Kids and screens can be a dangerous combination. And no, this isn’t some holier-than-thou screed about how kids should only play outdoors or read 19^th-century poetry. I mean that kids+screens can literally be dangerous to your bank account. Jennifer Bryant learned this tough lesson when her kid found his way to Amazon and ordered nearly $3,000 worth of SpongeBob popsicles.

Four-year-old Noah is from Brooklyn, NY, and loves SpongeBob so much he got on his mom’s Amazon account and ordered 51 boxes of SpongeBob popsicles sent to his aunt’s house. These are not your cheap little flavored popsicles either, these are top of the line, straight from the ice cream truck caliber popsicles. And the little guy got 918(!) of them.

 

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Unfortunately, his mom is currently going to NYU for a degree in social work, and between the cost of raising kids (they are expensive, look it up), housing, and school, the surprise charge is more than her budget can handle.

With zero luck getting a refund from Amazon, a grad school friend set up a GoFundMe for the parent.

“As truly adorable as this story is, Jennifer Bryant is a social work student at NYU and simply can’t afford this,” her friend wrote. “All donations make a difference, so let’s work together and help Jenny out!”

The GoFundMe goal was set to recover the full amount ($2,619) but parents have come out in strong support for the screentime mishap and covered the entire amount, plus more…a lot more. They raised the initial money in 24 hours. But at the time of this printing, they had raised more than $24,793!  That seems like…well like a lot of money, but it was raised so quickly that it’s likely the family doesn’t even know what to do yet.

His mom said they were “blown away by the generosity” and said all additional funds raised will be going towards Noah’s education and additional support. Noah is autistic, which can present extra hurdles for parents on top of working their way through higher education.

“We cannot thank you enough, truly,” his mom wrote.

So, the story does have a happy ending. The mom got her money back, the boy got his popsicles, and the family has some security to build a bright future for themselves. And Amazon managed to avoid any consequences whatsoever, per usual.

If there’s one universal truth parents can agree on from the last year, it’s that remote learning stinks. Even teachers suddenly thrust into it a year ago would agree. Everyone went back to school at different times (some districts are still remote, ours has been masked and distanced but in-person since September), but everyone had at least a taste of the remote school life.

Not only is missing school hard for kids (and parents), but kids lose out on the socializing aspect of school and playdates. But kids adapt, and new friends were made remotely. One of those friendships blew up on the internet when, after a year of “unprecedented times”, the two best buddies were finally able to meet in person.

The 7-year-olds, Julia and Luna, have been friends for six months, but for Julia’s birthday, their parents decided to let them meet in person. “I thought it was really exciting and like, oh my gosh! I get to see Luna for the first time!” Julia told media outlets.

When she first caught sight of her at the park, Julia sprinted towards her friend, and her apprehensiveness quickly gave way to joy as she wrapped her in a hug. For their first meeting IRL, the two kids played at the park for hours.

Julia called it the best day of her life, and the video of the two meeting will be the best part of your day.

@lovethejamjamThe moment I met my best friend for the 1st time🥰 #feelgoodstory #heartfeltmoments #mybestfriendforlife #feelgoodvibesonly #newsstoryoftheday #ontv♬ Send Me on My Way – Vibe Street

One of the craziest culture changes for Dads of a certain age has been the attitude towards gaming. Once the scourge of pearl-clutchers everywhere, video games were blamed for everything from falling grades to violent crimes. Now, we have professional gamers, Dad gamers, proof that playing together with your kids is good, and more.

The latest is a research study that found boys who regularly play video games at age 11 were less likely to develop depression years later. The study, published by Psychological Medicine, found that boys who played video games most days had 24 percent fewer depression symptoms three years later than boys who rarely played video games. This finding was most significant among boys with low activity levels, so it’s not suggesting you can’t make your kids run around all day in the backyard if that’s what they like to do.

What it IS saying, though, is that if you have a kid that’s not super active, playing video games is not a bad recreation. They’ve been proven to help problem-solving skills and have added social and cooperative benefits. Video games aren’t bad anymore, is the point.

