
The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends” - zonotope
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressive-authoritarian-soul-of-thomas-the-tank-engine-and-friends/
======
paulddraper
Thomas & Friends is gold.

The show is dignified and wholesome. It is always about respect, diligence,
and humility.

It isn't there for stupid antics and wacky laughs. It doesn't blast color
explosions and ADHD-fueled off-the-charts mind-numbing exuburance to capture
kids attention. And it's been doing that for decades (pretty much eternity, as
far as kids TV goes).

Not since Mr. Rogers has there been a better kids TV show.

> Fat Controller

Better known as Sir Topham Hatt since the 1950s.

> Henry must be punished—for life

Even in the old non-US version (modern one makes it explicit), it was still
evident that he wasn't left in their forever, as he showed up again next time.

Blue Mountain Mystery [1] A little green engine hides in the blue hills.
Thomas learns that long ago, the engine accidentally caused another engine to
roll overboard into the sea. He has been hiding ever since, in guilt and fear
and shame. Thomas convinces him to return, and the story shows how silly the
little engine's worries were. It's a moral of forgiveness and redemption.
(Also, there's a great surprise about who that overboard engine actually is.)

This crap makes me mad. I have to stop reading stuff on the internet. Go back
to watching Sponge Bob or Family Guy or whatever crap you watch with your
kids.

[1]
[http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_Mountain_Mystery](http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_Mountain_Mystery)

~~~
dmlorenzetti
The comparison with Mr. Rogers is instructive. Both shows seem rooted in a
minister's desire to encapsulate ideals derived from the Bible. But while Mr.
Rogers is New Testament, the Thomas books are Old Testament.

Henry, for example, gets punished for the sin of VANITY -- he doesn't stop in
the tunnel in order to shirk work, but rather to avoid getting his nice new
paint messed up.

To see the difference between the shows, just try to imagine Mr. Rogers
presenting a puppet show about bricking a character up in his room as
punishment for not wanting to get his new suit wet in the rain. And imagine
him, in that Mr Rogers voice, saying "I think he deserved that punishment,
don't you?"

~~~
humanrebar
I think the New Testament disagrees with your characterization of the Old
Testament. Pretty much the entire New Testament goes on about how the Old
Testament is a series of stories about how cycles of rule making and rule
breaking do _not_ lead to real justice, peace, or life. In particular, both
Romans and Hebrews (though not exclusively those books) cite Old Testament
stories to make the case that the Old Testament (a.k.a. the law and the
prophets) is largely misunderstood to be about a world full of crime and
punishment.

For example, Romans 1 talks about how people (not a vengeful God) set up the
worst consequences for themselves. God's "wrath" is unfiltered humanity.
Romans 2 goes on about how there's plenty of blame to pass around (so there's
no room for "good people" to blame "bad" ones). And Romans 4 holds up Abraham,
an Old Testament character, as an example of how life should be lived, in
faithfulness to a forgiving God. All through this passage, and in the rest of
the book, a case is built from the Old Testament itself.

Anyway, I don't have strong feelings about Shining Time Station, but I think
the Old Testament is more humane, sensible, and subtle than people seem to
appreciate. At least the apostle Paul seemed to think so.

~~~
linkregister
This analysis, while novel and interesting to me, is not supported by the bulk
of events in the early Old Testament. I will name some examples of God
personally meting out the death sentence _en masse_ as punishment for sin in
various books of the Old Testament.

1\. The Great Flood (Genesis),

2\. Sodom (Genesis),

3\. The Plagues of Egypt (Exodus),

4\. The Exile of the Israelites from the Promised Land (Exodus).

Redemption, mercy, and forgiveness are primary themes in the Gospels, and
further continue as major themes in the rest of the New Testament. Aside from
the Lake of Fire (Hell), which is worse than being killed for being a first-
born Egyptian child, references to punishment are secondary.

As for Paul's opinion of the Old Testament, that is fine, he wrote that
opinion. There is no shortage of contradictory and conflicting opinions and
facts in the Bible since it is a work compiled, edited, and written by humans.

That said, the mainstream Christian opinion that the Old Testament is vengeful
and the New Testament is merciful is prevalent for a reason. Paul cannot
retcon, try as he might, the events of the Old Testament.

