Professor Shauna Wilton and colleagues at the Department of Social Sciences Research at the University of Alberta have made a disturbing discovery: Thomas the Tank Engine appears to be a vehicle used to implant a “conservative political ideology” in our children. This is the liberal version of the campaign against Purple Teletubby Tinky Winky by Jerry Falwell as sending hidden gay messages. The professor, however, may find proletarian values in another railway, the London underground: here.
Wilton found that the Thomas the Tank Engine series teaches children what she views as a conservative agenda, including a world that “punishes individual initiative, opposes critique and change, and relegates females to supportive roles.”
She found that “storylines in several episodes that divided the characters into different social classes and punished those who tried to gain individual power . . . Any change is seen as disrupting the natural order of things.” Worse yet, “of 49 main characters listed in the show, only eight were female, reflecting a general trend among children’s programming.” She warned that “[w]e tend to think of children’s TV shows as neutral and safe, but they still carry messages. Eventually these children will attain full political citizenship, and the opinions and world outlook they develop now, partially influenced by shows like Thomas and Friends, are part of that process.”
What is particularly shocking is that the voices used to advance this conservative messaging is Ringo Starr and Alec Baldwin. If you play episodes backwards, you can clearly hear Baldwin saying “Support Sarah Palin, Support Sarah Palin.”
It all comes down to Sir Topham Hatt, the capitalist icon of the film who runs the hard-working trains like enslaved laborers filling his pockets with his dirty oil-soaked money. Rise, worker tank engines unite, and throw off the yoke of Sir Topham Hatt and his capitalist oil-suckers! You have nothing to lose but your brake chains!
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Mike:
Can you please explain to me how curious George is racist? I used to love curious George as a young child.
To me George was the metaphor for free markets and the man in the big yellow hat was a metaphor for the nanny state. George was always trying new things and the man in the big yellow hat was always trying to protect him from himself. Although George never really needed protecting, he had it all under control.
George was being stifled by the MIBYH and so was never able to live up to his full potential.
Personally, I’ll stick with my message neutral Grimm’s Fair Tales, Aesop’s Fables, Urban Legends and Creation myths.
Using TV as a babysitter has been a parental trend of more than 50 years duration. It is not a good thing because younger children lack the critical facilities and societal knowledge to understand what they’re watching. The gamut runs from liberal to conservative to entrepreneurial. Disney stuff for instance is really more about brand recognitions than story telling. My daughter sensibly limits the TV watching of her children and yet on a recent visit I saw that “Curious George” was allowed. I watched with my Grandson and to me this is a subliminally racist show. My daughter discounted my analysis and she is an adult, so I dropped the issue. The difficulty with the issue is that we have no real way to foretell the unintended consequences.
Buddha:
My buildings are quite stable because I pay homage to Sir Isaac and his 3 theorems.
There is nothing wrong with making a profit, it is not evil. If there were no profits there would be no jobs.
I am also not into total freedom, that is anarchy.
I am more than willing to entertain government regulation of industry, but to date no one has explained to me why people that work for the government are any more or less moral than people that work in the private sector. If people are selfish, then that is their nature. It doesn’t disappear because they work for government.
So who is going to regulate the regulators?
As far as society getting along without capitalism, that is debatable. The last 5,000 years prior to about 1800 wasn’t exactly peaches and cream for humanity. The last 200 years have been quite a good deal better.
Rulers rule with consent of the governed, how does that apply to business making a profit? I agree with you that K street needs to go and I think that would go a long way toward leveling out that inequality. But then government officials and our elected officials are in K streets pocket so why would I think they could regulate anything fairly?
Byron,
Of course it’s a bad thing to oppress others, Mr. Maximum Personal Freedom. Unless it interferes with a profit? You are just a swarm of contradictions. Careful. Your elitism is showing. David is merely pointing to the fact that capitalism appeals to the very worst in human nature: greed. To think greed drives all human endeavors is myopic at best and at worst condemns humans to die in pursuit of “who has the shiniest toys”. You can be a “unrestricted capitalist” all you want, but what you said up above was straight fascism bolstered by some kind of half-witted social Darwinism. Society isn’t the individual. It’s the totality. That your ego cannot accept this is your ego’s issue. The individual, by definition and fact, is alone. So try to build a building next time using just one guy. See how that works out for you.
Society would exist just fine without capitalism.
Society would not exist at all without laws (and in fairness, agriculture).
Your right to make a profit doesn’t extend to damaging others purposefully for profit. That you are not able to make that distinction says a lot about you Byron. And it’s not very flattering. When the model you so love creates enough “underclass” the “upper class” will be eaten alive. That’s just history and it applies to all systems, not just economic. Unbalanced means unstable. That you keep running into this blind spot with your worship of capitalism makes me question how stable you design structures. The rulers rule only with the consent of the governed. When rulers forget this, it invites disaster. Their blind spot is the same as yours: the assumption people will take an unlimited amount of bullshit (for any reason) without striking back.
Ask the French how well that philosophy worked out.
Which one is the gay train or the one in drag? Just Askin
DavidG:
“They also embrace greed and willingly become consumers and producers so that a handful of folk can become obscenely rich.”
And that is a bad thing? If it wasn’t for that human trait we would be living in mud huts. Everyone has an equal chance of becoming rich. It only takes exceptionally hard work and single minded devotion to your endeavor. Sometimes a little luck is involved but most times you make your own luck.
That most people aren’t willing to pay the price is not the fault of the ones that are willing.
Budda, I’m sorry to disappoint you but children are brainwashed from the moment they are born. It starts with the parents who start to pour into the innocent child all their fears, foolishness and foibles. The child is encouraged to imitate and is rewarded for so doing.
