The Wussification of Our Cartoons and Our County
What happened to our cartoons?
A disclaimer: this is not a “sit down with a snack” sort of post. It’s very heavy on the videos. This is a “pour a glass of scotch and light a cigar” sort of post.
I was born in 1986. I missed out on some stuff like G.I. Joe, but I sure as hell didn’t miss out on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had the toys. I had the toys that were really, really, really ridiculous – the ones based on an appearance in a limited edition comic book that only came out in cereal boxes three states over. I didn’t, however, have the Turtle Mobile or any of the cool vehicles, so clearly my parents didn’t love me.
I’m not sure if it’s just a cultural shift or something altogether more sinister, but there’s a shifting trend towards less and less violence in our cartoons. Let’s take an example from, oh, say over 50 years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky4FHzt0bGI
Now, to be fair, we also don’t have horribly racist cartoons like the following one, either. This is something I’m quite glad we’re rid of, at least in children’s shows.
There’s also an overall lack (from what I’ve seen) of dark or serious imagery. I can understand that it’s a children’s cartoon, but what about these examples?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipVO3ZnrzWk#t=08m30s
I will wager that most of us lived through watching one (or both) of the previous two videos and we managed to survive just fine. Sure, we bawled like our OWN dog were shot. Our parents probably had to do some version of the whole “Circle of Life” talk.
What about today? Today, our kids get disco guns.
Source Unknown
Source: TVTropes
A little background. Those lovable scamps at Cartoon Network brought over many fabulous anime series. Gundam Wing was a heavy hitter for years. Traditionally they aired two versions – a sanitized version at 5:00PM and an unsanitized version late at night. When Gundam SEED was licensed and brought over to America, they took the safety net up to 11 and created the eldritch horror affectionately called “Disco Guns” by Gundam fans.
If you have a series were people are regularly shot, stabbed, blown up, mutilated, incinerated, etc., then perhaps it’s not the most appropriate thing to try to adapt to a children’s cartoon?
4KIDS Entertainment is particularly notorious for this. Check out how they’ve horribly mangled One Piece (a manga and anime series in Japan that consistently ranks among the top 5 and has been for nearly 15 years it’s been running).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YpKYo3W69Q
Cartoons are a good gauge for what’s acceptable in a culture at all levels and what isn’t. They show what particular elements of society are considered so innocent or untroublesome that children can be exposed to them. If you use the previous examples as an example (and a both the Gundam SEED and One Piece examples are from roughly 5 years ago – it hasn’t gotten much better since), then we are turning our kids into a bunch of goddamned wussies.
I don’t want to delve too far into that whole “nature vs. nurture” debate, but I was raised to stand up for myself. I have been to the principal’s office once or twice for flooring a kid who was stupid enough to punched me first. If I saw a fight happening, I’d break it up – more often than not, the two involved parties were not stupid enough to try to take me on and it’d end there.
Now we have absolute zero tolerance policies which I would say go a wee bit too far. I think it’s a bit ridiculous for a high school freshman to be expelled for bringing a butter knife to school. Honestly, a butter knife is about as sharp as Paris Hilton on a game show.
I think it’s ridiculous that bullying victims get suspended from school, whether or not they defend themselves.
I think it’s ridiculous that there are people teaching their kids to talk their way out of a fight and to run from a fight, but not how to fight back when they’re cornered.
The ultimate example of this is still very fresh in our minds. Casey The Punisher, hero to bullied youths around the world (and yet another case of a victim being suspended, albeit in Britain), was interviewed not too long after the whole thing went down. Here’s the interview in full if you’re curious:
His friends deserted him. He only had his sister and father to stand by him. Quoting his father:
FATHER: “I didn’t realize [how] much trouble he was actually in until I’d seen that video. And [my son] said, ‘Well that goes on every day dad.’ [And I] thought to myself, ‘You poor little bloke. [How many] years did you put up with this sort of treatment?”
Kid gets bulled, parents don’t know about it. That’s a sadly common situation all around the world. But this is the bit that pissed me off a wee bit:
INTERVIEWER: What went through your mind the first time you watched that video?
FATHER: “[I was actually] horrified at that ending. [The beginning] upset me [because] he was by himself. [I couldn’t] be there to help him.”
INTERVIEWER: “How do you feel about what Casey did that day?”
FATHER: “I don’t condone violence. It was a horrific sort of thing to see. Two boys in a schoolyard and it ending like that. [It’s nothing] to be proud of. But, I’m glad that he stood up for himself.”
