Introducing...Good and Evil

So this weekend I was watching cartoons with my niece and nephew. At some point we started watching Strawberry Shortcake, which by the way I highly recommend :-), and I realized that even in a cartoon series with characters as sweet (no pun intended) as Strawberry Shortcake and her friends, there's still an evil character. That got me thinking to all the other cartoon I ever say during my chilhood.

Here's what I realized; I have never, I mean never, watched a kid's show that didn't have a villain. Never. In my 21 years of existence. Never. Even writing now, I'm still slightly amazed. How can there be no cartoons without villains? It's like it's in our culture to place good and evil side by side. Think about it. For Dora, there's Swiper the Fox, Dragon Tales? Berenstein Bears? yep, there's a villain (usually a different one each episode). Forget the Disney movies. They're classic hero-villain protrayals. Just in case you're concerned that you've never heard of these cartoons before, not to worry, I'm that one random kid that watches way too much kids TV:-)

I started thinking about the effect that this portrayal has on children. On the one hand I think it's great that children areen't deceived into thinking that the world is all strawberries and ice cream (although Strawberry Shortcake might disagree with that), but at the same time, I think it's also kind of distorted. I mean what if a kid decides they want to be the villain instead of the good guy. There's no guarantee that the child's actually going to learn the values or morals that you're trying to get across by depicting good and evil. That a risk. A huge risk to take just so we can present the world in black and white.

But while I'm pondering these things, I'm just gonna sit down and watch another episode of Strawberry Shortcake. Sufficient for the day is its own troubles...