#there's been loads of ink spilled about it as a microcosm of authoritarianism

[operahousebookworm]

Anyone making an argument against "adults watching kids' shows" is telling you that they don't see children as people.

When these people complain about "kids' shows," I find they are generally thinking of shows aimed at preschoolers and/or the kinds of cartoons they watched growing up. (I have watched several compilations of '70s and '80s cartoons and on the whole they demonstrate that you don't need narrative logic when you're on a deadline and several lines of coke.)

Because they don't see children as people, they cannot comprehend children's entertainment as anything other than colorful toys designed to shut the brats up for a little while. They don't respect a child's ability to absorb difficult concepts like grief and regret and complex morality, so they can't truly believe that such things could exist in shows about colorful characters calling out the names of their power moves--and they certainly couldn't exist in a form that would merit Serious Adult Consideration.

And if they do figure out that cartoons can actually help children start to think for themselves and form their own opinions, they get Big Mad, because children aren't supposed to do that! They're supposed to do and think what their parents tell them to because that's what children are for.

Adults genuinely enjoying this stuff and seeing value in it is therefore a major threat to the correct order of their world and must be stopped. And the insult they wield? "Childish." Because to them, it is a bad thing to be like a child. Because to them, children aren't people.

I really have no patience for posts talking about "adults who only watch kids' cartoons," because, like...people accuse me of "only watching kids' cartoons," despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter how much I talk about other adult media I like, if I post too many things in a row about Steven Universe or The Dragon Prince or The Owl House, people come out of the goddamn woodwork to accuse me of "only watching kids' shows."

So I really can't take people seriously when they start talking about the supposed "problem" of "adults who only watch kids' shows." Are the "adults who only watch kids' cartoons" in the room with us right now, or are you basing your entire opinion of people solely on their fandom blog? Like, come on.

It makes me think of the couple years I spent volunteering in a school library. The librarian talked a lot about how it's hurtful to enforce "reading at grade-level" on every student with no nuance. Teachers would try to force their students to check out books "at proper grade-level," instead of letting students pick out whatever they wanted (even if it was "too easy"), and it resulted in a lot of students deciding books were boring, too hard, and only good for making them feel stupid. They started to hate reading entirely, because people constantly shut them down and told them they were stupid for not reading the right things. This was especially brutal on disabled students.

I personally apply the same philosophy to adults. You don't know what someone might struggle with, you don't know what someone's history is. You might think a piece of media is "too simple," but that's your experience and your opinion. People learn and grow and experience the world at different paces, and what seems to you like a "simplistic" piece of media may be the most complex, illuminating piece of media someone else has ever had the opportunity to experience. It doesn't make them "stupid" or "childish," and believing that it does is cruel and counterproductive. You cannot wield shame as a fucking cudgel if your goal is education, support, and helping people expand their horizons.

I don't think a culture of shame is helpful. I don't think a culture of "if you like 'childish' things, it means you're too stupid for anything else" is helpful. I don't think constantly making fun of children's media does anything other than demean people--and not just the people who enjoy it, but the people who make it, too.