To be fair to his father, he ultimately said that he was proud of his son. Let’s take a look at the bully’s side of things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl_N4sdCbY4
Well, aside from the fact that he got laid out, the bully claims that Casey abused him first. I’m not going to absolutely take a side without knowing the whole story, but I can make a judgement on what we have. His father says “He’s no angel” and goes on to say that while he disagreed with his son’s actions he believes that his son was bullied first.
Looking at the information we have – the context of the video alone – does Richard Gale (the bully) look like someone who’s been bullied? In all of my years of going through school and my 2 years working with kids ranged from ages 6-16, I’ve never seen a bullying victim have footwork that would break Apollo Creed’s legs. Richard Gale is not retaliating against someone who’s abusing him. He’s taking out whatever problems he may have on someone that he perceives is weak.
Do you think Richard Gale sees Mighty Casey as weak anymore? Make your own judgement on this, but I’m gonna go with “no”. He went on to say “Don’t bully ’cause you’ll end up getting hurt… bad.”
I’m a bit like Casey’s Father on one matter. He says, “I don’t condone violence.” I say, “I don’t condone violence except as a last resort.” There’s a point where you can let it slide. Words are just words. Sure, call my mother whatever you like – I won’t hit you. But the second you lay a hand on me, you’re going to be walking way with a few less bones intact. Touch a friend or family member? Well, I don’t care about myself as much as them, so you’re gonna end up on crutches for a few weeks. And if you have the sheer stupidity to touch a child that’s in my charge, you’ll be lucky to walk away alive.
Casey says he was bullied for “years”. I know how the media can warp a story, and despite how things look Richard Gale may really have been bullied by Casey – I think it’s unlikely, but I acknowledge the possibility (however slim it may be). Take the names and faces out of this scenario, though, and you have something that is all too common today – a kid is bullied for years before he finally snaps and retaliates.
The fact that it goes on that long isn’t a failure of the school. It’s not (entirely) a failure of the kids. It’s a failure of the parents.
When I grew up, my grandfather (and my father) taught me “how to throw a punch” (so to speak). I was always the largest in my class (both horizontally and vertically d: ), so they also taught me to be responsible. “Defend yourself if you really have to, but try not to kill anyone”.
When I have kids (hopefully many, many years from now), I’ll do the same. I’ll teach them how to fight. I’ll teach them to defuse a fight and how to run away. But most importantly, I’ll teach them how to protect themselves (and others, if need be) when no other option remains.
Despite what is happening to our cartoons (some good, mostly bad) and despite what’s become acceptable in our culture, I think we can preserve the ideals of standing up for yourself – the ideals of not being a wussy. It falls to each and every parent to bring their kids up to protect themselves if necessary and to never resort to violence unless they really have no way out of it.
Casey’s dad said his son’s reaction to the whole incident is “nothing to be proud of”. If Casey were my son, you can bet your ass I’d have been proud, not just at him fighting back but for the remarkable amount of restraint he showed.
In closing, this post was a little too serious for my taste, so here is a video of a kitty cat playing with my ponytail. (P.S., I really wish Facebook would get their act together and allow embedding of videos…)
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April 19th, 2011 at 4:51 am
Something like Are You Afraid of the Dark would NEVER get approved for TV now. There was one episode of that show that scared the shit out of me… hehe.
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Ihmhi reply on April 19th, 2011 1:46 pm:
Agreed; I never saw AYAotD (we didn’t have cable then), but I read every Goosebumps book ever published. Most of ’em gave me nightmares… but regardless, it was fun. There’s a fine line between protecting your kids and having them grow up in a bubble.
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April 19th, 2011 at 7:44 am
1. I agree on the wussification of cartoons. Did you know that they no longer show the coyote hitting the ground when he falls in Road Runner cartoons that are shown on TV? They’ve removed most of the punchlines.
Also, look at some parent’s reactions to toy guns (even toy disco guns). Some will absolutely freak out and forbid their children from even playing with kids who have toy guns. There have been children expelled from school for having a gun on a t-shirt, a gun for an action figure and even pointing a finger and saying bang.
I believe the problem is that many people in our society have taken pacifism to far. Even Gandhi thought that it was wrong to take weapons away from people. He saw pacifism as the best tool to achieve independence and freedom for his people. Many people glorify and make martyrs of victims of violence and see anyone who uses violence as evil (no matter the reason). Violent action is a tool that should only be vilified when used inappropriately.