~~~
humanrebar
> This analysis, while novel and interesting to me, is not supported by the
> bulk of events in the early Old Testament.

Fair enough. But my point was that the analysis was the analysis of the New
Testament authors. People are free to provide their own critical analysis, but
they're disagreeing with Peter, Paul, and the Jesus of the Gospels even. I
think people that hold this viewpoint and care to be rigorous about it would
do well to review their arguments.

Regarding your first three examples, in each case the story is about God
saving an imperfect group who trusts God:

1\. Noah and his family

2\. Lot and his family

3\. Moses and the Israelites

...to back up to Romans 1, the reward for people who want to run their own
show is often... their own show to run. They'll just be doing it on their own.
Earth before the flood, Sodom, and recalcitrant Egyptians are all examples of
this pattern. But in each of these cases, God decides not to end the story in
just desserts but give people another shot to redeem themselves.

I'm refraining from commenting on example 4 mostly because I don't know
exactly which even you're referring to (Israel ends up in the Promised Land).
But the narrative of the Old Testament is generally Israel deciding to do its
own thing over and over, asking for another chance, and getting one.

So _one_ thing people usually have a problem with is the idea that God judges
people _at all_. This usually stems from a belief that loving people don't
judge people. This is clearly contradictory to certain tenets of the Bible,
including the text of the New Testament. But I think most people, if they stop
and think about it, disagree with this sentiment as well. Consider:

\- A grown man kicks a toddler. The father of the toddler acts like nothing
happened. Dad is a loving guy and wants peace more than judgement. No, a
loving father is _angry_ when his family is abused. He expects justice, even.

\- A teacher doesn't particularly like a student so he ignores the student.
The mother thinks this is messed up but understands the teacher is his own
person and makes his own decisions. No, a loving mother gets _angry_ when her
kids aren't nurtured and taught properly. She expects corrective action.

In the interest of not writing a novella in an HN comment, I'll wrap it up
here, so thanks for reading if you got this far. I appreciate the civil
discussion.

~~~
timsayshey
Wow. I've just got to say thank you for some of the most rational responses
I've seen on hn in regards to the Bible. It's almost always misrepresented
here by people with little knowledge of it or just bad personal experiences.
You can almost feel their anger and bitterness. Which I get because I used to
be the same way.

Man, I really wish hn had a follow button so I could read more of your level
headed and insightful responses :)

~~~
herdrick
Just in case you don't know about this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=humanrebar](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=humanrebar)

------
twiss
The next episode [1], aired two days later, contains the conclusion of the
story, and he gets out of the tunnel. I do agree that 2 days is rather long to
leave kids with the conclusion of that first episode though.

The final lines are: "Henry doesn't mind the rain now. He knows that the best
way to keep his paint nice is not to run into tunnels, but to ask his driver
to rub him down when the day's work is over."

It might be a bit authoritarian, but it can also just be interpreted as "don't
run away from your problems, instead, ask for help and you will be helped",
which is not such a bad lesson and much better than the usual version, which
is just "don't run away from your problems".

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWtNGzGZTCo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWtNGzGZTCo)

~~~
viraptor
Regardless of the story, I find it weird when kids shows split the story
across episodes. As an adult I watch series in the right order. As a kid, I
didn't know there was any timeline behind the shows. I watched every episode
as a separate story, would miss a few, would watch the repeats of what I
already saw on different channels, etc. Maybe that doesn't apply to everyone,
but I wouldn't expect young kids to connect episodes unless explicitly
prompted about it. Was my experience unusual?

~~~
comex
It matches my vague recollections. But with today’s kids increasingly using
streaming services, both YouTube and the paid kind (e.g. Sesame Street on
HBO), it’s probably becoming more common for them to watch a series in order,
just like it is for adults.

------
Stratoscope
> In 2009, the show went completely C.G.I.

