The fact is, formative propaganda is fundamentally unavoidable. Children will consume the ideas around them, they can't live in a vacuum. I'd even say it's uncontrollable to a degree, without going full-on 1984. It makes sense to me that society looks for reasonable ways to tailor it. Obviously we can't just go around banning ideas willy nilly. It seems to me that the more sound option, is to ensure that certain ideas do reach them at all.
As I'd said earlier in the topic, if children are given a variety of media sources it'll inspire their creativity and the room to question the writers, while if all the works have something in common it will just package that as if it were 'normal', hence the concept of 'normalizing' something.
I think the only way out of formative hardening is to throw variety at it, as then whatever hardens is more like a gumbo of unrelated subject matter rather than a thrall of culture purely.
It is usually college, yes. I've seen it in some of the more well-off highschools as well. My point was not that theology classes happen in elementary school. lol Merely explaining why I think your comparison of progressive gender discussion to bible study is inaccurate.
How is it inaccurate from saying colleges teach theology? Colleges also teach feminism.
I was just responding to "Theology is perfectly welcome in schools as long as no particular faith is being presented as fact".
I'd argue that maybe we should. As long as it's presented realistically and responsibly. Disorder is a far end of the mental/behavioral spectrum, but it is a spectrum nonetheless. One that reflects on all our minds, that can be used to help most people, disordered or not, understand their mental faculties and be better adjusted to life. In the same strain, I'd argue that gender discussion itself, from a progressive and tolerant standpoint, applies to most or all people, even if they aren't full-blown transgender. Hence, we obviously shouldn't simply be telling kids they're probably trans (which I doubt anyone is doing : P), but an open-minded discussion of gender and what it means to our identity and lifestyle, is a perfectly reasonable thing to have with young people who are figuring out themselves, the world, and their place in it, and are otherwise inevitably being bombarded by the rigid ideas of whatever environment they're growing up in.
The mere presentation of these ideas is enough to get them to potentially model off of it, especially if it's learned about alongside their peers.
If someone popular in the class who otherwise wasn't naturally trans ends up modeling after the transtrender movement from these lesson plans for example, that class could end up with multiple people crossdressing as an aspect of said popularity. While it could be argued to just be 'a phase', it could just as easily lock into their psyche during these years through peer proliferation.
Doctors are supposed to not present disorders this openly as possibilities at people so that they won't risk adopting a nurtured variant of it, having it 'explain everything' as they begin to model off of it adaptively. Media's always had a hand in this, having people think one year that they're sociopaths ala Sherlock for example, but the difference there is that the belief of being a Sociopath is otherwise regarded by enough people as cringe, rather than status quo, and that how many will choose to handle being trans risks chemical intervention on people who can't be tested as thoroughly as other more well known disorders.
It's effectively teaching kids not that it's okay to be trans, but that it's 'normal' to be trans, and it's liable to become the next furry movement if we don't keep a careful eye on it
right now.
I can't speak to Fairly Odd Parents or Family Guy, but despite being generally competent, I'd hardly say characters like Beth, Marge, and Francine aren't without flaws.
All five of them fall within the perfectionist archetype as their 'flaw', with Beth and Lois being the only trope twists among them (Lois being a rage monster, but not until multiple seasons passed when they felt it was 'safe', and Beth's wanderlust that people could just as easily blame on Jerry).
It's easier to market flaws when they appear on the surface level as a strength, otherwise they typically handle it as a one episode fluke with status quo re-established after the dust settles. It's one thing to write flawed female characters, that can be done as long as they feel enough of the cast is functional, but they cannot be centerpiece to the main cast, like a wife to the main character or the token female in the group, without people taking it as either a role model risk or a veiled attempt at sneak-dissing the entire demographic.
That said, I mostly agree with your point. The logic of having equally flawed and depthy characters is obviously sound, and I could even bring up more issues with not doing it. However, I also I think many shows and movies do make that happen, and simply fly under the radar in discussions like this, because it's easier to think of examples of the problem, than simply a decently written character who also happens to be a member of a socially oppressed group.
Which ones?
Community is a prime example, in many ways that show could be defined by its flawed social underdog characters, and it was quite a successful show. The fact that failure to create these kinds of characters has become a noticeable pattern at all is an issue, but I don't think that issue is representative of media, or the political situation, nor do I think it'll become such.
Annie was given perfectionism, a 'safe' flaw as I stated above, and Britta was presented originally as a 'cool' person who ends up only being flawed with... being uncool?
It's basically Lois and Meg from Family Guy, trope-wise. It's still within the formula, and seeing how Community and Rick & Morty are both Harmon pieces with a perfectionist flaw-set on their female leads he's clearly following a formula that is safer.
That being said I still appreciate the character writing in that show, but it doesn't negate the premise.
Bad writing is bad writing, and we have different phases of it depending on the social climate of the time. I'm not too worried about us getting past this particular media hurdle.
There is good writing within bad constraints, and that's my problem with it.
Risk is always present.
It's one thing to buy Hot Topic clothes, it's another to consider drastically changing your body.
To be clear I'm not saying kids'll be taking hormones before they're 18 by this logic, but if it hardens early enough as a matter of nurture then they essentially are, even if not literally at that point in the timeline. If they've lived their entire lives trying 'to be cool' as the other gender it's all they'll know by the time they're adults, which on one hand's useful for gender liquidation but on the other's enough to potentially set us back if too many people end up doing it and regretting it as a result of childhood modeling.
We shouldn't be pushing this as 'normal' at least until we have a more thorough way of testing for it. Acceptance is fine, but unlike homosexuality for instance where it's more clearly definable and testable, once this turns entirely normalized it risks turning popular.
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