something I am grateful for today
Sep. 23rd, 2012 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johncomicThe Jetsons premiered fifty years ago today. The show was such an immense formative influence on me that traces of it persist even into my present-day work. And I also mentioned it more specifically in a graphic novel script I wrote in the 90s.
Two people are out for drinks. HE is a freelance writer who writes a popular-science column. SHE is a waitress. Here is some of their conversation over drinks:
HE: ...remember, I was really little at the time, but yeah: that's what got me into science as a kid -- The Jetsons.
SHE: >tsk< >giggle<
HE: No no, think about it. They show you a world where everything's faster and cleaner and safer and more fun and... and nicer... all because of technology!
That's what got me thinking about... knowledge as-as a force for good.
SHE: I didn't like The Jetsons. Or The Flintstones.
HE: Oh yeah? Howcum?
SHE: Well hey: didn't you ever notice that they all had the same plots?
HE: Um.... well, eventually, I guess so.
SHE: That's just it! All they were was “life in the 50s” in new clothes!
Wilma and Jane and all the women were just manipulative irrational 50s housewife stereotypes!
Those cartoons were propaganda! They said “Life has always been like this, it always will be, no matter what! And things are so cozy and funny and... reassuring this way, so why try to change anything?” As if life in the 50s was the Law of Gravity or something!
HE: .......
You got all that from cartoons?
SHE: Well, c'mon, you got “knowledge as a force for good”, so why not?
HE: ... touché.
Two people are out for drinks. HE is a freelance writer who writes a popular-science column. SHE is a waitress. Here is some of their conversation over drinks:
HE: ...remember, I was really little at the time, but yeah: that's what got me into science as a kid -- The Jetsons.
SHE: >tsk< >giggle<
HE: No no, think about it. They show you a world where everything's faster and cleaner and safer and more fun and... and nicer... all because of technology!
That's what got me thinking about... knowledge as-as a force for good.
SHE: I didn't like The Jetsons. Or The Flintstones.
HE: Oh yeah? Howcum?
SHE: Well hey: didn't you ever notice that they all had the same plots?
HE: Um.... well, eventually, I guess so.
SHE: That's just it! All they were was “life in the 50s” in new clothes!
Wilma and Jane and all the women were just manipulative irrational 50s housewife stereotypes!
Those cartoons were propaganda! They said “Life has always been like this, it always will be, no matter what! And things are so cozy and funny and... reassuring this way, so why try to change anything?” As if life in the 50s was the Law of Gravity or something!
HE: .......
You got all that from cartoons?
SHE: Well, c'mon, you got “knowledge as a force for good”, so why not?
HE: ... touché.
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Date: 2012-09-24 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-24 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-24 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-24 03:33 pm (UTC)I told them A YEAR ago that Romney would be the GOP nominee, that his primary argument would be he knew how to create jobs, that his personal tax rate would be a major issue in the media, that Obama would win, and furthermore, that the eventual popular vote would be 51-48. They not only didn't believe me, but forgot what I had said.
In late 2008, I told them that the stock market would rebound incredibly in the Obama years such that it would be almost impossible to make a bad bet and that I personally was going to invest my brains out to take advantage of it. Here we are, with the Dow up about 100% (a stupendous increase in less than four years). Again: disbelief, failed memory.
Sometimes I think people have a built-in incapacity for imagining any reality very different from the one they're currently inside of.