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Veggie Tales

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Started 1 year ago by Gringa
Latest reply from Ty

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Gringa
Member

Someone at work recommended this cartoon series for my daughter. I had never heard of it, so I did a quick google and found - surprise! It's Christian programming. It made me realize that I now have to be on my game about what cartoons she is watching at people's houses. Welcome to the south. The north really is an entirely different world from the south.

Has anyone heard of this or seen this cartoon? How bad is it? Supposedly there are versions without the god references that were aired on NBC. I'd be ok with those if I could find them (I think).

Posted 1 year ago #
FO
Member

Just for context: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeggieTales#NBC_controversy

Honestly, Gringa, I wouldn't censor anything to my kids, unless something could be scary or disturbing and even then, I would allow them to watch if they asked.

It could actually be a good opportunity to teach your daughter how to think.
She must learn to deconstruct and analyze what she sees, she must learn to recognize falsity, propaganda and bad ideas when she is exposed to it, the sooner the better.

(disclaimer: I'm 30 and I don't have kids).

Posted 1 year ago #
Gringa
Member

I suppose. I wish there were some cartoons about other religions she could watch for comparison. I'm sure there are and I just haven't looked yet. (disclaimer here: I'm new to parenting)

Posted 1 year ago #
Custador
Moderator

Avoid the Iranian Mickey Mouse clone. It's.... Different. In a holocaust denying way.

Posted 1 year ago #
zach
Member

Man, I loved VeggieTales. It's worth watching (if I remember correctly) if you can get by the bullshit that comes with Christian programming. The early ones were pretty damned funny, if I'm remembering correctly. I never saw them until I was an adolescent. But maybe they aren't so great, I can't remember that much about them...

Posted 1 year ago #
Revyloution
Member

I let my daughter watch them at friends houses Gringa. She's 9 now, without a trace of belief in Jesus or Yahweh. I also let her check out Dora the Explorer, and she doesn't believe in talking backpacks. She digs Scooby Doo right now, but doesn't think that dogs can really talk.

The trick to raising a secular child is to expose them to as many religions as possible, and treat them all equally. I don't ridicule Noah's story, I just give it to her straight up and end with 'and some people believe this really happened'. Most kids, even Christian raised, think that religion is BS. They need to have it constantly reinforced if they are going to believe it for real as adults.

I could see a real downside to intentionally shielding her from a particular faith. Once she found out I was hiding something, it might make her curious why I was being secretive and inspire her to delve deeper into it. Just as an aside, I take the same approach to drugs and sex. I just try to be as straight forward (and age appropriate) as possible when she asks questions.

Posted 1 year ago #
Custador
Moderator

Wise father is wise.

Posted 1 year ago #
Noelle
Member

What Revy said.

Their Lord of the Beans movie is pretty funny. (the bad guy forges evil creatures half-spoon, half-fork. So sporks instead of orcs. The fellowship includes an extra elf who tags along with his cousin. He makes cookies, ya know like the Keebler elves.) The pirates who don't do anything is also good. They're cute, quirky, funny tales with a general morality message. There's a bible verse or story connected somewhere, but it's not overbearing. It's not a bad way to expose her to Bible verses and stories for future reference and general cultural awareness. Overall, they're fairly well-done and I wouldn't let the Bible story part get in the way of enjoying them.

Posted 1 year ago #
blotonthelandscape
Member

Oh where... is my hairbrush?
Oh where... IS MY HAIRBRUSH?!?
Oh where Oh where Oh where Oh where Oh where Oh where Oh where Oh where Oh wheeeeeeere...

Is my hairbrush?

I too loved vegetales. The Pirates who don't do anything were hilarious (little cannibal cheesy-puffs). As an atheist parent, your daughter will be fine. It'll be like showing her Disney's adaptation of Moses, or Hercules, or Aladdin (only more overtly religious).

Posted 1 year ago #
UrsaMinor
Member

I have a few friends whose kids grew up watching Veggie Tales, and it hasn't turned any of them Christian. If you follow Revy's advice about exposing your kids to all religions and giving them equal treatment, your daughter will be fine. We learn to distinguish fact from fantasy at a very early age, and you really have to work hard at short-circuiting this faculty in order to raise a religious child.

Think about it. Kids easily give up the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus (and they never do buy into the idea that coyotes can build rocket sleds or that dogs can talk). They will readily assign fantastic religious stories like Jonah and the whale to the category of make-believe, if they are not coerced to maintain the belief or punished for expressing doubts.

Even then, the training doesn't always take, as I am living proof. Fifteen years of Sunday school failed to convince me that Christianity was true; the nail in the coffin was catechism classes, where I realized that the doctrines they were feeding me were nothing but incoherent crap.

Is anyone else here old enough to remember "Davey and Goliath" on Sunday mornings?

Posted 1 year ago #
drax
Member

I definitely remember Davey and Goliath. I haven't seen the veggie tales, but I never really noticed the religious nature of Davey and Goliath until I was older. If you haven't already you should check out a Davey and Goliath spoof show on Cartoon Network's Adult swim called "Moral Orel". It's pretty funny, and makes most of its jokes at the expense of religion. One of my favorites was when they wouldn't allow the preacher to get medical care because he had a wound that looked like Jesus. Definitely not for children though.

http://www.adultswim.com/shows/moral-orel/index.html

Posted 1 year ago #
Gringa
Member

Thanks all. @Revy I like that you use such an open approach to all topics, not just religion. My parents never talked to me about anything, which proved to avoid those awkward moments, but left me to figure it all out for myself with minimal information. I definitely don't want to do that to my kids.