As much as I love the New Yorker, my fondest hope is that one day the N.Y.C.
media will free themselves from whatever repressive authoritarian soul compels
them to put those dots in every single acronym and initialism, when the rest
of the country abandoned the dots long ago.

They even put them in names that once were initialisms but now are genuine
names on their own: they insist on I.B.M. even though the _official company
name_ is simply IBM. And F.B.I. even though the FBI's own website calls it the
FBI.

As an old ham radio operator, the one that really got me was when they wrote
about S.O.S. - when in fact SOS never was an initialism at all! No experienced
radio operator would ever have sent "S O S" as three separate letters in Morse
code:

dit dit dit (pause) dah dah dah (pause) dit dit dit

("S" is dit dit dit in Morse, and "O" is "dah dah dah".)

SOS has always been a "prosign", that is, a single Morse code unit with no
pauses in the middle:

dit dit dit dah dah dah dit dit dit

In fact, SOS is properly written with an overscore above the letters to
indicate that it is sent as a single unit. Of course that is not always
possible given the limitations of modern typography, but it is never
transmitted as if it were the three separate letters "S O S".

Why does the N.Y.C. media follow such an authoritarian rule even when it is
_factually wrong_? It is a mystery to me.

~~~
DavidAdams
The New Yorker also insists on typographical affectations such as coöperate
and reëlect. Most publications have a "house style." The New Yorker's is
particularly eccentric, and I think they like it that way.

~~~
blt
I used to think this was annoying and snobby, but after seeing the New Yorker
deëvolve into a less funny BuzzFeed over the past couple of years, I long for
the over-the-top snobbiness of the old New Yorker. At least it was a distinct
identity.

~~~
chis
Are there any magazines that recreate the snobbishness of old New Yorker?

------
guyzero
This is only news to someone who has never watched Thomas. It took me until
the second or third Thomas book and I was pretty surprised how authoritarian
it all was - and that was circa 2000. But the books are from the 40's and like
a lot of things people keep buying them not knowing exactly what they're
getting.

Also kids love talking trains.

~~~
Animats
It's not just authoritarian. It's classiest. Sir Topham Hatt inherited the
job. In episode 610, Hatt is unavailable and one of the engines, Hiro, tries
to run the railroad in his absence. This is considered grossly improper.

~~~
guyzero
Any children's literature from 1940's England is going to be classist to some
extent, but sure, it's definitely classist as all get out.

------
modeless
I am certain that this story was inspired by the reporter reading this recent
reddit thread that pointed out the absurdity of this show:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6zgpig/what_is_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6zgpig/what_is_the_darkest_episode_of_a_show_you_have/dmv56zw/)

~~~
umeshunni
Modern "journalism" is mostly copy pasting content from Reddit. BuzzFeed turns
AskReddits into listicles, higher quality publications turn Reddit posts into
long form content.

~~~
peteretep
I was bitching in another thread about IBM Watson and had a Reuters journalist
email my HN-only address who said he was working on a story about it.

~~~
falsedan
> _Reuters journalist_

They're 99.9% freelancers.

------
sparrish
"Thomas the Tank Engine" was written by Reverend Wilbert Awdry, a minister in
the Anglican church.

As is the Christian tradition, he understood the ultimate authority of God,
the creator, and as is taught in the Bible, the necessity of teaching
obedience to children.

Since most of the early stories were written to his son, Christopher, it makes
sense to me that they were about some of the key themes of his faith and his
views for raising children.

------
pygy_
Beside specific stories, there are two things in the general set up of Thomas
that makes it IMO a toxic show.

\- The trains, who have children's minds, are unquestionably servile. They
obey a pompous and capricious elite (humans) and the narrator goes along for
the ride. Obeying is very important for Thomas (who's physically constrained
to spend his life on rails). He'll do whatever is needed to stay in his
master's good graces. It is the perfect show to condition child slaves into
compliance.

