Re: pokemon contexts & childhood

From: Kathryn_Alexander@sfu.ca
Date: Sat Dec 04 1999 - 16:07:33 PST


diane, i am vewy afwaid, ( also your message made me blow tea out of my
nose)
 your lesbo-erotic sibling play made me laugh out loud, for I recall my
own homo/heteroerotic fantasy play with my twin brother and I camped under
the kitchen table during many a west-coast rainy day, inventing our own
universe, playing with imaginary characters - where the villians
represented the worst we could imagine - our parents ( or other nearby
adults) - in the roles of monsters - who created rube goldberg type
machines that tried to turn us into 'babies" again, no doubt inspired by
warner's cartoons, parent's and the scariest of all the ubiquitous "funny
nurse/doctor" (no doubt an after efect of post tonsil removal trauma
memories).

most of our play was imaginary appropriation - as for the gender stuff -
we did 't really get gender play until we went to school ( a chapter
coming on on that in Talking about diffrence" - and when we got the
"baby brother' he joined the group as a kind of apprentice toddler -- he
now is a dungeons and dragons afficiando.

all this to say - given the chance I think most kids are consumer
traitors -- they get the stuff - but they know how to re-shape the tool
- not necessarity in the ways that are intended. In fact we used to
love to mock/mimic the flood of mattell / hasbro/ etc. christmas
commercials - wierd children doing silly play - even though we lusted for
the goods.

i think we would have died with delight to have so many characters as
Pokemon available for our evil and naughty scenarios -- and I think that
kids naturally know how to torque social scripts - isn't that why we
send them to school - to make them learn how to obey, buy and behave????
.

our parents,older east end working class depression survivors who had
found themselves in the burbs during the 50's did not allow ( well
actually even didn't detect the desperate necessity for such objects as)
barbies, kens, GI Joes etc. in the house -

but we acquired the consumer scenarios nevertheless - via tv,
neighbourhood play, school yard genres and we remained hopelessly
ambivalent because we risked parental disaproval for our consumer desires (
don't be a sheep - the motto "to your own self be true" went to school
along with our geeky plaid lunch boxes - and we were hopelessly out of the
loop of boomer playground social hierarchies because we lacked the
material capital to "play" like every one else. Oh well, the 70's cured
that I guess.

having particpated in the raising of now 20 year old step-kid - who
rejected her collective of counter culture extended parents at age 7
and demanded INSIDE mainstream tv,kid consumer crazes - I think that she
ended up with a cool repertoire of scripts, desires, ambivalences and
knowledges - she can still scoff at The GAP "everyone in vests / corsets,
etc" AND yet she feels no guilt at purchasing desire - she can blur her
genres quite effectively - reading culture in quite sophisticated ways

thanks for that... back to evaluating papers.

kathryn ( who never got a stinking Barbie after all).

>referring to mike's question on age,
>and jay's anthem on the dimensions of something that adults cannot
>understand
>from the perspective of kids,
>
>it is hard to know where this 'phenomenon' fits in the sociopolitical and
>sociohistorical registers,
>since all of us played with particular toys that we can look at now
>and identify as complex social activities - my ken & ricki dolls, for
>instance, were homos,
>they went "camping" often,
>and my sister and best friend and i were irrestibly drawn to lesbo-erotic
>scenarios
>when dressing barbie and midge, (midge actually became "Fifi" as in "Fifi!
>What are you _doing_?!" - which
>embarassed and delighted us, really) -
>
>the ways academics read children's activities of course tells us little
>about what kids are doing
>in their play - nevertheless, i think pwgraham's political read is a good
>one - the times are different
>and the corporate investment in childhood has changed.
>anytime everyone is doing the same thing, i worry.
>be vewy afrwaid.
>
>what kinds of value are embedded in "play" that is so dependent upon media
>marketing?
>it is easy to manipulate desire.
>
>diane
>
> ' 'We have destroyed something by our presence,' said Bernard, 'a
>world perhaps.'
> (Virginia Woolf, "The Waves")
>
>+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
>diane celia hodges
>university of british columbia, vancouver / university of colorado, denver
>
>Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 11 2000 - 14:04:06 PST