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jmireles reply on April 19th, 2011 5:34 pm:
My kids and I occasionally find ourselves blasting each other with nerf guns, water guns, etc. The kids even have wrestling matches in the livingroom, in addition to me teaching the oldest how to fight in there. There are many things I remember from my childhood that are just plain gone, and it really is sad. I’m not surprised though. We have soccer games where no score is kept, and everyone gets a trophy just for showing up.
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M578Jockey reply on April 20th, 2011 8:07 am:
When I was a kid we were all huge Daniel Boone fans. We pretended we had guns and we actually made our own bows and arrows and whips to use on each other. We had a blast. No one put out an eye. We all grew up just fine and now have kids of our own. Mine have nerf guns and pirate pistols and cutlasses. The watch Bugs Bunny, on tape and dvd, and actually like to win when they play sports. I guess I’m raising a bunch of Neanderthals. :-)
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jmireles reply on April 20th, 2011 11:08 am:
Watch it. Someone might call the authorities. Last year, my stepson broke his hand on a kid’s face, after the kid hit him. While the other boy wasn’t punished beyond the required 3 days of suspension, my stepson was actually reported to the School Resource Officer, who then referred the whole thing to the juvenile court. Though they eventually decided that there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute him, the guy we spoke to made it clear that our son had better not step out of line again. He also told us that we’re mistaken if we think that we have the legal right to defend ourselves. Our species will be on the endangered list sometime within the next three generations.
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Squab reply on April 20th, 2011 11:47 am:
….the fuck? Now, I think the whole “hit someone back twice as hard” is excessive, and if your stepson broke his hand I’d say your stepson probably was too, but seriously? Don’t hit back?
Ok officer, so if I punch in in the face RIGHT NOW, you can’t legally defend yourself? Awesome. Sweet.
jmireles reply on April 20th, 2011 5:03 pm:
I think the reason why he broke his hand had less to do with the fact that he hit too hard, and more to do with the fact that he punched incorrectly. I’ve since corrected him in terms of technique. The funny thing is, the whole thing was recorded by my stepson’s friends, on their cell phones. Even though there was video showing that my stepson tried to avoid the fight, and that the other kid took the first punch, my stepson was being treated like this because he got the kid in a headlock, and repeatedly pummeled him. That’s part of the reason why they went after him. When we talked to the guy at juvie, he tried to get me to side with them by using the military thing. He said, “You’d get into trouble for doing something like that, in the military, right?”. I told him point blank that my stepson reacted exactly the way I would have. The really odd thing is that, since then, there have been many fights between many kids in that school. Yet, my stepson is the only one who has been referred to the SRO, and the juvenile justice system. Wonder why that is…
jmireles reply on April 20th, 2011 5:04 pm:
Oh, almost forgot. I should note that the kid in question hasn’t messed with my stepson since.
April 19th, 2011 at 8:21 am
I remember myself being in school. I never dealt with bullying per se, but I remember some of the crap I dealt with. Like, after a principal was a phone call away from getting me institutionalized, everybody talked about me blowing up the school. (I have since, embraced my pyromania, so they made it truer.) But I never got into a fight, of course, it was probably due to the fact that people worried about what I would do if they did throw the first punch. I don’t know where I’m going with this anymore, so I’ll stop now.
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April 19th, 2011 at 8:47 am
A side thing, apparently I am inhuman, because I had no feelings with the Bambi, or Ol’ Yeller videos. Of course, then again, I got to see Bambi’s mother… after my grandfather shot her and hung her up in the garage so he could cut some of the venison off himself.
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April 19th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Now I’m curious, cause I remember seeing the old loony toons and laughing my ass off when coyote slammed into something. I remember seeing that duck season/rabbit season one. Of course, technically, my brother and I were watching my dad’s old VHS tapes of those cartoons.
I also remember my parents tried to teach me never to fight back and to get a teacher. They tried to teach me harder than my brother because while he is easy-going and fairly passive, I have an aggressive streak a mile wide. For my first two years of high school, I listen to my parents and go bullied badly since I didn’t fit in well anywhere. I was lean an athletic like a jock, but smart like a nerd and actually liked school. What I learned was that by the time the teachers get involved, I’m already in pain, so I didn’t see how this strategy really worked all that well. So I started fighting back, and defending the few friends I had. I made my policy one of escalation. If somebody tripped me, I threw them into a locker, if the bruised me I gave them a sprain. I sent one kid to the nurse with a broken nose for trying to steal my lunch. I never started anything, but I sure as hell finished shit. And it worked. Sure I got in a bit of trouble, but bullies topped fucking with me an my friends, since then knew whatever pain they delivered, they’d get worse in return.