\- The trains are racist, and it is normal and acceptable. Steam and Diesel
engines loath one another. The show is presented from the steam team point of
view, without an ounce of distance. The Diesels have inherent character flaws
because of their engines. I just found a recent episode [1] where they kind of
address that, but it is AFAICT a recent development.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YUoBOEsB4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YUoBOEsB4)

~~~
falsedan
> _The trains, who have children 's minds, are unquestionably servile_

The trains, who have children's minds, are constantly breaking rules, forming
petty cliques, tormenting each other, and ultimately getting some comeuppance.

How could they be used to teach obedience if they never showed the folly of
not following instructions??

~~~
pygy_
I didn't watch it as a kid, and only sampled a few episodes. From what I've
seen, while they may break rules, they do so in order to comply with an order
coming from the humans (or to fall into their good graces).

~~~
falsedan
That's not the case at all, Thomas is always doing things he shouldn't for
fun, like disturbing sleeping trains (Gordon), winding up trains with remarks
(also Gordon), passing warning boards in mines, and falling into subsiding
mines[0].

Then there's not being nice to trucks, refusing to pull trucks, panicking from
a near-collision and running away, ignoring advice from more-experiences
engines and losing a head of steam, deliberately causing passengers to get
wet, …

The ones where they do as they're asked to are the minority…

I don't recall any instances when an engine was directed to ignore a rule by a
driver or the Fat Controller.

0:
[http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Down_the_Mine](http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Down_the_Mine)

~~~
pygy_
> The ones where they do as they're asked to are the minority.

As I told you I only sampled a few episodes (4-5), and servility and/or racism
(Diesel) were present in most of them, without any distance or criticism. I'm
glad there are other themes, but I don't want to watch every episode before I
show them to my kids, so I avoid the series altogether.

Edit: BTW, By Diesel, I meant Trucks, that's how they are called in the French
translation.

------
jpatokal
For a more modern yet still dystopian talking-train kids program, check out
Chuggington. It's also British, but instead of the Fat Controller, there's
"Vee", a disembodied GlaDOS-like female voice who orders the trains around via
loudspeaker and chastises them when they're naughty.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuggington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuggington)

~~~
dasmoth
I’m glad that I’m not the only one alarmed by Vee.

One thing that I think is true of most current children’s TV, but which struck
me particularly during Chuggington is how consistently anti-individualistic it
all is: teamwork is _always_ the right answer, and doing something on your own
is a recipe for trouble. I don’t remember this being quite so emphatic in the
past (but it does align with, _e.g._ , the current crop of “how to be a good
software engineer” posts.)

------
fallous
The New Yorker turned into Pat Robertson and the 700 Club so quickly I didn't
even notice. Robertson divined the nefarious gay-agenda purpose of Teletubbies
and now Ms. Tolentino discovers the totalitarianism that is Thomas & Friends.
One can only imagine the undisguised communism of Barney & Friends (caring
means sharing!) awaiting discovery or the Satanic influences of Lyrick/HIT
(owners and distributors of Barney & Friends, Thomas & Friends, Bob the
Builder, and a metric shitload of other child-oriented programming) given that
the Veggie Tales owners bailed on a distribution agreement with them due to a
lack of trust in Lyrick/HIT continuing to support the "Christian values" of
that franchise.

Joseph McCarthy could not be reached for comment at this time, although George
Orwell was heard to mumble "1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a guide."

~~~
cobbzilla
In all fairness, Teletubbies had no dialog. With enough creativity, you could
read whatever you want into it.

When an insubordinate train car is bricked up "for always and always" and the
narrator comments "I think he deserved his punishment, don’t you?", well, um,
I think it's OK to say there's some seriously old-school moralizing going on.

~~~
fallous
Depends how "old" the school of morality you're subscribing to is I guess and
the strain of philosophy. Considering major Western Philosophies... New
Testament circa 33AD not so much, pre-Enlightenment Catholic Church probably,
Enlightenment era to pre-Marx, not so much, Marxist/Leninist and Progressive
era of say 1900 and beyond then absolutely.

------
zwieback
I've always hated this show, in my PBS show rankings it's barely above
Caillou, which was totally banned when my kids were little. Sir Topham Hat is
such a fascist. I'd pay-per-view the episode where the trains revolt and Sodor
burns down.

