Still very concerned about my five year old boy Dara's favourite series, Thomas The Tank Engine. Its creator, the Rev W Awdry seems to have been a hateful man. The messages it puts out seem to be pathologically anti-child while his vision of society, as represented by the Island of Sodor, seems to be analogous to ancient Greek society, which consisted of two tiers; prosperous citizens enjoying the leisures and benefits of democracy, and slaves.
Thomas and his friends are, make no mistake, the slaves; underage slaves at that, despite the locomotive appearance they assume. Stories see them behave the way kids do; show off, tease one another, only to suffer for their folly. "Thomas, he's the cheeky one," runs the opening theme song but unless you consider lines, as addressed to the Fat Controller, such as "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." as the height of saucy backchat, I think not.
The Fat Controller; they throw in that reference to his corpulence to soften the blow of what he actually is - The Controller. If Thomas, or Percival or any of the other engines dared to make reference in his earshot to his circumference, they would be scrapped on the spot. For such is the terror that permanently clouds their lives - the fear of being scrapped, taken apart limb by limb as it were. It crops up in every other episode.
All that preserves them is that they are deemed to be useful by The Controller (let us drop the false jollification of the "Fat" soubriquet). Kindness, compassion, fellowship, none of these obtain with this joyless martinet. All that matters is their "usefulness" - they are mere economic units of utility, not sentient beings deserving of love or care for their own sake. The use of a Liverpudlian narrator is especially resonant, reminding us as it does of Bleasdale's Boys From The Blackstuff, in which we see what happens to sentient beings when they are deemed surplus to industrial requirement.
For the time being, Dara plays with his Thomas trains and wears his Thomas pants with pride. By the time he is alive to the sick propaganda belching like engine steam from this most insidious of shows, he’ll be way past his Thomas phase, onto Horrible Histories or something. Still, have a care, parents, I urge you; have a care.
Thomas and his friends are, make no mistake, the slaves; underage slaves at that, despite the locomotive appearance they assume. Stories see them behave the way kids do; show off, tease one another, only to suffer for their folly. "Thomas, he's the cheeky one," runs the opening theme song but unless you consider lines, as addressed to the Fat Controller, such as "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." as the height of saucy backchat, I think not.
The Fat Controller; they throw in that reference to his corpulence to soften the blow of what he actually is - The Controller. If Thomas, or Percival or any of the other engines dared to make reference in his earshot to his circumference, they would be scrapped on the spot. For such is the terror that permanently clouds their lives - the fear of being scrapped, taken apart limb by limb as it were. It crops up in every other episode.
All that preserves them is that they are deemed to be useful by The Controller (let us drop the false jollification of the "Fat" soubriquet). Kindness, compassion, fellowship, none of these obtain with this joyless martinet. All that matters is their "usefulness" - they are mere economic units of utility, not sentient beings deserving of love or care for their own sake. The use of a Liverpudlian narrator is especially resonant, reminding us as it does of Bleasdale's Boys From The Blackstuff, in which we see what happens to sentient beings when they are deemed surplus to industrial requirement.
For the time being, Dara plays with his Thomas trains and wears his Thomas pants with pride. By the time he is alive to the sick propaganda belching like engine steam from this most insidious of shows, he’ll be way past his Thomas phase, onto Horrible Histories or something. Still, have a care, parents, I urge you; have a care.
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