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A Cartoon History Primer Cartoons strike again. Here comes yet another revisionist-history cartoon that's more concerned with a physically perfect hero and heroine and their cute animal (dragon, ghost, whatever) comic sidekicks than with any semblance of historical fact. Ads and commercials everywhere are toting the latest animated hit of the summer, The Quest for Camelot. The story of Camelot isn't historical, per se, but the legend is part of history, and there are certain things that seemed to remain pretty consistent throughout the thousand years the legend has been passed down. Minor things, like the fact that the knights were all guys, and the women's job was to wear those tall, weird hats with all the mosquito netting wrapped around them and be helpless and rescued. If a woman started running around with a sword, acting all manly, the establishment would have made it hot for her. Look at Joan of Arc. (Who, by the way, may have been a man suffering from a rare genetic disorder that caused him to exhibit feminine secondary sexual characteristics.) And let's talk about dragons. Everyone knows that dragons are bad - not cute and comical. Ask any knight who was called upon to slay one. Let's not even get into the facts of life in medieval times. Once again we are presented with two extremely attractive animated main characters who occupy a world of lovely green forests and magical cities. Where are the rotten teeth, the boils, and the body lice so common among the real denizens of deep history? Where are the lepers, and the people with the black plague, and the open sewers that were part and parcel to existence in the Middle Ages? This disturbing trend seems to have begun with Disney's Pocahontas. Instead of the story of a naked, bald thirteen-year-old girl with a crush on a hairy, old English guy who dumps her to marry someone more in keeping with his societal position, we have yet another pair of stylized beautiful people - frolicking and romping through an idealistic landscape that has nothing whatsoever to do with history. Who's going to tell our daughters that Pocahontas died at the ripe old age of 23 of a white person's disease she had no immunity to? Then there's Anastasia, another perversion of historical fact that made it big at the box office. More beautiful, perfectly proportioned cartoon characters frolicking about, blissfully ignorant of the truth behind their story. I wonder if they ever mentioned the fate of Anastasia's family in the cartoon. Probably not. The story of people lined up against the wall and shot by radical revolutionaries is too icky for our children. How unpleasant. It would need to be made more palatable for our youngsters. Hey, I know! The evil Warlock Lenin and his cute gopher sidekick, Trotsky, gave the beautiful and heroic (and six foot two inch) Czar Nicholas and his beautiful family poisoned apples that placed them in a deep sleep, never to awaken. How much more pleasant than guts blown all aver a basement wall. One wonders what could be next. What episode in mankind's history will be scoured, polished, and rewritten to be made more acceptable as the next big animated hit. I can see it now... Adolph and Eva. The story of two physically perfect young German people frolicking through the sparkling world of post-World War One Europe, trying to make the world safe for the Aryan people. Featuring Goering, Adolph's bumbling yet lovable bear pal, and Goebbels, the sarcastic weasel. They battle the evil forces of Socialism, led by the evil sorcerer, Stalin, and eventually triumph, to live happily ever after and sing beautiful, if guttural, German folk songs. Soundtrack features Puff Daddy, The Wallflowers, and Nine Inch Nails. Watergate World. Beautiful and svelte Dick and Pat frolic around the White House, singing songs in praise of the GOP. There's a minor setback when Dick is accused of lying to the American people, but after he explains that it was all for the best, and necessary to defeat the evil sorcerer McGovern and his hippie hordes, the people understand, and he serves out his term as president with dignity and honor. Features Dick's deadpan sidekick, Kissinger the Koala bear, and the talking walls of the White House, which keep Dick informed of everything that's going on. Except for those eight minutes... It's scary to think about the next generations' view of history. Will common high school history teachers be able to dispel these misconceptions, which have been deeply ingrained in young people's minds by countless watchings of these cartoons? It's a tall order, and we can only hope the educators of tomorrow are up to it. Perhaps a few animated teaching aids would come in handy... -Dan |
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