There are two things I'm going to write about, and I promise, they link up. That may not be immediately apparent.
One of them is a five minute snatch of conversation I overheard, the other is the focus of my television watching this evening. I rarely watch television really. In general, I doubt its value for money and feel that I can be entertained and informed better by reading but every now and again I'm tired and want to engage my eyes but not too much of my brain. Typically I find my brain engaging anyway and meandering off on its unheard dialogue with the throng of personalities and perspectives on TV.
There are endless of those, Amanda Platell for instance, who I think should do the dignified thing and fade graciously away, taking their inane, unsupported, bigoted, self-righteous tripe with them.
I can cope with them sounding like the idiots they are, but it worries me a little when I see someone I like who's doing something interesting who then says something totally idiotic and somehow that fragment of idiocy remains in the final cut. I am talking about Charley Boorman describing Iran as 'slightly segregated' for women and observing that it would 'definitely be better to be a man' in Iran.
I am no expert on Iran, I haven't travelled there or studied it in depth but I've watched a couple of documentaries and read and re-read Persepolis until it practically fell apart in my hands. So, nothing profound but, surely, I feel, enough to be furious at this understatement, which didn't sound particularly ironic.
I had really been enjoying watching Charley until that point, at which it struck me that a lot of people actually need to travel to be able to see further than the ends of their noses and even then they seem to lack the imagination or the honesty to see things for what they are.
It reminded me of a the crumb of eavesdropping I'd picked up when sitting at a table with my friend, her sister, their partners and another friend. This is about the other friend, who I'll call NF. That doesn't stand for National Front, but judging from what she was saying that may turn out to be entirely appropriate.
The bit I caught was her loudly pronouncing that she doesn't care about climate change or her carbon footprint or the environment in general and furthermore, neither does anyone else. I didn't ask her who she's including in 'anyone else' because it sure as anything doesn't include me, probably people whose homes have been flooded in the UK in the past couple of years, probably also millions of people living in vulnerable regions all over the world in greater poverty than I have ever experienced. After all, they're the ones who take the brunt.
She didn't care about the extra runway at Heathrow, which segued into a rant about people who receive state benefits, and how she'd be better off if she were to leave work and sign on. I seriously doubt that she'd be better off and in fact would probably get a shock if she were to do so, but this indicated that she can imagine the world beyond her own being, but didn't want to. It seemed to be in direct contrast with Charley Boorman who wanted not only to imagine the world beyond himself but see it and be in it, but then faced with expanded and fascinating borders, offered a benign and facile description of what he was seeing.
He wanted to but couldn't, she could but didn't want to.
Of course it takes major effort to change and compassion to understand the perspective of someone else as well as your own but I don't see that as an acceptable reason not to try. Even without posing this specific question I can be sure that this is how my mum feels and my best friends too. What surprised me about NF is that she's the friend of someone I hold in high esteem and I struggle to understand how that difference can be bridged.
But that's none of my business. The net result is to remind me to pursue compassion and kindness in my own life, because not only must they exist in their own right but they have to counter the accidental and deliberate myopia of others.
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 September 2008
Friday, 8 August 2008
Trapped In The Night Garden
“The night is black and the stars are bright and the sea is dark and deep.”
If you, like me, are the parent of a toddler you will probably recognise these words immediately as the opening to In ‘The Night Garden’, the now ubiquitous television show aimed at pre-speech and early speech toddlers. The gently hypnotic narration can lull even the most stubborn two year old into at least a temporary calm.
However, that has been won in part by getting parents on side. That’s not always difficult, because the parents of very young children (frequently mothers) mostly welcome a quality programme which will allow them thirty minutes respite to close their eyes, play catch up with the housework, read, chat on the phone or even (shock) watch with their child.
These days, there is not excuse for not knowing that excessive television is harmful for developing brains (and possibly for fully developed brains, too), but restricting television time can be a challenge in an age when so many channels of digital and satellite are dedicated to beaming in the dregs of children’s television. The absence of television can equal high effort parental input activities which leave the parent (usually mother) frazzled, and using television to give yourself a little bit of a break can be utterly guilt inducing.
‘In The Night Garden’ stands head and shoulders apart from the maelstrom of nonsense that passes for children’s entertainment. Possibly because it is equally hypnotic for tired parents as it is for young ‘uns.
The soothing colour scheme of the set is green on green, with characters sleeping in dens in caves and bushes, on a boat and in a magical bed which comes when you call it, out in the open and gently shaded air. Multicoloured birds sing individual songs which harmonise together at the end of each show to form one big chorus. Of course, they are not called ‘birds’ in the Night Garden, they are ‘titifers’.