So for my money, if Casey had ended up braking that little fucks ankle when he hit the concrete, I’d still say way to go. Talk you way out if you can, leave if you can, but if not, be ready to deliver more violence faster than the other guy. For my part, I definitely condone the appropriate use of violence. Cause we are weakening our nation by vilifying force and those who stand up for themselves and others.
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Psychlycan reply on April 19th, 2011 4:11 pm:
That reminds me of a rule my parents had, though it was for us kids fighting each-other as well as others fighting us. “If you get hit, hit them back twice as hard.”
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April 19th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
My highschool had its problems, but at least the only people who got bullied were the neo-nazis. And the school cops all knew who the nazis were, because of all the trouble those assholes caused, so they turned a blind eye to people fucking with them.
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Ihmhi reply on April 19th, 2011 1:43 pm:
Had I gone to your school, I probably would have stood up for the neo-nazis. I would have lost friends, been hated, and been called a racist (I’m not, I hate all mankind equally).
That said, one of the most important things in this country is respecting the beliefs of other people – especially the ones you disagree with. You might think them terribly wrong or insane, but they have every right to believe whatever it is they want to. No one deserves to be a victim.
Protest against them? Sure. Disagree with them? Sure. Once one crosses the lines from words into threats (and actual employment of) physical violence, it’s not really kosher in my book anymore.
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April 19th, 2011 at 1:21 pm
I was bullied in school. I was thin and pale and liked to read. In elementary school the bullying stopped abruptly when one of my tormentors got a little too close to me and the large hard-back book I was reading and recieved said book across the face. I was hauled in front of the principal and told that it was just fine for him to tease me as much as he wanted as long as he never touched me. After that my walks home became interesting when I figured out that once off school property the bullies weren’t protected by the school, and said boy’s father was unsympathetic to the fact that he let a girl whoop his arse. My dad laughed and bought me a $50 gift card to Barnes&Noble for my trouble.
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Ihmhi reply on April 19th, 2011 1:44 pm:
The day will come that I will probably have at least one daughter (either by birth or adoption). I hope I can raise her as well as your father raised you. Send your dad my regards and respect for a job well done.
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Stonewolf reply on April 20th, 2011 10:34 am:
“Sticks and stones may brake my bones, but words will never hurt me!” Yeah…sure… In the State of Vermont, the courts still acknowledge “fighting words”. Course, if its okay to say whatever you want so long as you don’t touch them, why do we have federal hate speech legislation? Why are words like Kike, Kraut, Nigger, Spic, and Wog taboo? Cause they’re just words…right? Ah… bask in the hypocrisy!
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steelcobra reply on April 20th, 2011 12:38 pm:
UCMJ Article 117: “Any person subject to this chapter who uses provoking or reproachful words or gestures towards any other person subject to this chapter shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”
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AFP reply on April 24th, 2011 9:34 pm:
Anyone who said that “words will never hurt me” never got smacked in the face with a dictionary.
OK, I’m pretty sure the Captcha generator just gave me an algebra equation. How the hell am I supposed to input fractions in Firefox?
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Signalist reply on April 22nd, 2011 10:54 am:
I was bullied from day one in school, I still remember when I was 8 and had this one bastard in my class who would do stuff like breaking windows ands such, and guess who he then blamed for it? Our teacher was always on his side because of what his family was like (police would come check on his dad every day), when ever there was a fight between that bastard and me, I was the one punished.
During my 7th year I was constantly in principal’s office being yelled at for fighting (and at least once I was yelled at for something I did not do, which as I understand was a boy claiming that I’d ‘had chased and then tripped him and beat him with both of my fists’, as if I’d even had been able to catch anyone who wasn’t standing still), but my 8th and 9th year were much better than any other year earlier so I’d say it paid off to take a stand instead of being passive.
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April 19th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
My mother still enjoys telling the story of taking me to see Bambi. I was about four. When Bambi’s mother got shot, of course there was a theater full of sobbing kids… and then loud and clear, I asked with a quiver in my voice, “is he gonna put her head on a wall?” INSTANT WAILING in the entire theater.
