Analyzing my nostalgia

We've been getting old TV shows on Netflix. We've been streaming some and ordering the DVD's for others not available. Specifically we've been watching old cartoons that I grew up on: G.I. Joe and Voltron. A few weeks ago while watching G.I. Joe, I got into a discussion with my oldest boys about how these cartoon were different from the one's that they and their friends watched now. We contrasted G.I. Joe with Star Wars: The Clone Wars. We noted that no one ever died in G.I. Joe, while characters often died in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. We also noted that the lines between good and evil were drawn a lot more carefully in older cartoon than they were today.

However, recently, my wife and I were talking and she pointed out something else. She pointed out that the objective of the older cartoons was problematic, in that they often held as the goal the teenage years, versus the adult years. We began thinking this through and noted a lot of the old stories on video that did this. If not the teenage years, certainly the early adult lifestyle.

It made me remember how subtle these things are. Of course, this can happen in books as well, but in books you spend so much more time with the narrative, that you can catch on more easily and defend yourself. Film often doesn't give you the time to reflect on the issues enough to make the distinctions.