A friend recently confessed, sheepishly, that she’d quite like to visit the Night Garden and crash out in Upsy Daisy’s bed under a starlit canopy of leaves. Someone else is captivated by the interior of the Tombliboo bush and I’ve been coveting Makka Pakka’s colourful duvet cover and minimalist cave bedroom for months. ‘In The Night Garden’ is the chill out room to the frenetic pace of some of the other children’s programming on television. In fact, it was created in part as a response to the permanent state of anxiety we feel about almost everything in the early C21st.
Aside from the seductive design and hypnotic narration, the Night Garden is exceptionally well thought out, as commentary from the show’s creators, Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport, who also developed the Teletubbies product.
Each episode runs like a well executed lesson plan, with an ice breaker, an introduction, a story and a plenary session where you figure out what just happened. Structurally, it borrows from books with different markers representing the turning of a page or the ending of a chapter, and the recap at the end features the same story told using more formal language, such is the difference between books and speech.
Reassurance is a major theme in ‘In The Night Garden’, beginning each time with a ‘shared moment’ between parent and child at bedtime and repeating the same predictable pattern consistently throughout. Clues lead to expected and sensible answers, friends look after each other and everything is as it should be. Arguably, these are features which many parents feel are missing from their lives, but begs the question of whether one half hour shot of viewing can fix that.
An inevitable part of reassurance is the social and emotional aspect, which is heavy handed in ‘In The Night Garden’. Whilst all the characters have roles within the overall social and emotional well being of the Garden, there is one character in particular which seems to do the majority of sorting out, cheering up and general companionship. That character loves flowers and kisses, dancing and singing and has the signature colour: pink. Yes that’s right. The key vehicle for much of the programme’s feel good factor is Upsy Daisy... A GIRL.
Alright, she’s not actually a girl, she’s a doll, but she’s unmistakeably a girl doll which wears a skirt and has pink ‘hair’.
Really, this is a minor factor in the story of the Night Garden, but there it is, again and again. An entire cast of characters which, without any suggestion to the contrary appear to be male (with the exception of Mummy Pontipine who, frankly, is so neglectful I’m surprised the NSPCC haven’t intervened) and a lone girl who does what girls, ladies and women, those ‘loveliest of creatures’ have taken full responsibility for since the first hints of the Industrial Revolution.
Admittedly, the burden is shared, and Upsy Daisy doesn’t carry the full weight of it alone. Makka Pakka washes faces and everything else in sight like a demented child given a sponge for the first time, before the novelty has worn off. The characters, unlike small people, are endlessly compliant at having their faces washed, which provides an excellent model of behaviour for toddlers everywhere. Additionally, the Tombliboos seem utterly capable of brushing their teeth (in mouths which don’t open and using tooth brushes as big as their heads) without the supervision of either Upsy Daisy or Makka Pakka. Surely they deserve a gold star for that?
The thing is, Upsy Daisy is a sweetie. She’s the kind of girl who thinks of others and helps them whenever she can. She’s Carrie the Caregiver, for crying out loud.
I’m not suggesting that ‘In The Night Garden’ is a primary vehicle for social change, but it is setting a standard and giving parents expectations of the kind of behaviours they want to encourage in their children. More specifically, girl children: every other character is probably a boy and with the exception of brushing their own teeth and a slight obsession with hygiene, they behave in much the same ways as boys have forever and are not discouraged from doing so. Why not? Because for boys, this behaviour is not detrimental: it’s good to be a risk taker and to have a laugh. Upsy Daisy, on the other hand, is channelled into acting for the happiness of others, all the time.
Although it is unlikely that any toddler would absorb this behaviour via a television programme and proceed to act it out for the next seventy years, the idea that it does nothing to challenge the Cinderella Complex (Colette Dowling) whereby girls are groomed socially from birth to grow into adults who take responsibility for the social, emotional and often physical wellbeing of others. This is important and exhausting but undervalued work. The Tombliboos, on the other hand, get to act silly and are disproportionately rewarded for managing to do basic things. Give it twelve years, and you’ll see this is how boys are treated. With regard to almost whatever they do, it is worth more than the default ‘feminine’ work of the Upsy Daisies we continue to nurture everywhere, without a second thought.
If you, like me, are the parent of a toddler you will probably recognise these words immediately as the opening to In ‘The Night Garden’, the now ubiquitous television show aimed at pre-speech and early speech toddlers. The gently hypnotic narration can lull even the most stubborn two year old into at least a temporary calm.
However, that has been won in part by getting parents on side. That’s not always difficult, because the parents of very young children (frequently mothers) mostly welcome a quality programme which will allow them thirty minutes respite to close their eyes, play catch up with the housework, read, chat on the phone or even (shock) watch with their child.
These days, there is not excuse for not knowing that excessive television is harmful for developing brains (and possibly for fully developed brains, too), but restricting television time can be a challenge in an age when so many channels of digital and satellite are dedicated to beaming in the dregs of children’s television. The absence of television can equal high effort parental input activities which leave the parent (usually mother) frazzled, and using television to give yourself a little bit of a break can be utterly guilt inducing.
