Autism & Cartoons

We watch a lot of cartoons in our house.

But when we live with an autistic young man, we watch them in our own unique way.

Tbh, I tune out of most of them.  There's only so much Humpf (in fucking Bulgarian) I can cope with before I start questioning the fabric of reality and frantically search for a void to scream into.

Yesterday, though, for a horrible half hour, I was forced to pay attention to them.

Well, when I say 'forced', the remote was out of my reach and I was too lazy to look for it.  I'd love to pretend I was caught up in the transcendental flow of my current crochet project, but really my arse and the sofa were locked in a deep and meaningful relationship.  They were in love.  Who was I to break that up?

I was so lazy that I voluntarily chose being tortured by The Enchantimals over moving my comfortably upholstered butt.

I can handle my own terrible truth.

Then I learned something.

I discovered that cartoons are subversive brainfuckery.  It might be less dangerous to employ Freddie Kruger to do a spot of babysitting.

Never mind the obvious violent, misogynistic racism of Tom & Jerry (those cheeky rascals).

Bob the Builder is a workaholic sycophant who only values his 'useful' team members.  

Ditto Thomas the Tank Engine.  Any deluded engine who imagines he will be loved for being himself, and not for the work he performs, can get right in the bin.

My Little Pony teaches us that if you're enough of a body-shaming brat, you get to become a princess.  Not a surgeon, or an artist, or a teacher.  Another (yawn) princess.

Peppa Pig has full-blown complex PTSD due to having a narcissistic father with delusions of grandeur, and a passive-aggressive mother who doesn't realise she's living in a houseful of pigs.  The sooner they're roasted and slapped between two slices of brioche, the better.

I miss the good old days of the Clangers, when sweet little moon mice visited the soup dragon to acquire some magic, green broth.  Or when Dougal worried about where to stash his 'sugar cubes' in the Magic Roundabout (while a bombed out Dylan sang folk tunes to the trees).

Absolutely no drug references there.

I recently discovered that Rainbow was absolute filth (sadly lost on six year old me).  And we won't even go there with Captain Pugwash.

Tbf, fairy tales and nursery rhymes are horrific, so terrifying our kids for the craic is nothing new.  

But cartoons are way more entertaining than I was aware of.  Once again, Finian has schooled me.

"get the green shit!"