Next, the child plays with other children and gets input from their parents. Then comes mindless television which is quickly followed by kindergarten and primary school. The teacher teaches and the child imitates. And so it goes…
By the time they are adults, each human is roundly indoctrinated and ready to go out and kill anyone who thinks differently to them. They also embrace greed and willingly become consumers and producers so that a handful of folk can become obscenely rich.
Hence the word ‘sheeple’.
Catch ’em while they’re young is a paradigm in propaganda. The user’s motive is irrelevant. It’s a disservice to the child to propagate ideology over critical analysis. Ultimately, it’s a disservice to all of society. They are children and should be allowed to be such with as little of the usually semi-psychotic garbage that goes with adult partisan political arguments. They will find out the world if full is shitty people doing horrid things to each other based on all kinds of nonsensical rationales and straight out insanity soon enough. Then they pupate and become sullen teens. But you should let children be children free of the stupidity of politics and brainwashing for as long as possible. It’s good for them and better for the world in general.
Sorry, Prof. Wilton, nothing new here. Programming children through children’s programming has been going on at least since the Eighties. If the Smurfs aren’t dedicated liberals — socialists, even — I sure can’t think of a better example in the genre (not that I keep up with it very well these days). The Teletubbies are all sweetness & light too. Conversely, look at the messages in He-Man & Power Rangers. A litany of values and ideals is presented in these shows, in various lights. I doubt that animata will override all the other messages and pressures out there, but I can’t agree that kids will not be shaped or polarized by it. Some of that’s gonna sink in, and probably without a lot of analysis.
Wilton should go a step farther, and do some rigorous comparison to, say, the sixties. I’d be interested to see just what has changed.
And keep watching, perhaps Sir Topham will go Galt on us. Worthless parasite tank engines…
I have never seen Thomas the Tank engine but from what everyone is saying it sounds more like a repressive Marxist ideological show. Based on the state of England in the 1940’s that is probably closer to the truth.
I was always a fan of Wallace and Gromit.
Was glad to see some snark in this column. My son is now 20 and he loovvved Thomas the Tank engine. These shows are based on books written in England during the 1940s and I would expect that they reflect the way things were in 1940s England. Can we not have books or shows written or based on things written during an earlier time? I can assure you my 20 year old is neither a sexist or conservative. He is a democrat who made a point to change his voter registration to his college location so he could vote for Barack Obama, and an engineering and physics major. Business is not for him. I just don’t think young children pick up on these themes. Thomas for a 3-5 year old was all about a group of trains that worked together and had personalities.
My daughters watch “Sid the Science Kid” and it was pushing the flu shot issue pretty hard. They talked about the different methods of recieving the shot and why it is “important” to get it.
What kid’s show doesn’t have a political agenda?
Thomas the Tank Engine is a really lame and annoying show. I cannot stand the animation or the narrator’s voice. My kids are not allowed to watch soley based on those reasons I stated.
I always worry about subliminal messages in pop culture, especially those that target the young. Recently, a prime example of this was the movie ‘300,’ which seems like Wolfowitz produced. Evidence: the society heralds warlike virtues, even in children. The good guys are ridiculously white (for being from Greece). The bad guys are ridiculously black (for being from Iran). There are numerous derogatory jokes made about gays (usually in reference to Athenians). There is a small, strategic unit of elite soldiers sent out to fight a short, tactical war. Etc.
Also, I would be careful of equating the validity of different allegations about subliminal messages in children’s programming just because one comes ‘from the left’ and one comes ‘from the right.’ Clearly, Falwell is a nutcase and his opinions should not be given any weight. On the other hand, Shauna Wilton (who, as opposed to Falwell, probably earned her Ph.D by going through school and also probably graduated from an accredited college) might have a point.
The late George Carlin did a turn as Mr. Conductor.
Thomas the Tank Engine is a fictional anthropomorphic steam locomotive created by the Reverend W. Awdry, an English clergyman. The English aspect explains the class message and the clergyman aspect explains the conservative message.
Maybe Wilton is on to something.
The statment that “storylines . . . divided the characters into different social classes and punished those who tried to gain individual power . . . Any change is seen as disrupting the natural order of things” applies to the movie “Bee Movie” which I didn’t like precisely because I thought sent a very conservative message.
I wrote about this and linked to you. Thanks for posting. As a mother of two preschoolers, this is really upsetting. They watch Thomas almost everyday. I’ve never liked it. I wish I’d listened to that little voice. Diesel scares them to death, too. And, I hate the way James gets treated!!! That doesn’t even begin to cover the women…
And if you run the show backwards do you hear Satan tell you to avoid Capitalism? Yes, Jerry, your followers do speak in forked tongue. However it is hard to listen to VHS/DVD in rewind mode. But how then do they get the message out. WKRP has the answers, just ask the big guy….
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=levn6o4aoMI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Arthur ‘Big Guy’ Carlson: I don’t want to argue the point any further, but I would like to express one other thought that occurs to me.
Dr. Bob Halyers: Surely.
Arthur ‘Big Guy’ Carlson: Bob, watch out for those broadcasters that cave into your pressure, because principle’s not going to mean a darn thing to them. All they’re going to be doing is saving their swimming pools. Ah, they’ll be the first ones to come and sit at your table. But I thing the good ones are going to be the ones that are willing to take a lose and put up a fight.
Dr. Bob Halyers: Well then, I’ll just have to love my enemies, Arthur, like the good book says.
Arthur ‘Big Guy’ Carlson: I hope so. because I don’t think you’ll be able to trust your friends.
Dr. Bob Halyers: Good bye, Arthur.