My mother, of course, explained that he was a responsible hunter just trying to feed his family, not a sport hunter. (Which I suppose was the original Circle of Life talk.)
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mn reply on April 20th, 2011 5:08 am:
With kids who’ve been fed game since … well, since they were old enough to eat solid food… it’s not uncommon to hear them complaining that they’re hungry, at that point.
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Sequoia reply on April 20th, 2011 11:32 am:
I’m from a family where we are both game hunters and food hunters. If the game was big enough (large bucks), the skulls goes up on the wall, but we still eat the venison.
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Phelps reply on April 20th, 2011 11:33 am:
Sure, but you don’t tell a theater full of bawling toddlers that.
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Sequoia reply on April 20th, 2011 6:12 pm:
I probably would.
AFP reply on April 24th, 2011 9:45 pm:
Supposedly you can see Bambi’s mom’s head mounted on Gaston’s wall in Beauty and the Beast.
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April 19th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
I wasn’t one much for getting into fights in my school years, but I was an active kid and often injured myself acting like and active kid. I’ll never forget the default response from my dad whenever I would come home with a bruise, or a sprain, or a busted up face.
It always ended up being some form of: “Man, I’d hate to see the other guy right now.” or “Did you win?”
Even if I did feel like shit for falling off the swingset for the third time that month, those comments always made me feel a bit better.
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April 19th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Funny this topic comes up now. I was bullied as a kid, and did eventually stand up for myself. As such, I’ve taught my kids to never start a fight, but to also never be afraid to finish one. Of course, I gave my 14-year-old step-son a basic course in US Army Combatives, along with some of the martial arts training I’d received when I was taking Taekwondo.
Recently, step-son has been dealing with a lot of trouble from a couple boys. One is his age, and goes to his school. The other is 16, and goes to our local high school. This has been an on-going thing, and is all due to (surprise, surprise) girls.
A little background on my step-son. 5’11” to 6″ tall. Atheletic. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Wears a surfer-boy type haircut.
Needless to say, at 13, he had 17-year-old girls hitting on him. Though in their defense, they thought he was in high school, and were quite shocked to learn otherwise.
So, he starts going out with this little girl, which angered the other boy who goes to his school. From that point on, every time my wife took him up to the local movie theater, there was that kid, getting in his face, and trying to start a fight.
After that relationship’s eventual and inevitable demise, he starts seeing a different girl, which angered the high schooler, as he had apparently recently ended a relationship with him.
Fastforward a few weeks to last Friday. These two kids have been threatening to jump my step-son. They’re talking about having themelves and six of their friends beat my step-son’s ass.
This whole thing pretty much threatened to hijack our lives. Every time we turned around, these kids were threatening our kid.
So, I waited until the high schooler showed up at our house, ready to fight it out with my son. I had decided that this was coming to an end, right then and there.
So, at th start, I told him that I wouldn’t interfere, IF he kept the fight one-on-one. Then I kept talking.
He kept talking himself up, making it sound like he’s the world’s greatest badass. He kinda skipped a beat when I mentioned that I’d served in an active warzone, and implied that he had failed utterly to impress me.
The funny thing is, I gave both boys an opportunity to fight it out, and neither seemed overly eager to take me up on it.
My solution to the problem was pretty straight-forward: “Both of you pretend that the other just doesn’t exist. Don’t talk to each other, don’t look at each other.” Thus far, it seems to have worked.
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April 19th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
“After that relationship’s eventual and inevitable demise, he starts seeing a different girl, which angered the high schooler, as he had apparently recently ended a relationship with him.”
As for this paragraph, instead of “him” at the end, read “her”. Don’t know how I did that one. Can’t blame it on autocorrect, as I don’t have an I-Phone.
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April 19th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Good article. Except for the fact that the bullied kid (Casey Heynes) is Australian, not British.
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April 20th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Man, disco guns, REALLY?
Even in CANADA the only thing that got taken out was everyone exploding after the microwave emitters got turned on.(At least I think they were microwave emitters)
I agree on the whole wussification thing. Nowadays you’re some sort of horrible monster if you’re kids aren’t always within your reach, and completely fucking clean and tidy. What ever happened to letting your kids play in the dirt all day with little plastic army men?
Finalyl, zero-tolerance policies piss right the [censored] off back to whatever the [censored] hole they came from and eat a titanic bag of horse[censored] so large their breath will forever smell of [censored]. I got in more trouble DEFENDING myself throughout my time in school than all the assholes who fucked with me combined. And there were a lot of assholes.
