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Do-Your-Best Bear | Dora and Boots |
Kids' TV can help explain Lakoff's frames. The Care Bears embody strict-father morality. Dora embodies the nuturing parent metaphor. But, in either case the heros are brave, caring and hard-working. So, how is this possible?
The difference lies in how their enemies are portrayed...
The Care Bears main enemy is the evil and scary NoHeart:
NoHeart hates caring. He despises Care Bears. He is the evil other that makes the world unsafe in the strict-father metaphor. He is Osama bin Laden for kids.
Dora's enemy is a trickster named "Swiper the Fox":
Swiper swipes items from Dora and Boots. He doesn't hate them (nor they he). He represents the hurdles and potholes on the road to our destination.
There are other kids' shows and movies that fall into these categories. Smurfs, Hercules, Cinderella and Sesame Street are all very clear. The Muppet Movie cleverly covers both frames: the main bad dude is relentlessly evil; but his main henchman is won over by the Muppet's nuturing side.
The basic difference is that in the strict-father shows, the villians are one-dimensional, unrealistic baddies that hate everything and want only to destroy the good guys. Shows, such as Dora or Sesame Street present a (slightly) more nuanced version of life. The Muppet Show is the best of all since it accurately shows that crazed psychopaths (Osama, Karl Rove) are powerless without their henchmen.
At the other extreme is the sickeningly sweet world of Barney where everyone admits their mistakes and forgives each other immediately. I have a theory that Barney-type shows actually undermine kids' development, but as Hammy Hamster would say, "that's a story for another time..."