Boys who play video games have lower depression risk

The study, published in Psychological Medicine, also found that girls who spend more time on social media appear to develop more depressive symptoms.https://t.co/kYahysRa4E

— Melanie Notkin (@SavvyAuntie) February 22, 2021

Caveat; anything can be bad in excess, obviously if your kids are playing 18 hours of Fortnite a day, that *may* be something to look into. But if your kid likes some gaming time, well join the dang club.

“While we cannot confirm whether playing video games actually improves mental health, it didn’t appear harmful in our study and may have some benefits,” the lead author of the study said. “Particularly during the pandemic, video games have been an important social platform for young people.”

Video games can benefit the mental health of children is the takeaway. But let’s not think they are just for kids, as the many, many people of The Dad Gaming Group can tell you, those mental health benefits are out there for anyone who can get in some quality time on Rocket League, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed, FIFA, Red Dead Redemption II, or whatever your distraction of choice may be.

Encourage your kids to be active, sure, have screen time rules, of course. But also remember, no matter what people in their 60s say, it’s not the devil.

It was a weird school year. While many schools were able to reopen with new restrictions (masks, spacing, etc.) there’s still a lot of students who have been stuck with virtual school this whole time, and that’s not great. Fortunately, the tide seems to be turning, and remote schooling could soon be a thing of the past. But, we can still celebrate some of the wackier moments and unique gestures that have happened during this truly bizarre year.

Recently, it’s a video of a 102-year-old woman visiting her great-grandson for the first time in a year. She decides to join in on the 6-year-old’s Zoom physical education class. Julia Fulkerson did stretches and aerobics with her great-grandson Brody, who really wanted to introduce her to the class. She took things to the next level by participating – as only a badass 102-year-old could, and the result went predictably viral.

The boy’s mom shared it on Instagram. “This was quite honestly one of the most special moments ever,” she wrote.

 

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The class loved the great-grandma’s spirited display and lord knows kids stuck in Zoom school still need every drop of joy and fun they can have. Brody’s mom said the video going viral was crazy in all the best ways, and that they had just started seeing her for the first time in a year since they’d been vaccinated.

“I couldn’t be more grateful that the world saw and rejoiced in how amazing this lady is,” she wrote. “She is truly a legend and brings so much joy to so many hearts.”

 

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If you were born in 1919, you lived through a lot. A few world wars, lifetimes of cultural shifts, and then towards the end you’re wowing a group of kids with your P.E. skills during Zoom school. A legend indeed.

There was a time when kids could get yelled at for playing too many video games, and that time may as well be considered ancient history with the explosion of professional gaming. We’ve seen major TV networks start to cover eSports and colleges even begin to offer scholarships for gaming. And now we have one of the youngest professional eSports athletes, as 8-year-old Fornite expert Joseph Deen signed a contract with Team 33.

We know a thing or two about gaming, well, our community does at least. The Dad Gaming is one of the best (or the very best, according to us) gaming communities around. And eSports is definitely becoming much more legitimate. Still, it’s a little wild to see a third-grader become a professional athlete.

JUST IN: Pro esports team, Team 33, has signed 8-year-old Joseph Deen to a $33,000 signing bonus. Joseph has been training with the team’s Fortnite group since he was six. pic.twitter.com/nv1AgY1N1j

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 3, 2020

Deen has been training with the team on Fortnite since he was 6 years old, and the player known as 33 Gosu is officially one of the youngest players ever to sign with a pro team. For his efforts, he got a $33,000 signing bonus and will be getting a $5,000 professional gaming setup.

In a press release, Deen called it a “dream come true.”

“While many other teams didn’t take me seriously due to my young age, Team 33 scouted me through Fortnite games and let me train and learn with them daily. I couldn’t be happier today to become an official member of the team,” he said.

One of the founders of Team 33, Tyler Gallagher, said they are beyond excited to have him on the exclusive roster.

“We have secretly been scouting talent for our roster and games over the last few years and are proud to officially sign Joseph,” he said in a press release. “We made it a point to train him over the past few years because young gamers are the future, and we want to start training them early….it has now finally all paid off and is a momentous day for all of us.”