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April 21st, 2011 at 6:01 pm
I’ve been saying this for YEARS. They crap they pass off as a cartoon now is disgusting. I grew up on
GI Joe
Transformers
Dinosaucors
Voltron
Robotix
Robotech
pole position
Mask
and a few others
i could go on about the crap I experienced,, but why .. its in the past. everything sucked till i finally fought back just before HS.. then all was right.
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Sequoia reply on April 21st, 2011 11:06 pm:
I grew up on Looney Tunes, Scooby Doo (the original stuff) and the original Jonny Quest. I feel so bad for kids who now only have Spongebob and whatever other crap they show now.
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simonator reply on April 22nd, 2011 7:50 am:
(grouchy old man) Back in my day we had Speed Racer and Johnny Quest. Cartoons with a body count. I can’t count the number of drivers from the car acrobatic team that ended their short cartoon lives in a firey explosion after going over the rail, OR the number of bad guys that Race shot dead. None of this “the bad buys jump out of the tank just before the missile hits” like on GI Joe. FIREY DEATH! GUT SHOT! Those were cartoons. (/grouchy old man)
And in hindsight, I SHOULD have gotten in a couple of fights in Junior High. I mean, I would have lost ’em since I was small, uncoordinated, and inxperienced in violence, but then people would have found somebody who was less trouble to pick on.
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April 24th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
See, this is where there’s kind of a double standard. If the bully is male, it’s okay to stand up for yourself and fight back, whether the victim is male or female.
But if the *bully* is female, you can’t just fight it out and be done. If you’re a boy, and you hit a girl who’s bullying you, well that’s just wrong! And if you’re a girl and you hit a girl who’s bullying you, then you’re an uncontrollable wild child and still the one at fault.
I was teased a lot in school too, but only ever twice by boys (And the first one later verbally stood up for me against the second and then everything was cool between us all). The rest of the time it was by girls, which have a different brand of bullying. There’s no shoving into lockers or ducktaping to poles, but there’s the rumors, the name calling, the manipulating of friends and reputation, the pointed exclusion and teasing, and most importantly, the spot on innocent face near tears they whip up in a second when a person of authority catches you flinging those insults right back. But by far the best part is the way they sarcastically pretend that they never did anything to you and are “so offended” by your coldness to them “your friend!” and then walk off giggling with their clique.
Fucking chicks, man.
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jmireles reply on April 24th, 2011 3:23 pm:
Oh, girls can be straight up evil. I was picked on ruthlessly by a girl when I was in the 5th grade. She pushed anf pushed until I finally hit a point where it took 4 of my friends to restrain me. Then, while were sitting in the principle’s office because of her, she tried to talk me into lying to the principle, and taking the blame. She said, “Please. We’re friends. Don’t tell the principle what happened.” Of course, I chose to follow the “Honesty is the best policy” rule. For the life of me, I can’t remember if anything else happened to her. We did end up spending the rest of the day in the principle’s office. The principle, whom I suspect was a closet sadist, made us sit next to each other the entire time.
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April 26th, 2011 at 2:12 am
I was only bullied once or twice, and only once was the use of violence justified. Unfortunately, I managed to split his lip, while he didn’t leave a mark and, since he’d only just started with the bullying, there wasn’t a history that I could draw on to prove that I hadn’t hit first. Fortunately the teacher on duty just gave me a talking to and left it at that.
Lesson learned: if you’re going to fight back, don’t leave any evidence or, failing that, get to the teacher first and put on some tears. If only I’d thought of that back then…
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May 5th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
I can remember watching the cartoon series “Battle of the Planets” (also remade as ‘G-Force’), which was the Japanese anime series “Science Ninja Team Gatchaman” recut for American broadcast standards. The company that imported the series had to add footage with scenes containing a cute robot ‘7-Zark-7’ and the even more disgustingly cut robot dog ‘1-Rover-1’ as talking heads to make up the time in each episode that they had to cut out because of the violence in the show (these two characters being universally reviled by fans of the original anime series).