~~~
CodeKommissar
Lol why was Caillou "totally banned" for your little kids??

~~~
ceejayoz
We banned it as well. The character is unrelentingly whiny, and my kids (two
years old, at the time) started picking up the mannerisms very, very quickly.

For a while, Google's canonical answer to "Why is Caillou bald?" was "Caillou
can't grow hair, not because he has cancer or progeria, but because he sucks,
and even his own body recognizes that he does not deserve hair or food or
love." [https://www.sbnation.com/2014/3/26/5549908/arian-foster-
cail...](https://www.sbnation.com/2014/3/26/5549908/arian-foster-caillou-is-
awful)

~~~
CodeKommissar
That's a pretty funny answer.

------
thatsethnz
Once upon a time, there was an engine called Henry. Henry was asked to help
but refused. So Henry was put in time out. Henry didn't enjoy time out and
wanted to be let out. So was let out, and learned to be responsible and
helpful.

The reason you teach a toddler this should be blindingly obvious.

Once upon a time, there was a journalist called Jia Tolentino. Jia was a
special kind of stupid. Allegory, you see, was entirely lost on Jia. So, being
neither helpful nor responsible, she called Henry's boss a fascist.

~~~
dao-
> The reason you teach a toddler this should be blindingly obvious.

Not at all. People should help out others out of altruism, because they
understand that society is cooperative, or because they value other people.
"Be helpful or be punished" isn't a lesson I'd want to teach my kid.

~~~
thatsethnz
But you have to teach altruism, cooperation and the valuing of other people.
And you teach it by (gently and respectfully) disincentivizing the opposing
behaviors.

It's not "be helpful or be punished" it's "don't pour your cereal on your
brothers head or you will get time out", "don't wake your brother when he's
sleeping or you will get time out" "stop biting your bother or you will get
time out", "no you cannot wear your new shoes in the mud and if you don't stop
asking and complaining you will get time out". These are the bread-and-butter
conversations of parenting.

Like it or not, you will be a valid authority in your child's life, and you
will need to teach compliance with proper authority, and model how to be one,
and that there are consequences to the defiance of proper authority.

~~~
tpxl
There is significant difference between punishing absence of good behaviour
("be helpful or be punished" \- Henry example) and punishing bad behaviour
("don't pour your cereal on your brothers head or you will get time out" \-
your child example).

------
defen
Compared to the original Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales which included such kid-
friendly topics as child abuse, incest, murder, and cannibalism this doesn't
sound too bad.

------
udfalkso
My brother’s theory on this show (which my nephew LOVES) is that it’s coal
industry propaganda. The worst train is the Diesel, etc.

------
hitekker
For those interested in comedy-horror, I recommend Shed 17: the lost story of
the flesh-engines.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=462KBuAhncU](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=462KBuAhncU)

A hidden gem of YouTube.

~~~
orf
This is well worth a watch!

------
js2
It's hard to imagine George Carlin would associate himself with anything
repressive and authoritarian.

~~~
sparrish
Or anything written by an Anglican minister, Reverend Wilbert Awdry. Surprised
me as well.

------
scandox
I definitely found the Henry episode weird when my daughter first saw it. She,
being a kid, thought it was fine. They have a very punishment-centric
worldview.

------
jasonmaydie
My son has a book with a bunch of stories in them, 3 little pigs, Goldilocks
etc but I stumbled on one story about "The wolf and seven sheep".

At the end of the story, the mama sheep cuts open the wolf's stomach and fills
it with stones and then tosses the wolf into a river. I was stunned.. but
that's what stories are, they aren't always nice little things to make your
kids live in some fantasy world.

What a bullspit article.

------
teekert
Well, probably still beats growing up with fairy tails where giants eat
children or where 2 children eat from a candy house and 1 ends up feeding the
other until he is fat enough to be eaten by the witch. Or that nice one I
heard at school where a woman turns into a salt pillar because god told her
not to look backwards at the collapsing Sodom en Gomorra. And afterwards the
two children that did survive get their dad drunk and have sex. Ok, I only
heard that last part later.

You know, children hear stories from a wide variety of sources and they have
parents to help interpret them and give them a place in their world view.
Children ask questions to tweak this view and I don't think we should be to
whiny about stories that don't seem to hit the exact educational, politically
correct, wholesome, inclusive tone that you had in mind when your kid was
born.

------
colordrops
Almost all the content we've got is representative of "corporate-totalitarian
dystopia", because we live in a corporate-totalitarian dystopia. Thomas the
Tank Engine isn't some special case.

