You mean like Toddlers in Tiaras? Here Comes Honey Boo Boo? Ugh and double ugh.
E. M.
I saw a preview on television for
Honey Boo Boo, but it was like a smell thing. The commercial was talking about the many smells of Honey Boo Boo and her family then it showed them being disgusting and offered a card that a person could purchase that was like a scratch-and-sniff type deal. It made me wonder what kind of society we live where people would be tempted to spend money on something so disgusting... It's sad really.
I loved The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show when I was a kid. Yet now, I see it as a bad show, endorsing violence by showing it to be funny (i.e. Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny and Yosimite Sam, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, etc.). It's ironic how we change sometimes.
E. M.
I've noticed that too. There were a lot of things I watched and listened to as a kid that were seemingly innocent but really just terrible. Back then, though I don't think it was such a big deal. I mean I never paid attention to the violence or suggestive behavior as a kid. And cartoons haven't changed that much in that respect. There are still cartoons with violence and suggestive behavior. There are cartoons like
Adventure Time. I watched that once with my kids and was so upset that something like that would air on Cartoon Network rather than on Adultswim or even Comedy Central. A few years ago a show called
Symbionic-Titan aired on Cartoon Network and it had some really crude scenes. Like a girl shaking her butt in really tight jeans to rap music. Parents got so heated that they complained non-stop until the show was removed. Now it airs on Cartoon Network's Adultswim.
Adventure Time is so much worse, but five years later, it's not such a big deal as it would have been then, I guess.
I liked The Magic School Bus and Arthur (the aardvark) as a child, definitely much better shows. Nothing wrong with them, so far as I can say. As far as children's shows go, they don't seem to have changed too much. They are as educational and/or silly as they always were. It's more in the rise of reality shows that has caused a change. They have become stupid and horrible, and seemingly brain melting. Other better shows seem to be cancelled because the populatoins majority can't seem to wrap their heads around them (i.e. Awake {cancelled because it was "too hard to understand"} How?!? I ask). It was a good show. Ugh.
E. M.
Those were good shows. I still watch
Arthur with my kids; it is fun to watch shows with my kids that I used to love as a kid. There are other shows around now that come on preschool channels, but those are really the only ones I really trust. Though my kids will also watch other shows like
The Justice League Unlimited or
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other shows like it. Those are a bit violent, but that's expected. I don't mind the good vs. evil type battles.
I do hate that there is so much reality television on tv. I used to like...what was the show...
Road Rules or
World Wars... Something like that, but it's just kind of been taken too far. Last night I watched a show called
Fat Cops. It was actually my fist time since I was a kid and watched...whatever that show was called...that I'd actually sat and watched a reality show. It was embarrassing to see police officers portrayed in such a way. I don't know how realistic reality shows are, but that one didn't leave me with a good feeling. My sister (she is an actress) told me about a casting that was held for the new reality show Amish-something... She told me that the casting was full of just regular actors (obviously) not real Amish people. But it seems really mean and unfair to create such a fictitious image of an entire group of people like housewives or Amish people or police officers or even "hillbillies". I think reality tv has really gotten out of hand.
I watched Scream this Saturday night past, and found it hardly scary at all. Yet back in 1996 when it was new, it was quite scary, or so it was reported. There's a big change. We seem to becoming harder and harder to scare. Or I am. I've been desensitized! I need something really, really scary, yet I seem to becoming harder to impress in the horror genre. They just aren't scaring me anymore.
E. M.
There is a new movie coming out (if it isn't out already). I think it was called
The Conjuring. It's supposed to be really scary. I know what you mean though. I don't like scary movies or stories, but the ones that I watched when I was a kid don't scare me anymore like
The Omen or
Poltergeist or even the Jason movie. I think it's just that we're older. Maybe we don't scare as easily. Or you I mean. I still don't like scary movies.