Teleparenting Has Spoiled Our Show
by "Darkjedik"

Originally Posted: 24 September 2000

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I'm sure at least some of you have seen this TiVo commercial with the children screaming, throwing fits, breaking stuff, and one even thrashing the carpet with an uprooted plant. The commercial's solution to the problem: stick the children in from of the TV to occupy their minds and (more importantly) shut them up. When I first saw this commercial I nearly flipped out. Has our society degenerated so much to where our parenting skills have been limited to pressing a few buttons on a remote control and sitting our children in front of the idiot box to leave our parents a few moments of peace and quiet? Apparently the answer is yes.

Just to put your skepticism to a minimum, I have two nephews and a neice that I have had to take care of by myself before. Yes, they are annoying. Yes, they are a pain to take care of. No, I don't regret that I had to do it. To me it was a labor of love, and I would do it again (just don't tell my brother and his wife). What I found disheartening was all that they wanted to do was watch TV or a movie. While I too enjoy a good TV or movie story (evident by the fact that I enjoy anime), I don't make it the center of my waking hours. Instead of turning on the boob-tube, I sat them down with a pile of books and a bucket of Legos. For three hours they read, built, had fun, and I had no problems (mostly). If they had a problem or question, I helped them with it. When they left I let out a sigh of exhaustion and of accomplishment. I had just spent three hours with three little children and had neither killed them, nor lost my sanity. This proves that spending a little personal time with children will not cost you your eternal soul.

However, most new parents nowadays take a different attitude to raising their children. Right about now you are asking yourselves, "What does this have to do with Dragonball?" This is a good question, since it has everything to do with how it is being changed here in America. As the title suggests, "teleparenting" (the act of letting the television raise a child) has spoiled our show. This may not seem like a direct cause, but it has affected the way it is being changed and presented to us. Let me explain:

Way back when, the television was used as a way of entertaining the family by telling a story, showing a sports game, or telling the news of the day. People knew that the sports and news were real and the stories were make-believe. The parents knew, the children knew, everybody knew. Then came educational programming which taught those who watched, something. Later, when programmers found that it bored most people who had better things to do, they made it more entertaining. Unfortunately, the parents had to work most of the time, so the only ones who had time to watch such shows were the children of the family. The parents saw how helpful this was to them, in that they could go to work or take care of things around the house while this wonderful invention educated their children at an early age. Out of this were born such shows as "Seseme Street", "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood", and "H.R. Puffinstuff" (old show from '60s/'70s). These shows taught children about sharing, basic math, and even how nature works. But it didn't teach them the difference between reality and fiction. This is where things started going to pot.

Sure, now as mature as we are now (most of us at least), we can look at these shows and tell that it was all fake. But when we were four and Big Bird told us to dance around and be happy, we did it right? Children were being brought up by the TV and were being taught life lessons while the parents were busy with their own worries. There was one major problem though: as humans, we learn through imitation, and our children were now learning from the TV instead of their parents. This is where the line between fantasy and reality blurs. These children of TV were growing up and are now watching older kids' shows like GI Joe. Now what does the TV-imitator child do? He learns how a gun works and how to fight, but nobody gets hurt or dies and the bad guy gets away. All it takes is one child to start acting like Sgt. Slaughter in school, and now we have histerical parents (normally mothers worried about their children getting hurt) scurrying about for the quick fix. They come across their kid watching this show and making gun noises and right away they blame the people that put the show on the air, not thinking about what they could do as the kid's parent. Next thing you know, we've got censorship laws, the V-chip, and we still have the same problem with the children. WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?

But it doesn't stop there. Now introduce a show like "Dragonball" into the mix. It comes from another country that doesn't have the same parenting and maturity problems we do here. Immediately it is cut up and rewritten to suit the standards of the rabid parent-pressured network censors. The whole story and underlying messages of an epic like "Dragonball" falls on the deaf ears and is lost. The whole "out of sight, out of mind" teleparenting philosophy is one of the contributing factors to the ruination of American "Dragonball".

But then again, that's just my opinion.

Contact: darkjedik@aol.com