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old hat

This is why you are wearing a T-shirt saying “Barbie is a slut!” and looking for drug references in Hanna Barbera cartoons. You’re angry. You didn’t ask to fall from grace. You didn’t ask to go through puberty, and become ugly and hairy. You’re scared of secret, sweaty things in the dark.

Freud found that very young children who have experienced a separation trauma will often recreate the incident with “peepo” games, hiding objects and then revealing them, in order to reassure themselves that loss is not necessarily permanent. This is why you are wearing a T-shirt saying “Barbie is a slut!” and looking for drug references in Hanna Barbera cartoons. You’re angry. You didn’t ask to fall from grace. You didn’t ask to go through puberty, and become ugly and hairy. You’re scared of secret, sweaty things in the dark. You want to turn back the clock. Your childhood heroes never aged - they’re still innocent and smiling and fluffy. Bastards.

When you were six, you fell off your bike. You took your teddy to hospital with you, and pretended that he, too, had broken his arm. Now something far worse has happened. Your childhood has been stolen. And so, if you must become an obscene beast of debauchery, then so must your toys. Fred is shagging Daphne while Scoob smokes pot. If you must be besmirched with the trappings of free will, adult sexuality and vice, then so must they. But they still look so cute! Suddenly it all seems more acceptable.

But… guess what! You’re not attacking the out-dated values of Barbie and Ken, subverting the banality of Rainbow. You’re attacking your own values, your own banality. Zippy doesn’t want a joint. You do. Action Man doesn’t want to wear a dress and hump his eagle-eyed buddy. You do. You smoke the joint and wear the dress and hump your friend, all by yourself. Really, it’s okay.

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Young children who are suspected to have been sexually abused are often given, by social workers, anatomically correct dolls with which to illustrate their ordeal. Research was done into whether this is actually a reliable way of confirming abuse has taken place. A mixture of abused and non-abused children were given these dolls by psychologist William Mclver, and a typical interview re-created.

Around half (58% non-abused and 40% abused) of the children made spontaneous comments about what the dolls did. Examples of these comments are "He did something naughty," "(He) jumped on his bed," "Daddy went poopy on my head," "He peed" (while holding the doll on the interviewer's head), "These guys throw each other around" (demonstrated by throwing dolls against the wall), "A rhinoceros stands on the Dad's head.” “... A car falls on my head..."

If you are a French advertising executive eager to hire one of these children as an “idea man”, or if you would like to make a donation towards our campaign to trace the evil rhinoceros who, as this experiment proved beyond doubt, trampled this child’s hapless father, please contact lunatic_rugrats@spoiltitisland.com

Posted by rosy at mai 21, 2004 04:15 PM