‘In The Night Garden’ stands head and shoulders apart from the maelstrom of nonsense that passes for children’s entertainment. Possibly because it is equally hypnotic for tired parents as it is for young ‘uns.
The soothing colour scheme of the set is green on green, with characters sleeping in dens in caves and bushes, on a boat and in a magical bed which comes when you call it, out in the open and gently shaded air. Multicoloured birds sing individual songs which harmonise together at the end of each show to form one big chorus. Of course, they are not called ‘birds’ in the Night Garden, they are ‘titifers’.
A friend recently confessed, sheepishly, that she’d quite like to visit the Night Garden and crash out in Upsy Daisy’s bed under a starlit canopy of leaves. Someone else is captivated by the interior of the Tombliboo bush and I’ve been coveting Makka Pakka’s colourful duvet cover and minimalist cave bedroom for months. ‘In The Night Garden’ is the chill out room to the frenetic pace of some of the other children’s programming on television. In fact, it was created in part as a response to the permanent state of anxiety we feel about almost everything in the early C21st.
Aside from the seductive design and hypnotic narration, the Night Garden is exceptionally well thought out, as commentary from the show’s creators, Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport, who also developed the Teletubbies product.
Each episode runs like a well executed lesson plan, with an ice breaker, an introduction, a story and a plenary session where you figure out what just happened. Structurally, it borrows from books with different markers representing the turning of a page or the ending of a chapter, and the recap at the end features the same story told using more formal language, such is the difference between books and speech.
Reassurance is a major theme in ‘In The Night Garden’, beginning each time with a ‘shared moment’ between parent and child at bedtime and repeating the same predictable pattern consistently throughout. Clues lead to expected and sensible answers, friends look after each other and everything is as it should be. Arguably, these are features which many parents feel are missing from their lives, but begs the question of whether one half hour shot of viewing can fix that.
An inevitable part of reassurance is the social and emotional aspect, which is heavy handed in ‘In The Night Garden’. Whilst all the characters have roles within the overall social and emotional well being of the Garden, there is one character in particular which seems to do the majority of sorting out, cheering up and general companionship. That character loves flowers and kisses, dancing and singing and has the signature colour: pink. Yes that’s right. The key vehicle for much of the programme’s feel good factor is Upsy Daisy... A GIRL.
Alright, she’s not actually a girl, she’s a doll, but she’s unmistakeably a girl doll which wears a skirt and has pink ‘hair’.
Really, this is a minor factor in the story of the Night Garden, but there it is, again and again. An entire cast of characters which, without any suggestion to the contrary appear to be male (with the exception of Mummy Pontipine who, frankly, is so neglectful I’m surprised the NSPCC haven’t intervened) and a lone girl who does what girls, ladies and women, those ‘loveliest of creatures’ have taken full responsibility for since the first hints of the Industrial Revolution.
Admittedly, the burden is shared, and Upsy Daisy doesn’t carry the full weight of it alone. Makka Pakka washes faces and everything else in sight like a demented child given a sponge for the first time, before the novelty has worn off. The characters, unlike small people, are endlessly compliant at having their faces washed, which provides an excellent model of behaviour for toddlers everywhere. Additionally, the Tombliboos seem utterly capable of brushing their teeth (in mouths which don’t open and using tooth brushes as big as their heads) without the supervision of either Upsy Daisy or Makka Pakka. Surely they deserve a gold star for that?
The thing is, Upsy Daisy is a sweetie. She’s the kind of girl who thinks of others and helps them whenever she can. She’s Carrie the Caregiver, for crying out loud.
I’m not suggesting that ‘In The Night Garden’ is a primary vehicle for social change, but it is setting a standard and giving parents expectations of the kind of behaviours they want to encourage in their children. More specifically, girl children: every other character is probably a boy and with the exception of brushing their own teeth and a slight obsession with hygiene, they behave in much the same ways as boys have forever and are not discouraged from doing so. Why not? Because for boys, this behaviour is not detrimental: it’s good to be a risk taker and to have a laugh. Upsy Daisy, on the other hand, is channelled into acting for the happiness of others, all the time.
Although it is unlikely that any toddler would absorb this behaviour via a television programme and proceed to act it out for the next seventy years, the idea that it does nothing to challenge the Cinderella Complex (Colette Dowling) whereby girls are groomed socially from birth to grow into adults who take responsibility for the social, emotional and often physical wellbeing of others. This is important and exhausting but undervalued work. The Tombliboos, on the other hand, get to act silly and are disproportionately rewarded for managing to do basic things. Give it twelve years, and you’ll see this is how boys are treated. With regard to almost whatever they do, it is worth more than the default ‘feminine’ work of the Upsy Daisies we continue to nurture everywhere, without a second thought.
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