The Great Decline

Entertainment is one of the things that gives us joy as human beings. It can be fun, educational, and thoroughly engaging. Music is one of the most popular forms of entertainment, especially with the teen and young adult generation. Unfortunately, most of music you hear today glorifies doing things one's way, not listening to authority and getting down with parties, drinking and the like. Many will write it off as not harmful since it's "just entertainment." Is it however "just entertainment?"

Cartoons are probably the most popular form of entertainment for the younger generation. A young one's mind is more susceptible to being fried than an adult's, and then there's the problem. Kids, even with the advent of the internet, are still watching lots of television. A lot of parents pay little mind to what their kids are watching, thinking that since it's a cartoon, there's no problem with them watching it. This is a grave mistake, and sadly the major companies feed into this, broadcasting programs with little to no well thought-out writing.

Why do they do this? Because kids today will generally watch just about anything that is bright and crude. The companies realize this, so they don't bother delivering quality writing and storytelling. Why go the extra mile when you could give kids a pretty mindless show that they'll always watch, giving the company high ratings and more $? It appears that's pretty much the thought process. And then when there are good shows, the company cancels them or puts them in spots when most kids won't be able to watch them.

"But wait a second writer" you say, "who says cartoons have to have meaning or a kid to learn something?" "Can't they just be entertaining?" Sure, there's nothing wrong with a little mindless non-crude entertainment, but the channels are over-saturated with it. If kids aren't shown alternatives or taught why these cartoons are dumb, then nothing can be accomplished. Interestingly, while there are strict guidelines when it comes to what can and can't be shown on a TV-Y and TV-Y7 program, boundaries in movies are quckly fading. Saying the "f" word in a PG-13 film was unheard of 20 years ago; it would automatically earn you an R rating. But nowadays it's totally normal to have that and other swearing in a PG-13 film. If one is constantly witness to mindless adventures, crude humor, and language, I'm inclined to believe that they too will begin to act mindless themselves and display terrible behavior in their daily activities.

Right now in theaters there's a movie called "Fifty Shades of Grey." One can defend it all they like, but what cannot be defended is the fact that the primary reason it's selling tickets is because of sexual appeal, especially to the young adult generation. This is a major problem, because this generation already struggles greatly with purity. I personally don't know what's more scary: the fact there are people who have said "Let's make this movie" or that thousands of people have watched it opening weekend. Some might stop reading right now and say, "There's nothing wrong with watching these things." But there is. The more stuff we allow ourselves to absorb, the more our minds become corrupted. We then allow ourselves to think its okay to watch a film with excessive things. Films like Fifty Shades and "Piranha 3D" play upon those beliefs. The people involved in making these movies knows there's an audience, and that fact alone is pretty sad.

We need to start thinking about what we are watching and what our kids are watching. What kind of person supports a film with blatant nudity as the selling point? What kind of parent allows their kid to constantly watch mindless crude humor? We need to bring morality back into Hollywood and good writing into the TV screen. I won't stand with a culture that glorifies anti-purity, anti-Godliness, and anti-morality. And you shouldn't either. Take a stand. Stand up for what's right.

On the State of the Cartoon

Cartoons, we all grew up with them, many of us still watch them. (I do!) I'm 16, and over these past few years I've noticed something....cartoons are getting worse and worse. See, I'm something of a 90's kid. I grew up with all those Nick shows. Now, for people my age, here's a trip down nostalgic lane. Remember Rugrats?

Who can forget Tommy?

Can't forget Godzilla, I mean Reptar.

How about Hey Arnold?

Now you may have to be a bit older to recognize Doug.

Ah, those were the days. There are many others, such as CatDog, but the ones above I hold to a higher degree. Today, at age 16, I can still watch these and be entertained. Nostalgia is part of the reason of course, but the main thing about these old cartoons is that they had heart. There was heart put into the stories, often a moral was found. They were also made so that parents could be entertained while watching it with their kids. They also were respectable shows. Take Arnold from Hey Arnold for example, he's a kid all parents want their's to be like. A good friend, respectable of elders, a good student, and stands up for what's right. That's what kids were exposed to on a daily basis, back in my day. (Always wanted to say that.) Today however, things have quite changed. The 'thing' that is 'in,' is for main characters to rebel against their parents when they're not around, to do rebellious things. You ever hear of this cartoon called The Amazing World of Gumball? It airs on Cartoon Network currently.

