Theology in Cartoons
Cartoons. Those children’s shows that flood you with nostalgia or make you roll your eyes in embarrassment because you once watched that show and enjoyed it. My spot in the spectrum of cartoons is a rather unique one. I remember old cartoons like Bugs Bunny, the original Babar, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Inspector Gadget, Tintin, even a host of unnamed cartoons made in the second world war, but I also am quite familiar with the more recent Digimon (and all of its knockoffs), Sponge Bob, and a host of eastern inspired shows. Part of what I am interested in is what a cartoon is. Is it purely entertainment or is it educational? What happens when a cartoon that is supposed to be entertainment carries with it a strong worldview and presents it to young people in their formative years?
DISCLAMER: I am not going to advocate banning cartoons that do not have a Christian message since that is no longer the type of society we Canadians live in and ‘Christian cartoons’ are and have always been pathetically lame (more on that later)
I just find it so fascinating how cartoons can carry with them an entire worldview and present it to school age children in a way that is effective and even more pervasive than a ‘religious’ course would be in school. I remember Babar giving moral lessons such as ‘how to deal with bullying,’ ‘the consequences of lying,’ ‘responsibility,’ and ‘how to get along with your Retaxus.’ I also remember being taught the philosophy of Ying and Yang from Rupert. I’m not sure if it is because I am just more aware now or if cartoons have changed a little bit, but I sense a much more serious and intense environment when it comes to cartoons, even slap stick humor like the Jackie Chan cartoon. Uncle explains how to properly use your Chi, which I discovered is actually the root of eastern occultism. One of the lead characters in the 3rd or 4th series of Digimon has a revelation to stop fighting evil, “don’t you understand? Light and darkness must be in balance! The brighter the light, the greater the darkness!” This was quite the ‘digivolution’ from the first series where the power of friendship, courage, hope, and other key fluffy things always combine to stop evil and save the day. Then there was Shaman King and the entire focus on animistic spiritual shamanism, or Yugi-oh and the spiritualism behind it. There was even an anime about kids training to become assassins, I don’t think it lasted very long but it was quite dark surprisingly realistic and it was here that I realized that a line had been crossed. Things had gotten serious and dark in cartoon land. Then there were also the dumb knockoffs of these more mature and heavy shows.
I’m not advocating that these shows are sinister / subversive and are trying to distort young minds because of some sort of spiritual battle with the Devil, what I am saying is that these shows have been able to portray basic and sometimes profound points of many different worldviews and I find this very interesting. However, if young people are constantly hearing the message of dualism between light and dark they will assume that that is how the world actually works as many people (even professing Christians) believe.
These are the types of things that children were interested in when I was in highschool, and maybe things have changed a little bit now. It seems that my, as well as up and coming generations, find these sorts of ideas very attractive. I’m not condemning it, but I do think it is a time when we as Christians need to be responsible and wise, teaching our children what is true because there are so many worldviews bombarding us in society, on the internet, and also on Saturday morning and after school. I think that it is better to teach our children how to be wise and how to think than to attempt to restrict the enormous tide of culture, wasting all our time and energy on arguments that don’t hold weight in the public sphere. Are these shows dangerous? Yes and no. Yes in that they preach messages contrary to Christ which will affect the way children see reality but also no in that pre-emptively teaching Christian children to be wise and discerning makes these shows more of a training for ministry than a passive entertainment. Besides, what sort of ‘Christian Cartoon’ would you try to replace these with?
Bible Man?
Gerbert?
Kingdom Adventure?
Adventures in Odyssey?
Maybe I’m out of touch with recent development in Christian Cartoonism, but I have an awfully difficult time trying to find anything that would entertain anything above the average 9 year old. Don’t get me wrong, all of these (with the exception of Bible Man) were cartoons that I watched and loved when I was very young, but what has there ever been for older kids or pre-teens?
Recent Christian movements in pop-culture have had the unfortunate habit of creating a ‘Christian Alternative’ of whatever is popular, which almost always has resulted in sub-par product that is inferior to what it attempted to copy but is considered ‘ok’ because it is ‘Christian.’ Maybe for this reason I am glad that Christian pop has not made it to the cartoon network anytime recently. Seriously… Bible Man?!
But now my post has taken a turn that I didn’t expect it to. Hmmm. If we as Christians wanted to be creative and tried putting a Christian spin (as opposed to the popular spiritual / eastern spin) on a cartoon that was fun, exciting, maybe even thrilling, what would it take? I think part of the answer is violence. With the exception of SpongeBob and Fairly-Odd Parents everything revolves around violence. Whether it’s getting power-ups to turn into some sort of ancient super warrior or acquiring some sort of monster thing to fight for you, violence is very important for holding attention. But to make it Christian we need to also have a salvation story, the realization of sin, the forgiveness of God, the challenge of exercising personal faith, and the spreading of the Gospel. Now how can we do this without making it obviously lame? Maybe Christian themes (omnipotent God, purpose in life, time with a beginning and an ending, the struggle of hope and trust in someone you can’t see, fighting deception and false ideas, and clear right and wrong, and no more of this dualism as though God had to work really really hard to defeat evil) instead of an overt 4 steps to salvation would be a far better action. For some reason I think a platform like Reboot, Beast Machines, or even Digimon could have actually succeeded at putting forth a decently solid Christian worldview if they wanted to. That, or a return to good ol’Babar… Hmm.
The other question I have is ‘is this even necessary?’ and ‘should it even be done?’ I would like to see it somewhere. An actually accurate and solid portrayal of Christian themes somewhere in cartoons or movies is sorely lacking. I see agnosticism, Spiritualism, Occultism, Ying and Yang, Multi-Culturalism, emotionalism, and choose-your-own-belief-ism as well as all sorts of other worldviews able to expound basic principles of what they stand for, but when Christians try to do this it just doesn’t seem to work very well. We need to be very creative and perhaps unorthodox if we want to join in.
Those are all my thoughts for now
Greg Out
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