duminică, 13 aprilie 2008

“What’s a nice kid like you doing in a place like this?...”

De cateva zile am Cartoon Network in engleza! Cei care au invatat engleza si de la televizor stiu despre ce vorbesc si inteleg sentimentul care ma incearca. Am scapat in sfarsit de "Care-i treaba,mosule?" bleah (traducere pentru "what's up,doc?") No more pokemoni!Yeeey!
For good old times here's a piece of my masterpiece:


Humour, Entertainment and High Technology

Today children don’t want to hear any more stories with Little Red Riding Hood or The Three Little Pigs, and the magic of “Once upon a time...” has been completely forgotten. The world of fairy tales has ceased to exist because, instead of reading a book, children will choose a computer game or a T.V. programme.
Even though grown-ups say that we should turn our attention back to books and stories, the days of paper culture are gone: if there is something that children still enjoy, it is watching cartoons.
Cartoon entertainment, in its classical sense, actually began with Walt Disney, who soon became a “hero” and a legend of the 20th century. Walt Disney transformed the entertainment industry into what we know today. He pioneered the field of animation and found new ways to teach and educate. Walt’s optimism came from his unique ability to see the entire picture. His views and visions came from “the fond memory of yesteryear”, and persistence for the future. Walt loved history, and he had a wonderful taste for the good old days. Although he made use of the technology of his time to achieve animation, he avoided advertising technology on screen: his stories were charmingly, magically “old-fashioned”. Technology was to Disney a servant, and never a master, as he connected it to his ongoing mission of making life more enjoyable, and fun. He was the bridge from the past into the future.
The message of Walt Disney Cartoons was: education through entertainment. His cartoons were presented as stories where technology didn’t exist. Such animated characters as Snow White, Donald Duck, Pinocchio, Alice, Bambi, Cinderella and, of course, Mickey Mouse were not only cartoon features, but fairy-tale heroes.
After the Walt Disney age, another cartoon trend was to change the idea of entertainment: the Looney Tunes, created for both children and grown-ups, whose main catch was their irresistible humour. Their message was also different: entertainment through humour.
When I was a little girl, cartoons and fairy tales were still valued and enjoyed. My world of fun was a combination of Silvestre and Tweety alongside with Snow White. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Silvestre, Tweety, Road Runner were my favourite because I could easily understand their humour and I became familiar with such animal characters as were completely different from the animal world of the stories I was reading.
The Looney Tunes still preserve something of the idea of non-offensive violence, which is only a source of humour, relatively harmless for a child’s behaviour.

The years have passed by and high technology has sadly replaced dreams, the world of animals, and the innocence of a child. Today’s cartoons feature the performance of the computer and special effects are used instead of fun and humour. The picture tends to be seriously deformed and the kind of violence depicted is no longer funny at all. The message is no longer an idea of entertainment: it is only a stimulation of adrenalin into violent impulses of unknown and possibly dangerous consequences. Cartoons like Cow and Chicken, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Courage, the Cowardly Dog, The Cramp Twins have no relation with the real world and the characters which represent either animals or humans are dramatically deformed. Not to mention the morbid landscapes and the ugly colours, and such display of violence as may prove actually dangerous for a child’s fragile personality.
If ten years ago humour was the basic characteristic of cartooning, today complexity and special effects are the key words. When I watch a cartoon where all the characters are fighting, the blood spurting all over the place and the killing techniques are “topical”, I have the feeling that a war is going on in front of my eyes and I wonder: “What could a little child think about these scenes?” Whenever I see a kiddie with his eyes glued to the screen watching such stuff, I feel like asking: “What’s a nice kid like you doing in a place like this?...”
We should all think about what is good for us to watch, to entertain ourselves and remember that high technology does not always work to our moral benefit.

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