I donât know if itâs just me, but I am getting sick and tired of reviewers and audiences going all
âMan isnt it wild that X childrenâs show covered THIS topic, itâs so crazy that a KIDS cartoon covered such a darrkkk/mature themes? (Cut to an episode of Bluey or ATLA or whatever)â
1. What do you mean âchildrenâs showâ âchildâ is a category that ranges from toddler to tween to teenager.
2. CHILDRENS MEDIA HAS ALLWAYS EXPLORED DARK/MATURE THEMES. Because children LOVE that shit.
Middle schoolers LOVE DEATH, children love burning ants, warrior cats, goosebumps, FNAF, and cartoons where Tom and Jerry are sent to hell.
Children love stories about abuse, a good 40% of superheroâs atp are characters whom were created to be soldiers/weapons at some point of another. Are we arguing Robin (Damian Wayne) from the DCAMU is not meaningfully for children? What about from the âboy wonderâ comic? Is Amimorphs not a childrens franchise?
Children love SEX, middle schoolers and teenagers are actively horny. No group of people makes more jokes about sex than 12-16 year olds do.
Like Iâve seen people calling children shows âdeepâ âfor a kids showsâ for, like having evil corporate super villains?? Like my man âEvil rich guyâ has been a childrens show archetype since, like, rich people have existed.
Children love that shit for the same reasons adults love that shit, because children experience grief, poverty, abuse etc just like adults do, and enjoy media that reflects that back at them. Children arent stupid, theyâre aware the world is filled with darkness and complexity. Children arenât innocent beings living in a tower where the rest of the world doesnât exist, they LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD FULL OF DARKNESS AND COMPLEXITY AND âMATURITYâ just as much as adults do. They just donât have the life experience to fully articulate and understand what their experiencing sometimes, and (if their really young) may have gaps in knowledge due to having lived a full decade + less. Which is often where media often comes in to show kids that hey what you saw/experienced is extremely normal, hereâs that embodied in a fictional character. Or in the case of shows for a REALLY young audience, introduce complex concepts in a digestible manor.
Like, the idea that topics like death or miscarriages âsuper mature for a childrens mediaâ kinda implies that the majority of childrens media just has characters sing and dance and blow bubbles all day. That their exists a version of âchildrens mediaâ mostly divorced from these concepts that this show/movie/what have you is breaking the mold by deviating from and I just donât think thatâs real! What makes the bluey mischarge âmore matureâ then Bambies mother being shot?