~~~
krapp
Did we live in a "corporate-totalitarian dystopia" in the 1940s - 70s? Because
that's when the stories this show is based on were written.

Simply considering all culture to be propaganda as you appear to be doing is
intellectually lazy.

~~~
colordrops
Yes, we did live in a corporate-totalitarian dystopia in the 40s to 70s.

And you are being lazy for assuming things that I did not say. I'm not
implying that it's propaganda. I'm saying that media reflects the world we
live in, as that is the context that we are familiar with, and we tell stories
set in our own world.

~~~
krapp
> Yes, we did live in a corporate-totalitarian dystopia in the 40s to 70s.

I understand people like to interpret things through that lens _now_ but like
seeing Tolkien's work as an allegory for industrialization or the atomic
bombs, it seems to me to be mostly post-hoc revisionism to do so. Reading the
Wikipedia page of the author, I don't see any evidence of a "corporate-
totalitarian dystopia" which would inform his stories.

So you're going to have to define "corporate-totalitarian dystopia" in a way
that even makes sense in that context.

~~~
colordrops
So just to be clear I'm mostly talking about the US and western countries.
Let's break it down:

Corporate: the corporation has been the main organizational unit for most of
society at least since the 40s. In fact the vast majority of Americans that
have a vocation work under a corporation.

Totalitarian: The definition of totalitarianism is "a system of government
that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the
state." Despite noises to the contrary, the US is certainly not a democracy,
and I wouldn't even call it a representative republic. A data-driven study [1]
confirms the intuitions of many that the US is really an oligarchy of the
wealthy corporate class. US politics is driven by corporate interests and
there is little evidence that public sentiment has a large effect on material
outcomes, despite external appearances. Furthermore it can be argued that the
US is a police state, as described by Pulitzer prize winning journalist Chris
Hedges [2]. The US government has had countless programs to control discourse
and put down opposition since its inception, and anything that threatens the
status quo is stomped out with prejudice.

Dystopia: In many important factors, American citizens are unhappy with their
lives, and this unhappiness can be traced back to the corporate-totalitarian
nature of the US. Extremely expensive health care, long work hours without
much vacation, economic disparity between classes, lack of affordable housing,
complete corruption of the financial sector, regulatory capture, endless
warfare, corporate control of the media, etc are all direct results of the
structure of our society.

[1] [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
poli...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-
and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B#)

[2] [https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-origins-of-our-
police-...](https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-origins-of-our-police-
state/)

~~~
krapp
Yes. I'm well aware of the definitions of a corporation, and totalitarianism,
and dystopia. But a priest who appears to have spent the early 20th century
pottering around the English countryside writing stories about trains was not
informed by having lived in a corporate-totalitarian dystopia. So your earlier
assertion that this is what Thomas the Tank Engine represents seems specious.

It's a modern reinterpretation of a tv show whose cultural dissonance makes it
seem dystopian and authoritarian, but I'm sure someone could find a way to
make the Neighborhood of Make-Believe from Mister Rogers seem like a dystopia
if they tried. Doesn't mean that's what Fred Rogers was going for.

~~~
colordrops
Unless he was a hermit living in a cave, he was well immersed in society. And
in fact his stories are about one of the main symbols of modern corporate
industrial society: The train.

~~~
krapp
>And in fact his stories are about one of the main symbols of modern corporate
industrial society: The train.