My kids have been playing games FOR FREE like suckers for years, and now it’s time to start holding them accountable at the bottom line. Sure, my kids did bring in some sales $$ this year through a lemonade stand (definitely hurt by the pandemic), but they gotta up their game apparently to reach their true potential.

Apple unveiled the new iPhone 12 this week and, like usual, it quickly became a “big deal.” Now, to get a few things out of the way, is it categorically different from past versions (think the leap to AirPods or wireless charging)? Not remarkably. Does it come with some pretty cool new features? Yes, it kind of does. But there’s only one feature that’s truly worth it: it’s going to be harder for your kids to break.

It’s 2020, so no one really uses their phones as a phone anymore. They are mainly pocket-sized app devices, loaded with only the coolest and best apps. And it’s hard to stay off your phone, even with little ones around. Which just makes them want to get their little hands on them even more, often leading to disastrous consequences.

It’s one thing if a kid breaks a cheap toy or tears a page out of a book that can be replaced for $12, it’s much different if they are cavalierly tossing around a $1,000 piece of technology. One caveat; there are superheroes amongst us, myself included, who can rock a phone with no case for years without incident, but those people are rare in our society. Many of us are much more like my wife, who bought one of the toughest cases she could find, just to have it cracked by our toddler (forcing us to buy her a brand new phone, OK this may have been an inside job).

The iPhone 12? Much harder to break. Forget the 5g and the MagSafe possibilities (OK, this actually does open a world of much easier accessorizing and is pretty neat), I am here for the glass-ceramic case, which is FOUR TIMES harder for people (big or small, no one is perfect) to break. The new ceramic shield is the “world’s first transparent and color-free glass-ceramic”, according to Apple.

Basically put, your two-year-old will have to step up his destruction game to leave his mark on your phone, whereas it used to be all in a day’s work for toddlers.

Apple’s new iPhone 12 comes with a ceramic-hardened display https://t.co/lU4YiQSMbK pic.twitter.com/pQw0PwHtEc

— The Verge (@verge) October 13, 2020

Design-wise, it’s nothing groundbreaking, as it echoes some of the older iPhone models (like the 4 and 5). But for parents, having a phone that is hard to break and isn’t some indestructible relic from the early 2000s is clutch.

All the modern convenience, with none of the silent terror when your kid manages to sneak it off the table.

A Foregone Conclusion

For my final Screentime column, I wanted to talk about a movie that meant something to me personally. I considered picking something from my own childhood, maybe the first movie I saw in a cinema (Aladdin), or some obscurity that we just happened to own on VHS (1997’s MouseTrap, for example). But this column isn’t about looking back, about my own nostalgia. It’s about what kids movies mean to me now. How I interpret them today, as a 30-year old in 2018. As a father. So instead, I want to talk about The Lego Movie.

The Lego Movie was always going to have a special place in my heart: It was created with me in mind. I’ve always been a huge Lego nerd, and a lot of my happiest memories as a child center around that Danish construction toy. The directors, Phil Lord & Chris Miller, know their audience and pepper the film with references to Lego ephemera old and new, general and specific. For me, the film mines nostalgia in way that’s so precise as to feel personal. Many of the Lego sets that I grew up with are featured, and seeing details like the tiny break in Benny’s helmet feel like I’m hearing the fragment of the theme song from a long-forgotten, but much-beloved show from my childhood.

For my daughter, the thrill comes not only in seeing the toy she loves to play with come to life, but also in seeing the mashup of culture that Lego’s exhaustive brand relationships allows. Seeing Batman for the first time elicited a laugh from her, and every time he appeared on screen thereafter she would confidently inform me that “That’s Batman” or “Batman’s being silly.”

Beyond Reference

This combination of general pop culture nostalgia and specific Lego fandom was enough to get me to buy a ticket way back in the halcyon days of 2014. Lord & Miller would have known this. Lego, backed by generations of devoted fans, was a pretty safe topic for a movie. That’s why so many of these branded tie-ins are so bad. The product is already so popular there’s no need to make the movie good. You sell tickets just based on the thing’s existence. A lesser creative team would have taken this route. Play up the nostalgia, throw in as many simple gags, memes, and winking references as you can and call it a day.

