Bonding with Totally Spies
We have one of those families, growing in number, wherein the mom goes off to work in the morning, coming home sometimes late at night, and the dad stays home and is there when the child gets off the school bus. So Sam and the child have this whole nother life that I only get glimpses of -- they're Deeply Bonded, and they've got lots of Shared Activities. They go to the dollar store and buy toy guns, they go for long walks in the neighborhood, they play poker, using wooden matches for chips. (I like to have dramatic fits when I walk in on this last activity: "Gambling!" I cry, "Gambling! and Arson! What are you teaching my child!" The child thinks this is hilarious.)
Last night I discovered yet another Shared Activity: They're addicted to "Totally Spies." (Link needs Flash 5 plug-in, and won't let you out. But you can see the show in action.)
"Totally Spies" is a cartoon featuring three well-built girls with tight clothes and fairly big hair ("They're TEENAGERS," the child told me. "Yeah, I got that," I said), who fight -- I gather -- crime, using some serious cartoon anti-crime technology. Right. They live in Beverly Hills. They like the mall. Right. And what is the attraction of this cartoon?
In the child's case, I think it's the cartoon girls themselves -- "Clover is a Fashion Freak!" he said. As if that explained everything.
And in Sam's case, alas, I believe it's the cartoon girls as well, though he gave me some semblance of analysis of the thing -- "It's like 'Charlie's Angels,'" he told me, "except..." Analysis broke down there. Yeah, except they're cartoons, honey! "They're Valley Girls," he said. Ah. Well, there you are. He likes how they talk. They say "whatever" a lot.
Well, they're cute, all right. When they come on, the child goes to the bottom of the stairs and calls Sam down, so they can watch the show together.
Neither of them missed a minute of it last night; Sam, former Navy flyer, former scholar of Victorian lit, put his book down -- I believe he was reading Trollope -- and looked Really Cheerful for the whole half-hour.
Well. I'm going to go off to work now, where I'm slated to discuss Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls, and the repression of women in mid-20th century Ireland, while the guys back home are watching gum-chewing teenage cartoon girls kicking major butt on Cartoon Network, and God help me, I know these things are connected, probably inevitably so, but I do NOT want to think about it.
Whatever.
Last night I discovered yet another Shared Activity: They're addicted to "Totally Spies." (Link needs Flash 5 plug-in, and won't let you out. But you can see the show in action.)
"Totally Spies" is a cartoon featuring three well-built girls with tight clothes and fairly big hair ("They're TEENAGERS," the child told me. "Yeah, I got that," I said), who fight -- I gather -- crime, using some serious cartoon anti-crime technology. Right. They live in Beverly Hills. They like the mall. Right. And what is the attraction of this cartoon?
In the child's case, I think it's the cartoon girls themselves -- "Clover is a Fashion Freak!" he said. As if that explained everything.
And in Sam's case, alas, I believe it's the cartoon girls as well, though he gave me some semblance of analysis of the thing -- "It's like 'Charlie's Angels,'" he told me, "except..." Analysis broke down there. Yeah, except they're cartoons, honey! "They're Valley Girls," he said. Ah. Well, there you are. He likes how they talk. They say "whatever" a lot.
Well, they're cute, all right. When they come on, the child goes to the bottom of the stairs and calls Sam down, so they can watch the show together.
Neither of them missed a minute of it last night; Sam, former Navy flyer, former scholar of Victorian lit, put his book down -- I believe he was reading Trollope -- and looked Really Cheerful for the whole half-hour.
Well. I'm going to go off to work now, where I'm slated to discuss Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls, and the repression of women in mid-20th century Ireland, while the guys back home are watching gum-chewing teenage cartoon girls kicking major butt on Cartoon Network, and God help me, I know these things are connected, probably inevitably so, but I do NOT want to think about it.
Whatever.
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