Also, point well taken on the talking dogs and other fantasy shows. I think it was more confusing for me that people said the religious stories were true compared to other fantasy stories. I forget what it was like to be a kid!

I did read the book "Parenting Beyond Belief" but was underwhelmed. This parenting stuff is complicated.

Posted 1 year ago #
Ty
Moderator

My friend won't let his five year old watch them. But his argument is that she doesn't get to watch things that are subtly religious until she is old enough to recognize subtlety. Once that happens, she can do what she wants.

Posted 1 year ago #
LRA
Member

Well, Star Wars is subtly religious, but I watched the sh*t outta that when I was 5!

:P

Posted 1 year ago #
Ty
Moderator

Star Wars isn't attempting to persuade the viewer to a particular worldview.

Posted 1 year ago #
Elemenope
Moderator

See, this whole time I thought that the films were attempting to persuade me that the cult of insular, backwards looking magic monks had it coming.

Posted 1 year ago #
LRA
Member

@ Ty

Ya-huh!

The Force is a thinly veiled analogy for the blenderizing of all Eastern religions. That's why my fundie dad hated it. It was a mind-warping attempt to make me EASTERN with all that light saber kendo stuff.

:P

Posted 1 year ago #
Elemenope
Moderator

If Buddhism came with a free lightsaber, I'd be a buddhist.

Posted 1 year ago #
LRA
Member

Dude. Jedis are totally samuris and ninjas. Totally.

Posted 1 year ago #
Darwin
Member

Ninjas, that reminds me of the most webcomic in existence. If you haven't read it do that now.
I am talking of course of Dr. McNinja.

Posted 1 year ago #
ydgmdlu
Member

Dude. Jedis are totally samuris and ninjas. Totally.

George Lucas has acknowledged that the design for Darth Vader, especially the helmet, was based on samurai armor.

I haven't seen any VeggieTales myself, but I've heard that the religious message goes over the heads of children who aren't trained to pick up on it. Frankly, there's such a pervasive and more or less subtle pro-Christian message everywhere in society and popular culture that merits far more concern than a single overtly Christian children's TV show.

Posted 1 year ago #
Revyloution
Member

Another parenting tip:

I was talking with another parent about teaching kids about sex the other day, and I came up with a great idea. I'm going to teach my daughter how to play Dungeons and Dragons. It kept me a virgin until I was 18, so it might also work with her.

Posted 1 year ago #
ydgmdlu
Member

I'm going to teach my daughter how to play Dungeons and Dragons. It kept me a virgin until I was 18, so it might also work with her.

NO THAT IS A TERRIBLE IDEA!!! There are so few female D&D players that the male ones will all be fighting to bed her! And since those D&D nerds recognize that they don't have a chance with normal girls, they're going to be sexually frustrated and thus even more fervent in their pursuit of your daughter!

You don't want an Elevatorgate to happen to your daughter, do you?

Another parenting tip: Don't let your kids get involved in marching band. That's practically sending them off to have teenage orgies!

Posted 1 year ago #
Francesco
Member

D&D can be a very positive experience, plus it's incredibly funny.
Beside, not all of the D&D player are sexually frustated nerds. Although we're all a little nerdy.

Also impersonating a pg is a marvelous way of relazing

Posted 1 year ago #
UrsaMinor
Member

Ha! D&D kept me a virgin until I was 19. The internalized cultural homophobia had nothing to do with it, I tell you.

I look on RPGs as essentially neutral intellectual exercises. They can be good for you, if you engage actively and use your brain, and they can get you to socialize with your peers when you might otherwise be a loner. Or they can be bad for you, if you get obsessive about playing them to the exclusion of all else. But that can be said for any activity. Video games, anyone?

If nothing else, D&D forces you to practice your basic math skills during combat. This cannot be a bad thing. And in the best-case scenario, it stimulates your imagination and leads you on to other things that expand your horizons, like reading fantasy novels and then (gasp) other unrelated stuff.

EDIT: I should also give credit where credit is due. D&D was the gateway to my first long-term sexual relationship, with a lovely lady who I am still good friends with more than thirty years later. So as a method of promoting chastity, it probably is no more reliable than abstinence-only programs.

Posted 1 year ago #
Ty
Moderator

I played D&D a TON as a kid. I never had a problem with the ladies. Of course, I was also a pretty talented athlete in three sports. And I'm funny.

People don't go into just ONE box.

Posted 1 year ago #
Elemenope
Moderator

But if you do intend to put people into more than one box, be sure to have some plastic down and some cleaning products handy. Ten liters of blood is ten liters of blood; no getting around that!

Posted 1 year ago #
Ty
Moderator

The human body can be drained of blood in nine seconds given adequate vacuum systems.

Posted 1 year ago #
UrsaMinor
Member

Please tell us you know that because you did research for a book.

Posted 1 year ago #
Ty
Moderator

Yes. If by "research in a book" you mean "obsessively watched Firefly."

Posted 1 year ago #