In one of the original Gatchaman episodes, if I’m remembering correctly, one of the main characters, having been captured, fights his way out of his cell, getting shot up several times in the process, discovers that the cell he was in was in a large aircraft by falling out of it, hits the ground, lying there for a few moments, then gets up, staggers a few feet, and falls over a cliff, landing on the road at the base of a cliff, where, after once more staggering to his feet, he is hit by a car. Waking up in the hospital with the other members of the team around him, he’s informed that he has a fatal disease and won’t survive the season. One time I was curious, and counted more than 20 people who were violently killed during the opening credits from a first-season episode. But because of restrictions on what could be broadcast as cartoon entertainment, you couldn’t show someone actually getting hit by gunfire, or having their throats cut by a razor-winged bird-shaped throwing weapon, or having their foreheads punched by a spiked yo-yo, so the American presentation was a treacly and innocuous compilation of less ‘disturbing’ action scenes.
When I look back at the cartoons that I grew up watching, and see what protecting children’s tender little psyches have turned them into, it makes me wonder how children are expected to develop empathy if they’re not allowed to get hurt or see someone else get hurt, and don’t learn to make the link between what they feel when they get hurt with what that other person feels when they get hurt.
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May 6th, 2011 at 12:29 am
I was bullied all through elementary up to High School. By High School it had turned to sexual harassment ( and I am not talking about the bad language/bad jokes kind. I mean 6 guys and pressed up against a locker and had to walk to the bus with friends and never be caught alone kind) to the point that we had to get the police involved. For a long time after the police incident my vice principal referred to ME as trouble maker. Like it was my fault somehow. I KNOW that if I had stood up for myself things would have been different.
I completely believe that violence has a place and time. I now am part of a group called the Society for Creative Anachronisms. We fight with swords, long bows, jousting, and hand to hand. I also have learned some Martial Arts and am taking TFT. My now 3 year old is going to be raised in this kind of environment. An armed society is a polite society. He will be trained in how to use, and the repercussions of the use of guns and other hand weaponry. in the 18 and early 19 hundreds in OUR country almost everyone from 5 on KNEW how to use guns and defend themselves and the crime rate was EXPONENTIALLY lower, and MOST of them didn’t accidentally shoot each other OR themselves, because they know what they were doing!
We raise our children and try to make each other VICTIMS! I am sorry but all of the “help” that comes to victims is ALWAYS AFTER THE FACT! The Police DO NOT save you from being attacked or killed. They just try to clean up and arrest the perpetrator. That DOES NOT help if you are dead or injured! As for schools, they usually cannot do anything for the bullied. Unless there is a video recording (and even not then sometimes) they are unable/unwilling to get themselves stuck in a position to get sewed or to have to take responsibility. They really just want, and try, to make the problem go away in any way possible.
We have a choice usually. Unfortunately it is ground into us to be victims. I believe that we need to teach our children, women, and well really everyone, to not let themselves be taken advantage of. They need to learn to defend themselves verbally, by using the system, or as a last resort physically. We need to give them the tools to use if they are needed.
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May 10th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
My parents spent years telling me to “just ignore” the bullies… they’d go away when they realized I wasn’t a fun target. After five or six years of playing by those rules, I got sick of it. I’d been taking karate classes, and one day one of the class bullies grabbed me by the neck from behind… I flattened him. The best part was that it was in the lunch line, and two teachers and three lunch ladies saw him do it. He didn’t make too much noise about it, since everyone knew he’d started things, and no one likes to say “Yeah, I started beating on this wimpy nerd, and he pounded me! He should get in trouble!”
You know, it’s funny… all those years of ignoring him, and it was the one day I DIDN’T ignore him that got every bully in the school to leave me alone….
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February 25th, 2014 at 10:40 am
Hell, they couldn’t bring Space Battleship Yamato 2199 to the US because of the “violence” yet I see worse every day on the Discovery Channel!
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February 25th, 2014 at 12:14 pm
I just read the rest of the article. I agree. It should be the person who threw the first punch that gets suspended, not the person who defends themselves. On account of my Aspergers Syndrome (A low level form of Autism), I am bullied daily, everywhere from the usual hallways and locker rooms, to the classroom. Luckily, nothing happens when I am in the metal shop, wood shop, or auto shop, because they probably remember how good my arm is. Last year, I snapped, and I clocked a kid upside the head. It didn’t hurt him, so I threw a book from my bag at him, and that stopped him (I carry MANY books with me. Right now, the smallest has 300 pages), since he wasn’t expecting me to fight back. I got suspended. Luckily, a few people who saw the whole thing stepped in. Instead of suspended, I got a referral, and the asshole got an in school suspension.
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