Gotcha!

[Eddie Teach]

I'm still pretty new.

Oh, most everyone else missed them too, that's how bad they were.

[Malthus]

Thomas the tedius little tank engine. That's what.

Curse the British cultural hegemony!  At least for toddler culture.

Centuries of talking down to folk have given us an unassailable competitive advantage in the toddler market.

Seriously - I'd be surprised if some academic somewhere hasn't published a thesis about what the industrial relations on the Island of Sodor (as epitomized by the Fat Controller, aka Sir Topham Hatt) have to say about British management. 

[Gups]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6772592/Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-attacked-for-conservative-political-ideology.html

Here you go. Sort of.

[Valmy]

I for one am glad this show encourages toddlers to obey authority figures...since that figure is me in this case 

[Richard Hakluyt]

From the article Gups linked to :

"She also highlighted the class divide which sees the downtrodden workers in the form of Thomas and his friends at the bottom of the social ladder and the wealthy Fat Controller, Sir Topham Hatt, at the top. "

Utter nonsense, the steam engines are ranked way above the diesel engines and vehicles such as buses, not to mention the silly trucks. They really are the bourgeoisie.

[Sheilbh]

Seriously - I'd be surprised if some academic somewhere hasn't published a thesis about what the industrial relations on the Island of Sodor (as epitomized by the Fat Controller, aka Sir Topham Hatt) have to say about British management. 

I had a lecturer who wanted to do a Marxist analysis of Harry Potter.  It's stated in the books that things can't just be magically produced and yet there's no mention of the means of production anywhere else.  When you add that to the fact that we know the wizards are a slave society (the house elves) it leads to a pretty nasty conclusion of mass elf slavery maintaining the wizards' way of life

[Valmy]

Well do not forget the Goblin financiers providing those wizards with the magical capital necessary.

[Malthus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6772592/Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-attacked-for-conservative-political-ideology.html

Here you go. Sort of.

Heh, I knew it. 

As for this:

"It also represents a conservative political ideology that punishes individual initiative, opposes critique and change, and relegates females to supportive roles," she said. "Any change is seen as disrupting the natural order of things."

That's sort of like the dynamics inside many families re very young children, particularly in the 1940s. The mistake she's making is assuming the show is supposed to represent the world at large rather than the world of the kiddies watching it. For young children, striking out on their own in defiance of established authorities (that is, parents) often does end in (hopefully minor) disaster.

[Valmy]

That's sort of like the dynamics inside many families re very young children, particularly in the 1940s. The mistake she's making is assuming the show is supposed to represent the world at large rather than the world of the kiddies watching it. For young children, striking out on their own in defiance of established authorities (that is, parents) often does end in (hopefully minor) disaster.

Yeah there are two parts of her audience she is missing.

First what you said and the second one is the show is meant for boys.  In shows meant for girls every character is a girl except for a few token boys and the opposite for shows for boys.  So her harping on the gender imbalance was pretty funny.  I was thinking 'did this woman never watch TV as a child?'

[DGuller]

How did the discussion about Raz turn into a discussion about children?  Only on Languish. 

[Ed Anger]

Breeders. 

[Gups]

Breeders. 

OK, Marty.

[Valmy]

How did the discussion about Raz turn into a discussion about children?  Only on Languish. 

Because Raz won his big victory thus ending the original point of the thread.  So then we moved on to another topic.

[fhdz]

How did the discussion about Raz turn into a discussion about children?

Yes...complete incongruity...

[lustindarkness]

How did the discussion about Raz turn into a discussion about children?  Only on Languish. 

As long as he does not have children of his own, we are ok.