gordonzola

I spent a lot of time in Seattle playing with my friends’ 2 year old kid.* I love it when taking care of a child is part of The Cause. Me staying home with A helped enable my friends to organize their neighborhood anti-war protest.

In the hours of day care I did, A only had one meltdown. Not bad considering I hadn’t seen him in a year and a half. The instructions I had were that if A got really upset and nothing worked to calm him, I should turn on the VCR and let him watch his train video. After the third viewing, I realized that I had some real ideological issues with "Thomas the Tank Engine".

I don’t know the technical term for the style that "Thomas" is made. I mean except for "cheap" and "bad". It’s kind of old-school, filming models of trains and people that just stand there expressionless while a voice over, which seem to all be done by the same person** says something. ("Oh my Thomas, I think we’re running late.") But it’s also partially animated, Thomas and all his engine friends have faces and moving lips.

What jumped out at me first was the sexism. All the engines are men, doing manly engine things. All the humans were men too, because, after all, who else would work on a railroad? It was so blatant that I, in my ‘90s way, was trying to see if their was a bigger irony that I was missing. There wasn’t.

Nor was there even a nod to multi-culturalism, as the engines all seemed English and white, mostly with proper English names.*** It is set in England, but you’d think they’d add one or two which acknowledged their colonial roots like "Mahatma, The Peaceful Train" or even modernized themselves with "Marley, The Rasta Engine". Their was however, one faggy train which kept asking to be polished over and over again when he found out his special friend train was returning from a long trip.

But overall "Thomas" is very invested in an "honor of work" ideology. By the third viewing I really couldn’t view Thomas in any way other than as a scab or company spy. The other trains complain about the workload, how they never get any rest, and how the company’s demands of them are unreasonable, but Thomas always comes to the boss’s defense. While the boss, Sir Toppumhattum (sp?) who looks exactly like the Monopoly board robber baron, must talk crossly with the other engines at times, Thomas is obviously his favorite, constantly brown-nosing him with a "Yes Sir" or "No Sir" while cajoling and scolding the other trains for their laxness. That’s right Thomas, work yourself into an early grave while Sir ToppHatt gets rich off your labor. Sucker. I, of course, explained to A that the whole video was a propaganda piece and warned him not to be fooled..

Most annoyingly though, I still don’t know what a fucking "Tank Engine" is or how it differs from other engines. I thought this was supposed to be educational.

*I was mocked at the food show yesterday for using the word "kid" for a human. Oh, those goat farmers. . .

**George Carlin actually. Can’t we set up a donation fund so such an established comedian doesn’t have to do work like this to feed his family?

***There was even a Gordon, though he had no speaking role.