Cartoons: A way to salvation

We are in a trivial time. There, I said it! We are in a time where some of us are surprised with the level of intolerance, fear and apathy that have quietly rampaged around us others are not so surprised. (Black people know but the rest of the populations of America and the globe didn’t. Who knew?) I don’t bring these very obvious points of understanding up to ruin your day, time or riddle your mind with discomfort. Nor did I bring those points up to preach to you and anyone else under the cybersky who just so happens to surf on by and find me standing on a soapbox. No, I bring this to your attention to reiterate that some things haven’t changed. (As if you didn’t know already) and I offer a very passive way to a solution: Cartoons. Hear me out on this: Cartoons have been the birthplace of fun and laughter for generations. The innocent voices behind cartoons set back the forces of division one way whenever we caught them on Saturday mornings and when times and understandings underwent a change Cartoons changed with them. Disney, for instance, underwent drastic changes to offer love, warmth and fuzzy heart side effects when you watch shorts like Bao or TV shows like That’s so Raven and The proud family. Disney brought those shows into to our homes to remind us all of the diversity that exists amongst us locally and globally. Cartoons always seem to have this way of diving deep underneath our defenses against things we just didn’t quite understand and we needed that canopy of infantile whimsy to take us outside of our fear and into happiness that just lasts for years. Somehow , in more ways than none, we’ve forgotten that joy feels like, coming into adulthood made us leave those memories behind or force us to pass cartoons off as just child’s entertainment that you outgrew overall. Unless of course you stumble on the Cartoon channel but who does that anymore? Am I right? I know I stopped doing that a long time ago.(Except when The Incredibles 2 came out, I know I shoved somebody’s kid out of the way to be first in line when that came out at the box office.) What all I’m trying to say is this: What if cartoons are the way to the most gentle, harmless re-education that we could all use?

Think about it: What else is available on television right now that offers simple understandings of complex criteria that we all find hard to explain to our kids who are curious about the world around them? Complex criteria like why does that man wear a dress mommy? Or Why are they treating that man differently than you? Questions about sexuality, race, gender roles or even just basic humanity that still remains difficult to explain because somewhere deep inside there just so happens to be a voice telling you to either deflect or let that kid down gently when introducing them to a lesson about the world that they are going to need to understand. For those who don’t have kids, maybe there’s something about humanity these days that seems new and confusing? Perhaps too confusing to even talk about or have a conversation about it? I know personally I was having a hard time finding common ground with the LGBTQ community outside of their struggle for equal marriage rights. ( No shade but I am about to sound white) I have friends who sexually identify as members of the LGBQ community whether they were Gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual yet I gathered that despite my various friendships I still needed to grow out of tokenizing my happy few and open my mind to the little I knew about what they went through just walking down the street. I knew nothing of the prejudice they faced just for living in their own way that makes them happy to be alive. I watched Ryan Murphy’s POSE and learned about the complexity and struggle of the Gay community in the eighties and found some of the narratives to be all too familiar to me. Narratives like struggling to be accepted by my own family and finding one of your own or fending off life’s relentlessly apathetic jabs that just never stop coming even you when you have nothing to offer outside of the clothes on your back.( Plus being actor honing my craft helps build empathy.) That being said POSE has some heavy content maybe watching something in the medium of a cartoon is the perfect lighthearted introduction into the LGBTQ Community? Something Like Steven Universe perhaps? There are lessons to be learned from shows like Steven Universe that push the envelope of understanding exactly what it means to want well for others who live life differently from heterosexual me and you. Maybe you’re the adult who is looking for the means of escape into something genuine and funny to take your mind off of the chaotic Jumanji outside? (I heard there is training underway in case there’s an asteroid hurtling toward earth.) Watching these shows would serve as the perfect reminder that as much as the world has in fact harbored hate and divisive thinking it has also been home to love-filled creativity that only seeks to bring a smile and a streak of hope to anybody whose feeling down and out about the chaos that has wreaked havoc on the world since Pandora opened the box.

Here are my top three recommendations of cartoons you have to see to help bring about the kind of peace I want for anybody feeling any type of turmoil whether it be internal or external.

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

Not to be mistaken for the M. Night Shyamalan directed flop The Last Airbender, this is a series that puts the disaster film adaptation to pure shame. I’ve added this to the top of my list for two reasons. The first reason being: We don’t know how long that show will stay on Netflix. To memory that show has been fan fiction petitioned since it ended its three season show run in 2008. Reason number two would simply be this; the eerie parallel this epic story bears to our country’s history with refugees, government conspiracy and the inevitable defeat of hatred against the forces of benign nature itself. This is the story of a world where psychokinetic “bending” of the four natural elements (Water, Earth, Fire and Air) is a natural part of human life. The story centers around one twelve year old boy ( who’s really one hundred and twelve) vested with the heavy responsibility to restore balance and peace to a world shadowed in fear of the Fire bending nation of the four separate sections of elements. This story is riddled with dazzling action sequences, funny anecdotes and life lessons that we are familiar with in our day to day here in America. This is the perfect show that purposefully (despite the fantastical circumstances) demonstrates what one can truly accomplish when they approach life with an open mind, a kind heart and the kind of determination that inspires countless souls around you to do better in life. A wide range of characters are introduced as we explore this vast land of spiritual and natural mystery and within each of their experiences no matter how brief we see how they all play a part in eliminating the fear that grips us all when we want to do the right thing but we all know that it comes at a cost. If the hodge-podge of animal combinations don’t charm you perhaps the exploration of the spiritual realms will as you join young Aang in his quest to grow into the big shoes of being worthy of the title unanimously known as the Avatar. This series is perfect for the young and old who at times find themselves feeling a little devoid of laughter in these troubling times we find ourselves in. It’s a remarkably profound show and truly comes as a wonder as to why it took so long to come back to any streaming service at all.

