Sunday, May 08, 2005
Popeye the Sailor man be banned from being viewed by children
Last month I attended a 2 day course called Presentation Dynamics, wherein I was taught how to be a better speaker. One of the course's exercises required me to make an argumentatative speech or whatnot. The instructor said that it didn't matter what topic we pick as long as we can present 3 points.
Huh. Any topic. Well I can't really think of a topic at that time and what ever topic I picked, I wanted it to be fun so that the other attendees of the course will be entertained while learning at the same time. So the topic I picked was this: Popeye the Sailor man be banned from being viewed by children. I did some research by going into some websites that discusses the different episodes of Popeye as well as websites that featured their views on the show as a whole as well as its characters and created my arguments from there. The websites most helpful to me in this making this speech are the following:
Mind Over Matter Teacher's Guide,
Popeye the pothead,
Sex, popeyes, and video tape. I, of course, prepared some opening remarks regarding my case and created a slide show presentation as well. Below was my opening remark as well the points for my case.
Should Popeye the Sailor man be banned from being viewed by children? My answer is yes. Now you may wonder why? Well before I answer that let me ask a few questions.
How many of you here today have children or do plan to have children? I guess it is safe to assume that as parents or would be parents we want our children to be influenced by the right things. One of the things we do to ensure this is by monitoring what they watch in television. Making sure that the show they watch is rated G or at the very least PG. Now with cartoons we usual think that they are kid safe especially if they are the kinds of cartoons we watched when we or our own parents were young because their topics are uncomplicated and not in any way influenced by the issues faced by our children in these modern times. But are we really sure?
The fact is Popeye the Sailor man is riddled with very modern issues. One would think that this is great since that would mean that children these days can watch something old and still relate to it. That is true but that is the bad news. And I have 3 reasons why this is so.
Reasons:
The show promotes the use of drugs.
It condones the use of violence as the first option of problem solving when faced with adversity.
Females are portrayed in a bad light.
Promotes the use of drugs
No vegetable that can build muscle or provide significant strength immediately to those who consume it.
The era when Popeye was created, "spinach" was a very common code word for marijuana.
As a "sailor-man," Popeye would be expected to be familiar with exotic herbs from distant locales.
Popeye exhibits the effects of performance enhancing drugs:
o overly-aggressive behavior
o stunted growth
o impairment of judgment (The standard form of beauty during Popeye's time are voluptuous women, not stick thin. So clearly his judgement is impaired. Hehe.)
Condones the use of violence
He never tries to reason with Brutus
Excessive force (Punching Brutus even when he is clearly beaten already.)
Use of violence in bouts of jealousy
Females are portrayed in a bad light
The lead female character is always as helpless
Olive is easily swayed by material goods and sweet words
Ungrateful for past good deeds
Now, do I really believe in my argument? No, not really. I wasn't really a big fan of this cartoon but I wouldn't really preach against it. I only did if for this course. But I really wouldn't recommend it to parents either. Especially if their child is a girl. Hey, I'm a sporadic feminist, okay. The part about this cartoon portraying females in a bad light is something that I meant.
Anyhoo, whether this cartoon should be banned or not is really out of my hands. But hey it's a great topic and it did make me think twice about whether or not cartoons in the old days are appropriate in these times.
3 Comments:
hi, i grew-up watching the Popeye Show, the points you presented are logical in a modern-day and highly scholastic situation, but i beg to disagree that Popeye should be banned at all. Popeye tought kids to be brave and fair and not to be violent, I also think that Popeye is the very epitome of a perfect gentleman, although Olive has her weak points , which you pointed out very well, she also inhibits the character that every person on this earth should have, compassion and unconditional love.
I also have a question to ask, do you think that the Powerpuff girls also condones the use of drugs and narcotics since they were created in a lab from a chemical mixture of 'sugar, spice and everything nice'? My point is, all these characters are created to advocate positivity and good spirit. Kids are kids and the message behind this cartoon shows are simple, be kind and be fair in everything you do. Just a thought.=)
Oh Lord...that was hysterical. I think you should add that Olive promotes unheathy ideals on body image. It could just be high metablolism, but I don't remember seeing her eat anything. Anorexia.
Ban Popeye! (I'm just playing along with the joke...hope no one takes undue offense.) ;-)
Popeye turned me into a druggie fiend!
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