That approach may get butts in seats, it may pay the bills, but it doesn’t get people coming back. It doesn’t make for a cultural experience that affects people, that elicits emotions, that lasts.

The reason movie studios can so easily leverage those cultural touchstones, the reason that we will buy a ticket for The Lego Movie simply because its The Lego Movie, is that these references are shorthand for something deeper, something more personal and more meaningful. Lord & Miller understood this, and understood why it was important. A Lego brick, or the Batman logo, or the Thundercats theme; these things are like snapshots, reminding us of memories and feelings we used to have. But their thin evocations pale in comparison with what we’re searching for, which is to feel those feelings again.

It is obvious that Lord & Miller are, themselves, huge fans of Lego. They understand this longing. They understand that these trappings of memory are not enough. The simple fact that we all know and remember the shape & colors of a Lego minifig isn’t enough. What truly binds us to these commonalities is the actions they evoke. The sight of a Lego brick brings to mind the action of building with it, the feel of it in your hands. So rather than simply show you the object of nostalgia, The Lego Movie places the act of building, the act that binds Lego fans across the world together, centrally not only in its narrative (more on that later) but into the way the film itself is constructed. Watching The Lego Movie is the nearest you can come to actually playing with Lego without, you know, actually playing with Lego.

This raises the movie beyond an act of mere reference. It is not just paying lip service to the things we love, but actively evoking them.

Building Something That Lasts

Most creators would be happy with this achievement, with turning a corporate exercise into an act of love, with transforming cynical reference, alchemy like, into passionate evocation. But Lord & Miller know that even this isn’t enough. Playing on familiar brands & ideas was enough to summon an audience, elevating that reference into something deeper was enough to turn that audience into a fanbase. But in order to turn those fans into devotees, people who watch the film not once, but 183 times, people who do deep dives into the film’s mythology, you need something more.

The films that last are the films inspire people, films that change the way people think, the way they feel. Films that say something.

Because while quick jokes or nostalgic brands or memes may make us smile, the media that stops us in our tracks, the media that we tell others about, the media that we return to again and again and again, are the films or TV shows or websites that present us with an idea we’d never considered before, an idea that scares us, an idea that changes how we look at the world, even just a little bit.

So Lord & Miller took the audience they built with their attention to detail, with their love of Lego, and they told us some things. They told us not only that “Chosen One” type stories (Harry Potter, The Matrix, Star Wars) are ridiculous and undramatic, but also the exact ways in which they are toxic. They told us that individualism is doomed to failure, but we still need to embrace each other’s unique perspectives and talents. They told us that Lego and life is about ever-changing creation and innovation, not unbending rules and inflexible ideas. And they told us that we were playing with Lego wrong.

Think about that last one. They took a movie designed to appeal to 30-something nerds. The kind of guys who spent hundreds of dollars on a Lego Millenium Falcon to display in their home. They took a movie created with those specific guys in mind. And they used that movie to tell their audience they were wrong.

And their audience loved them for it.

Because what Lord & Miller understand is this: If you love something, be it Lego, or Paw Patrol, or your kids, you think about it a lot. You are passionate about it. And that passion means you cannot be neutral about it. You have strongly held opinions and beliefs, and you want to fight for those beliefs. And when you see someone else fighting, arguing passionately that Lego is to be built with, not to be displayed, you know that that person loves Lego too, just like you.

The Dad Upstairs

Of course, the Lego movie is about one more thing. One thing I didn’t mention earlier. It’s about being a parent. About playing with your kids and listening to them and embracing what makes them special and unique. Its about treating your kids with love and respect, like the little people they are, not the annoyance they can be.

Because Lego, like Kung Fu Panda and Spirit: Riding Free and Tangled and Frozen and Elf and The Muppets and How To Train Your Dragon and Moana and Trolls and The Wiggles and Winnie The Pooh and Paw Patrol and The Lego Movie, is for kids. That’s what makes it so important. That’s why its worth fighting for, and about. Because as a parent you want to build something that lasts. You want to instill your kid with passion and strength and love and hope. And media is one of the most powerful tools we can use to do that. Which makes it one of the most important things in the world.

