one hand on a side-thrust hip. I won’t say they’ve been sexualized beyond their years, but, yish, does any kid stand around like that?
This dates to the days when the over-the-air networks were all most people had, and it had become obvious the Saturday-morning toons had become toy infommercials, so in order to contain backlash the studios agreed to have “educational” or “character-building” content in the show if it was aimed for children.