REGULAR SHOW

The next show on the list would be this tale of friends, Mordecai and Rigby, and their adventures spent as the staff of the park with no name in East Pines. Do you love the eighties montage and music? How about the dated technology and references of the eighties like the power glove? Well this show has got it all. From British rock star adaptations to blast from the past Laserdisc formats, this show is the combination of all of the best aspects of what the eighties were for us and the most frustrating parts, oh I don’t know we are all different. Maybe you look back on Laserdisc with love. There’s a healthy dose of community and kindness for others along with lessons embedded very well in the series that the kids in us will love. This is that strong bonding cartoon where you get to tell stories about the references that confused your kids overall because you got them and they didn’t. The story centers the audiences well with blends of romance, character personality transitions and a character death that you will truly miss and puts the un in unexpected. (I’ve said too much, you’ll just have to see what I’m talking about.) Winner of several Emmy awards and BAFTA’s this show is highly recommended to those who reminisce of a time where conversations weren’t so difficult to have and there was just the right amount of what everyone considered decent human kindness. This is also a show that will let the tears of laughter flow at the most random moments.

STEVEN UNVIERSE

I briefly mentioned this show before in the introduction as the true blue show about love for all who have felt the harmful pangs of reality that seem to make us forget that we once wanted to experience our own true happiness. The show centers around a young boy who shares lineage with a member of a distant magical alien race made up of gemstones and his adventures in exploring and growing within the cultures of earth and his mother’s Gem home world. This show is loosely based on the show creator’s younger brother Steven, Although it certainly isn’t Steven’s Universe. The audience gets to follow this little boy along as he walks through the easiest moments and the hard ones that we all have yet to escape. The show stores it’s beauty and gorgeous color within the storyline following this little boy’s process in which he learns to preserve his compassion for others despite what galaxy may throw at him. This show will certainly melt the stones encasing your heart when we follow this young man’s trials and tribulations of facing a world that is far beyond his own understanding and learns to not allow himself to get jaded about it but rather learn to accept things outside of his control as they are. It stands to remind us all that while love is truly a force that motivates us to move forward, love can also endures all that’s thrown at it in the effort to make this world a brighter place. Despite the hard questions we have yet to ask ourselves this show demonstrates that reality isn’t such a hard place to live in. Watch this show with an open mind and heart and let it take you in, I promise it will be far from disappointing rather you’ll find yourself rejuvenated by Steven’s limitless compassion he has for anybody who comes his way. If love were pure sugar this show will leave you with a rich, fluffy decadent cake on the table at the end of every episode.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

This goes without saying much more on the subject, I can’t mention these shows above without suggesting these:

Craig of the Creek

A show centered around a little black boy in a suburban neighborhood that neighbors a creek where all the children built their own community that is pristine comedy from beginning to end ( that all takes place between the time they all leave school and the dinner trumpeter plays.)

Gravity Falls

A pair of fraternal twins are sent to Gravity Falls, Oregonwith their great uncle Stanley Pines and his novelty shop known as the Mystery Shack. There’s a wide array of characters and I cannot forget to mention all of the supernatural occurrences that you’d have to see to believe. (along with rib splitting comedy moments that always catch you off guard.)

Adventure Time

A magical Faraway land known as Ooo plays host to the adventurer Finn and his magical dog Jake along with another array of characters who will all take you far away from the woes of our dismal reality and into the oddly satisfying feelings of righting a wrong or battling evil that takes innocent princesses away. Just simpler times of fixing things fused with the right amounts of perspective changing lessons along the way.

Chowder

A Canadian adult cartoon that subversively introduces us to cultured gourmet food and brilliant canvas patterns that are so well placed you’d have to take your attention away from the stories ( a very difficult thing to do by the way.) pause the episode, pick a spot and just watch the characters move across the screen. It is so whimsical and silly at times that grounding questions go out the window. Questions like: Is the Chowder ( the show’s protagonist) a raccoon or a hamster of some kind? Survey says: Who cares? His love for food is all we need to have in common to keep watching him.

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

Another pair of adventurers? Why not? Young Flapjack and Captain Knuckles are the best pair you want to tag along with in Storm Along harbor where the pirates and explorers alike all melt at the mouth at the thought of candy ( the dominating currency of the Storm Along after all!) or discovering Candy Island. Is this review a little foggy? Well you should pop on over to Hulu and ask Captain Knuckles since he does a much better job at explaining the plot than me.

Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends

A Cartoon Network classic for all the ages! A story centered around a little boy, Mac, leaving behind his imaginary friend Bloo at a special foster home for a hundred other imaginary friends who were all abandoned by their children when they needed to grow up. Who says they can’t find love or get caught up in shenanigans from time to time? Huh? Another beautiful assortment of situations and characters that will just never leave your heart.