Ignoring the off-putting animation for a second, the main character is this 12 year old boy named Gumball. Unlike Arnold, he's completely disobedient, constantly does things against what his parents want, and is the persona that a parent does not want their kid to be like. Never mind the fact the that the father in the show is portrayed as a complete idiotic fool. (You'll have to sit through an episode to see what I'm talking about.) It's not just the main characters, it's in the writing. The writing in today's cartoons have just gotten sillier and mindless. Now I know what you're going to tell me, they're just kids...they just need something to watch, right? Well...look again at Rugrats or Hey Arnold, or CatDog, those shows have strong writing. How can I tell? At my age, when I'm not the targeted demographic, if I'm engaged to the story, then that's how I know the writing is smart. Not today. Take Fanboy and Chum Chum for example. The writing, even for a kids show, is not good at all. It's a kids show, yes, but if the 90's and early 2000's could have strong writing, there's no reason why the majority of today's cartoons can't. Now for a cartoon we all grew up with....Spongebob!

C'mon, I know Spongebob, you know Spongebob, your mom knows Spongebob, and probably even your cat has seen a few episodes. I've seen the first three seasons probably a thousand times growing up, I recognize any one of those episodes instantly. I don't know if you've noticed, but after the movie came out, the show started going downhill. What I mean by that is the stories started becoming more mindless and Spongebob kept getting dumber and dumber. While browsing the TV not too long ago, me and my mom decided to watch it for old time's sake. We saw a newer episode and after that, the same thing was on our minds, "That was the biggest dud ever." The characters seemed to have lost all maturity they had in the past. Spongebob believe it or not in the earlier episodes was quite smart with a less squeaky voice and was capable of going whole episodes without crying and was a fun focus. Now he's borderline laughable, a little too obsessive with Squidward, and has become the definition of immature, he wasn't like that in the earlier episodes. Instead of getting older, he has seemingly gotten younger. Take Mr. Krabs for example, all they play upon now his love for money, he's not even close to being a respectable boss anymore. (Not that he ever truly was, but in the earlier episodes he actually acted like a respectable boss on occasion.) Now for my personal favorite example. *Drum roll*

Ahhhh, this show was what shaped me into a Spider-Man fan. I remember when they use to air the marathons on Saturday mornings. I watch it to this day, it's still the definitive Spidey show. It featured an adult Peter Parker, it was story-driven as opposed to action-driven, and talking as a Spidey fan for a second, they got most, if not all the character portrayals right. All in all, a great cartoon. Fast forward over ten years later and we're introduced to Ultimate Spider-Man. I'm not sure of you've noticed, but these days the shows favor a high school Peter over an adult one. In the latest show, as opposed to being story driven with amazing writing, it's more action/comedy driven. High school Peter is everything The Animated Series' one isn't. He's immature and isn't the respectable hero he should be. This version doesn't match the early 616 version, or even his Ultimate comic counterpart, he's been morphed into an immature kid  to 'appease' today's audience, since apparently that's what kids today find entertaining. Forget about the mature, respectable main character, that barely exists anymore in any cartoon today.

Compare the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the upcoming one on Nick. Now obviously it isn't fair to compare to something that isn't even out yet, but let's look at it for example. The new show is going to focus a lot on the 'teenage aspect' of the show. April has been turned into a teen, how convnient. The 2003 show relied on its surprisingly deep stories (even got a little PGish violent sometimes) and was just all around a great show. The upcoming one looks to be completely young-centric where older people will just cringe at it often. I will hold up on my bashing article until I see it of course. Have you heard about the upcoming Pac Man show? Turns out the title character is a teen, so it really should be called Pac-Teen. Instead of focusing on the Pac Man universe established in the Pac Man World game series, the show looks to be its own thing, portraying the title character as a pitiful and juvenile version of the chomper. An origin story isn't bad, but does it have to have the title character in such a manner? Now this is not to say that all cartoons today is bad. There are gems out there such as The Looney Tunes Show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, (hey the show is nice) Young Justice, Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Transformers Prime, Monsuno, but the bad are outweighing the good. Just turn on the TV to Cartoon Network at a random time during the week to see what I'm talking about. It should be interesting to see where we'll be in ten years from now, will cartoons become smart again or continue to get mindless and mindless? I'll be watching, then in ten years I'll make a post about on either its improvement or how cartoons are doomed.