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Monday, October 24, 2011

Dino Dan and Other Kids

I thought the post below was going to talk about the fact that although both girls and boys love dinosaurs, TV shows that cater to children only have the boy as the lead character - as evidenced in Dino Dan.

Cartoons really do girls a dis-service. Boys can be "take charge" kind of kids and get things done, but let a girl have that "can do" attitude, and she's just a bossy bitch. [And, sadly, girls - and when they grow older, women, feel the same way about their female bosses! Because we've been ingrained since childhood that only guys have the right to tell women what they should be doing, presumably.]

But as you see below, the post is rather more concerned about teaching kids that imagination and "wishing" can accomplish things, rather than buckling down to work and making things happen on your own.
From BlogHer.com: Dino Dan and Other Kids Shows Miss the Mark
When Kids Shows Just Miss the Mark:

You know him. You might have been him -- there’s always one in a class. The little boy that’s obsessed with dinosaurs and knows everything about them. No matter what you try to talk about, they find a way to link it to dinosaurs.

That’s Dan. And because this is a show about him, his classmates tolerate him and even think he’s cool.

But there’s a problem. You see, Dan doesn’t just know everything about dinosaurs -- he sees them all around Toronto. The show commits itself to having Dan believe this, even convincing his best friend it’s real. But nobody else believes him, and there are hints all around that it is Dan’s imagination. What could have been a very entertaining show about the power of imagination instead feels more like a little boy who is so desperate for his father that he creates the one scenario that’s guaranteed to bring him home -- real dinosaurs.

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