He _liked trains._ He made up stories about them as a child, imagining them as
characters talking to each other, then wrote those stories down for his own
son years later. He didn't consider trains to be a symbol of corporate
oppression or dystopia.

~~~
colordrops
You keep putting meaning to my words where there was none. I did not say that
he considered trains to be a symbol of corporate oppression or dystopia. In
fact the entire point of my original comment is that you can be _completely
unaware_ of any idea of a corporate dystopia and still write a story that
includes symbols of corporate dystopia because you are just using the things
you see around you day to day in your stories.

~~~
krapp
Ok. I must be misinterpreting your comments, then, because I read "Almost all
the content we've got is representative of 'corporate-totalitarian dystopia',
because we live in a corporate-totalitarian dystopia" as implying that all
media (including Thomas the Tank Engine) is an allegory by the authors of the
'corporate-totalitarian dystopia' in which they live.

If your point is that content is interpreted by people who believe they live
in a dystopia as being representative of it, then I suppose I would agree.
I've seen people read dystopian symbolism into the Teletubbies, too, although
that, like many such subversions, seems to be an attempt at contrarian humor.
If that interpretation can be so broadly applied, then it's most likely
lacking in depth. In this case, since the author had no intention for his
stories to represent "corporate-totalitarian dystopia" then what does it
signify to say that they do? It seems like a tautological statement.

~~~
colordrops
Heh that's my original point. There is nothing particularly wrong with Thomas.
Glad we can come to an agreement.

------
Animats
Have you been Really Useful today?

~~~
int_19h
[https://i.imgur.com/pA3Yfa9.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/pA3Yfa9.jpg)

------
badcede
Reminds me of
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T8y5EPv6Y8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T8y5EPv6Y8)
in its nefarious bleakness.

------
rmchugh
While this might be true of the old series, the CGI series is almost anarchic
by contrast. The Fat Controller is uniquely accident prone and regularly
humiliated by his mother, his wife and his own mistakes. The Steam > Diesel
caste system is less entrenched with very many sympathetic diesel engines
(Mavis, Den & Dart, Salty) and the gender problems are also less evident with
some good female engines (Caitlin, Emily, Mavis).

I don't think the author has seen much of the CGI series or the recent movies.

------
clouddrover
Henry gets bricked in:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO6qIM2WO6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO6qIM2WO6k)

That's hardcore.

~~~
paulddraper
And then is unbricked

[https://youtu.be/dWtNGzGZTCo?t=2m28s](https://youtu.be/dWtNGzGZTCo?t=2m28s)

Which The New Yorker would know if they had watch more than a tiny clip.

~~~
clouddrover
Only after his fire had gone out, his spirit had been broken, and he'd been
psychologically disintegrated back to docility.

------
cat199
in other news, bourgeois-liberal publication takes issue with other media
promoting traditionalist collectivism

------
santaclaus
The world needs more childerns’ television like Ren and Stimpy. Those reruns
are pure gold.

------
exabrial
Compared to ...the political agenda and hidden sexual innuendo in the
alternatives?

~~~
c0nducktr
Examples?

------
scardine
Thomas is a strangely common "special interest" for kids in the spectrum, I
wonder if the author himself could be a high functioning autist.

------
rjromero
My mother didn’t let me watch anything but Thomas and Friends. She said after
watching Rugrats or Spongebob i would turn into a disobedient brat, but after
watching Thomas I was apparently well mannered and well behaved.

I ended up becoming a soft well mannered programmer. Fuck you Thomas!

~~~
alexilliamson
I thought I was the only one who wasn't allowed to watch rugrats! For the same
reason!

~~~
peteretep
We should stop teaching little boys about dinosaurs too. Those T-Rexs are
_terrible_ role models!

------
vacri
> _As one commenter writes, “What moral lesson are kids supposed to learn from
> this? Do as you’re told or you will be entombed forever in the darkness to
> die?”_

Geez, don't let that commentator see a Warner Bros cartoon...

~~~
humanrebar
Or Tom and Jerry.

------
rdxm
pro-tip for Ms. Tolentino:

Get off the island for a bit, it's warping your perception of reality...

------
DoctorNick
no. stop.

