If you were to ask anyone who knows me for a description, a “big kid at heart” would probably be a common response. Reading novels, comics, and playing video games is usually what my Friday nights consist of. But perhaps more than anything else, I love watching cartoons.
I was born in 1995, so I grew up with shows like "Rocket Power," "Courage The Cowardly Dog," "Teen Titans," and much of the early seasons of "Spongebob Squarepants." I remember rushing home almost every day just to see if Leonardo and his turtle brothers really did defeat Shredder or if Danny Fenton and Sam Manson would ever become an item (spoiler: they do). Fast forward to 2016 and I’m still watching the not-so-Regular escapades of Mordecai and Rigby or how Team RWBY is doing at Beacon Academy. But where this wasn’t uncommon in childhood, now it’s viewed a bit differently in my semi-adulthood.
More than once I’ve had people try to dissuade me from watching my treasured animations in lieu of more “realistic” entertainment like reality TV and any number of crime dramas. They say things like “It’s so outlandish!” and “Why do you like it when it’s so fake?” I’ll admit that stories of caped crusaders, moving castles, and eternally-young kids catching pocket monsters may be a tad far-fetched (kudos if you got all those references,) but in a lot of ways these shows are more real than people give them credit for.
Take, for example, one of my absolute favorite shows of my childhood: the original series of "Yu-Gi-Oh!" Yes, it’s very easy to dismiss a show about playing cards for the fate of the world amidst melodramatic action and uber-cheesy dialogue, but I would encourage you to look beyond that. Behind the crazy monster mash are some pretty legitimate themes, including those of friendship and competition. More than once, the main characters go out of their way for the people they care about, even when it’s not reciprocated. Competition was seen not as a way to assert your dominance over a weaker foe (unless you happened to be the villain of the hour), but to make new friends and strengthen the bonds that were already there. Even though I didn’t understand it at the time, these lessons actually kick started my recognition of what true friends look like and the real spirit of competition, things that have proven useful even to this day.
Another ‘toon I’m certain many people my age are quite fond of is "Avatar: The Last Airbender." It was everything a kid could want; it had martial arts action, drama, humor, a great score, an interesting world… But for me, the best parts of the show were the themes. Aang, the adolescent elemental messiah, has to save the world. No surprise there. But the real kicker to the show is that, for a lot of it, he didn’t want to. He never asked to be the Avatar, he just wanted to be a kid! The responsibility of it is thrust upon him without his say. With much, much help from his friends, he eventually reconciles with this and learns as much as he can to achieve his destiny. It’s all pretty cut-and-dry on the surface, but we get to see Aang, Katara, Zuko and the gang grow up. They experience love, loss, shattered hopes, broken dreams, friendship, betrayal… all things people in the real world have to go through every day! For many of us, the show was a gentle reminder that though life is not all roses and daisies didn’t mean that it had to be bleak. It was finding the little moments in a constantly-shifting life that mattered.
A friend of mine actually recently posed the question of who was the most intimidating cartoon villain of our childhoods. It took me a while before I could answer him properly, but when he heard my answer we both agreed to it. My answer was Aku from "Samurai Jack." He was a master manipulator, sadistic and his name literally means “evil!” He was the personification of all that is wrong with the world. Nearly defeated at the hands of our eponymous samurai protagonist, he cheats and sends him into the far future where he rules unquestioningly. The samurai, dubbed Jack by the locals, dedicates himself to a single mission: to return to the past and undo the future that is Aku. Far-fetched? Certainly. Unrealistic? No. Why? It’s a tale of perseverance. Through four seasons, Jack continually tries and fails to return to his own time after almost every episode. But each time, he gets up and tries again, and again, and again. For me, the show taught me that when you have a goal, even if it’s to slay a ten story tall demon with flaming eyebrows, you should not let anything stand in your way.
Don’t get me wrong, I do actually enjoy some “real” shows like "Breaking Bad," "The Blacklist," and "Fargo." But it seems to me like a lot of times, thematically, these shows are not the healthiest. "Breaking Bad" is almost entirely about greed, "Fargo" is about secrecy, so on and so forth. This doesn’t mean that they are bad shows (and it’s not my intent to insult anyone who likes them), they’re just not my regular cup of tea. I’ll try different flavors now and then, but at the end of the day I will always come back to my Chai.
Though it’s getting better, I find the stigma that cartoons are only just for kids to be so archaic by now. The shows I mentioned are just a small fraction of some of the great, thematically rich entertainment available to us. Sure there are some duds, but just because they’re “for kids” doesn’t mean they don’t have something to say about life and how we live it. So settle into your position on the couch, boot up Netflix, and start binging. Who knows? You might just learn something along the way.
