gringo2011
Premium Platinum
I don't disagree with that assessment of Thomas The Tank Engine.
Doesn't make it bad or invalid as a kids story. Not everything needs to align with the current moral majority, or rather these stories were written just after the Second World War by a British vicar - a pretty specific mentality. But we do need to recognise that while white men from standard western backgrounds might feel that there is no problem here, plenty of others see these old tales as uninclusive.
Personally, I don't see why it's a problem bringing it up, but I wouldn't like to see these books banned. Anyone is free to write a story which can hopefully become as beloved as Thomas The Tank Engine.
And ironically it's the old fashioned tea and biscuits while saluting the empire's monarch that is TTs charm in the first place. If TT was an ethical vegan with a body positive message for the no less valid than anyone else despite his propensity to over indulge controller, people wouldn't watch/read it.
You can read things like Enid Blyton to your kids that have some very dated ideas and it won't start them goose stepping around the house while trying to find themselves a wife that wants a career as a domestic slave. I find it demeaning that people think you have to destroy anything that has any links to our less civilised ideas of the past. You can use common sense and we surely aren't that easily suggestible that we can't read in context of the time.....even kids.
My daughter grew up on all the shitty old books I could find and now she's like the morality police, she doesn't want to ban anything challenging though. It didn't seem to ruin her judgement or even taint her ideas.