We don’t watch Paw Patrol in my house. I tell my wife and daughters that it’s because I find it annoying, or see nothing of value in it, or whatever. But the truth is, it terrifies me. To watch an episode is to be trapped in a world where something has gone horribly wrong with no clue as to what or why. Here are a few theories as to what may have happened.

1- Scientific Experimentation Gone Wrong

The talking dogs are a dead giveaway. Clearly, something has happened to disturb the natural order of things. Some mutation has given Man’s Best Friend the power not only of speech, but of complex reasoning. It’s obvious that this was a deliberate act, a contagion released into the environment by some well-meaning, but deeply misguided scientist. The order of beings it effects are just too convenient. Dogs and Cats but not Birds or Fish. Someone with a brilliant mind and an attachment to pets so deep that they were compelled to elevate those creatures to become man’s intellectual equal, regardless of the cost.

And truly, the costs were terrible. It was not only the animals’ minds that were effected. Many humans, once proud, upstanding members of society, have been reduced to drooling imbeciles by the contagion. Capt’n Turbot, once an esteemed marine biologist, is reduced to relying on a preteen boy and his pets for survival. Almost every adult we meet in the show is like this. Helpless, adrift. Unable to survive, let alone govern or breed, on their own, they must turn to their pets. Once their playthings, these creatures have become their only chance of living through the day.

Prediction: If this theory is true, we should soon start to see the infrastructure of Adventure Bay start to deteriorate, as the mentally impoverished denizens are unable to maintain or improve it. Within a few years, nature will have taken back the town, leaving Mayor Goodway and her constituents living on the beach, surviving only on what scraps of food Chase deigns to throw them.

2- Conservative Propaganda

Of course, there is another explanation for the idiocy of the human characters. Perhaps it is a deliberate ploy by the writers of the show to forward their ideology. “But surely,” you naively insist “PAW Patrol’s only ideology is that being kind & helpful is good.” Not so, simple dad! Consider the human characters we spend time with in PAW Patrol. Two mayors (Mayor Goodway and Mayor Humdinger), a marine biologist (Cap’n Turbot) and an immigrant photographer (Francois). These professions are not chosen at random. They represent what the right refers to as “the Liberal Elite”, scientists, artists, career politicians. Francois, as a photographer, stands in for both indolent artists and the incompetant media. (It’s also no coincidence he’s French: Liberalism began during the Englightenment, a movement partly started by French intellectuals and artists [including Francois Quesnay])*. In almost every episode of Paw Patrol, it is one of these elites who cause problems, either by their incompetance or, in the case of Mayor Humdinger, their self-interest.

And who is opposing them? The PAW Patrol, an organization completely independent from Goodway’s incompetent administration. (An administration that, in one episode, spends a good deal of time and money on a solid gold statue of the Mayor’s ancestor.) In the world of PAW Patrol, most of the services normally run by local government (police, fire & rescue, trash pick-up, etc), are now run by what appears to be a single, privately owned company. And that company is run by a child. And staffed by dogs. Liberals would have you believe that such a move would result in disaster. But The PAW Patrol is an efficient, successful team. They always save the day. The message is clear: Emergency services would be run more effectively by a child and 6 dogs than by local government.

Prediction: If this theory is true, expect to see an episode in the near future in which the pups have to rescue a coal miner from the dangers of excessive health and safety regulations.

3- Ryder’s Dissociative Episode

It’s not likely, but there is a small chance that I’m reading too much into the show. Maybe all the random stuff in there really is just random, the product of a childish mind just trying to make sense of the world.

Before the start of the show, a ten-year-old Canadian boy undergoes some trauma, possibly connected to the loss of his parents. Unable to cope with a world in which the adults he trusted—the adults, whose job it was to keep him safe—were unable to stop this happening to him, Ryder retreated into a fantasy world of his own construction. Here, he is safe in a literal tower of steel and glass (note it’s design: very similar to Toronto’s CN tower, perhaps somewhere he visited with his parents). He surrounds himself with his beloved pets, the only creatures who would never desert him. He places so much trust in them that he gives them the task of keeping him safe, replacing the human emergency services that let him down with the PAW Patrol. In this world, he can solve any problem, deal with any emergency. Nothing can hurt him. As time goes on, Ryder becomes more and more invested in this perfect world and more disconnected from reality. First introducing the mer-pups, then the sunken city of Atlantis, then the robo-pup, finally leaving any connection with the real world behind as he and the pups board the air patroller and take off into the depths of Ryder’s mind.

Prediction: If this theory is true, there would be absolutely no way to tell. Ryder would solve every problem, the pups would always save the day, just as happens in the show every. single. episode.

*Before you @-me, I’m aware that this sense of Liberalism, as a political system, is different from the way it is used in the phrase “Liberal Elite”, where it refers to left-of-center politics within said political system.

Last week we were watching The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh and just as it was coming to a close, my daughter turned to me, sighed and said “Daddy. I luff Winnie-a-Poot”.

This is unprecedented. Normally movies are demanded or rejected, but rarely commented upon, and certainly never “luffed”. This is an expression of love usually reserved only for Mommy, Daddy, and blueberries.

What is it about Winnie-a-poot than inspires such high praise? Such devotion and admiration?

There’s a lot to enjoy in the 1977 Disney feature. The plot is airy and pleasantly free of high stakes or melodrama. The animation is beautiful. The songs are subtly hummable, quietly catchy. The nostalgic childhood feel is painted with a realistic, but light touch.

But none of these things inspire real love. What inspires love in my daughter is the characters, and it isn’t hard to see why. They are all proper role models of people she could/should grow up to be.

Rabbit

Take Rabbit, for example. Rabbit is a fussy, self-important scold. He spends his time in the movie alternately trying to minimize the impact his friends have on his well-ordered life, or complaining about the mess they’ve made of it. He’s basically the same character as Zazu from the Lion King, but not as funny. The kind of human you’re most likely to find working behind the desk at a Post Office. Wait, that isn’t right. Let me try again.

Tigger

Let’s use Tigger as our example. Tigger is pretty much the exact opposite of Rabbit. He’s chaotic and energetic, relentlessly positive. Always bouncing, always happy. If he had Facebook it would be wall-to-wall inspirational memes. The kind of guy who you bump into when he’s out jogging, he talks a mile a minute about all the great things going on in his life, while jogging on the spot and checking his heart-rate on his Apple Watch, then yells “Gotta go! It was great catching up!” as he’s already running away.

Damn, I did it again.

Eyeore

So these descriptions aren’t exactly the most positive ones, fine. I may have been channeling Eyeore a little. But they still show why these characters inspire real love in my daughter and me. Because they feel real. They aren’t cursed princesses or crime solving mice, they’re just people, muddling along. We all have a friend or family as controlling as Rabbit or, as irrepressible as Tigger. We all know someone like Eyeore; always pesimistic, always expecting the worst.

And the movie knows this. Unlike Zazu in the Lion King, Rabbit’s fussiness isn’t treated as a joke, or as an inherently ridiculous trait. Sure when he tries to control Tigger, he gets his comeupance, but his trepidations about Pooh’s appetite prove correct. Tigger’s positivity and Eyeore’s negativity sometimes come in handy, but also sometimes get them into trouble. These characteristics aren’t presented inherently good, or inherently bad, they’re just presented as inherently human (or rabbit, or donkey or…uhh… tigger I suppose).

Owl

But of course, just being presented in this way isn’t enough to inspire the adoration of everyone from two to ninety-two. There’s one more ingredient that makes these characters truly loved: They are kind. Despite their quirks and foibles, despite their irritations and annoyances, the characters of Winnie-The-Pooh invariably treat each other as kindly as they can.

When Pooh shows up at Rabbit’s door, Rabbit freaks out, panicking over the mess he knows Pooh will make of his perfectly organized life. But Rabbit offers him lunch anyway. And you get the impression that, despite everything that happens, despite Pooh eating every ounce of honey in the place, despite his blocking Rabbit’s door for weeks, if Pooh showed up again the next day with an expectant look in his eye, Rabbit would offer him lunch again.

This kindness goes a long way. Owl’s longwinded, indulgent speechifying, is rendered harmless and even enjoyable by his offer of an accompanying lunch. (It’s telling how often this kindness involves food: something well understood by your average two-year-old). And this kindness is repaid ten-fold in Eyeore’s finding Owl a house, albeit Piglet’s, and in Piglet freely gifting him that home.

Piglet

These characters, you see, are truly friends. They love each other not despite, but because of their idiosyncracies. Piglet, more than all of them, understands this. He understands that without his friends he is helpless, tiny, too timid to succeed. He understands, too, that this is true for each of them. Without Piglet & Eyeore, Owl would have no-where to live. Without Tigger, Rabbit would never learn to bounce. Without Rabbit, Pooh would have gone hungry.

Pooh

And when we see their true, unswerving friendship to each other, we feel part of it. They become our friends too. We love them for their self-importance, and for their impulsiveness, and for their lack of brains. And no matter how ridiculous Pooh’s latest scheme is, no matter whether we’re disguising ourselves as rainclouds or hunting Heffalumps, that friendship keeps us invested. We’d follow them anywhere.

(*Note: The author wishes it to be known that the original title for this piece was “A Modest Protrollsal.” The title was changed due to the current editorial board’s irrational hatred for obscure puns)

The Trolls are happy. It’s their defining characteristic. They are so happy that consuming one makes you deliriously happy. So happy that it has seeped into their physical essence, like cheap vodka into a gummy bear.

But they aren’t born that way. The movie makes it clear that happiness isn’t some hereditary trait. It isn’t something you have, it’s something you do. Poppy and the others are so incredibly happy because they practice it, they devote time to it. Hugs every hour, songs every 5 minutes, parties every night. This is how they spend their days.

Meanwhile, what are the Bergens doing? The Prince is living a life of luxury, it’s true, but those around him are anything but idle. Chefs prepare meals, maids clean, guards stand watch. Behind the scenes too, the Bergens are industrious. Gristle and Brigette visit a pizza parlor and a roller-rink. We see storefronts, billboards, magazines! The Bergens are working! They are keeping the lifeblood of the economy flowing, toiling for the betterment of society. They aren’t unhappy because of some innate melancholy nature, they simply don’t have the time to devote to its practice!

And why should they? Time is a worker’s most precious resource, and an instant, renewable, efficient method of obtaining happiness is right there for the taking. Why raise, shelter, and feed the cow when you get the milk for free? As far as we know, the ruling Bergen class has provided this resource, free of charge, to every man, woman, and child, from the moment it became available, to shortly after the film begins, when the Trolls revolt and escape the confines of Bergen Town. From the Bergen’s perspective, the system was working.

One could also argue that it was working from the Troll’s perspective too. They were free to live lives of absolute indulgence, seeking happiness however and whenever it suited them. Infrastructure, insurance, irrigation; such things did not trouble them, the Bergens would take care of it. The Trolls’ work, their contribution to the grand ongoing project of civilization, was merely to increase their own happiness as much as they could. In exchange for this Dionysian freedom, certain among them would be required to pay the ultimate price to spread this happiness among those who were working elsewhere, contributing to the betterment of all in other ways. Just as the baker sells his bread in order to buy clothes, the Bergens sell their work to buy happiness, and the Trolls sell their happiness in order to avoid work.

But this isn’t quite right. The mutually beneficial marketplace described above does not exist in Trolls, at least, not at the beginning of the movie. Instead, statist concerns (namely King Gristle Sr., and later King Gristle Jr.) throttle efficiencies by placing regulations and restrictions on trade. There are several examples of this through the movie, but the most egregious one is that neither the Trolls nor the Bergens are free to choose a profession that best fits their talents. All Trolls are designated Happiness Creators and all Bergens must find positions in the traditional labor market. This is ludicrous, economically speaking. In order to fully realize the most efficient balance between Happiness and Labor, both Trolls and Bergens must be free to select professions.

A perfect example of this inefficiency can be found in one of the film’s leading characters, Branch. For the majority of the movie, Branch has no interest in increasing his stock of happiness. He seeks solitude, mopes, and does not enjoy utilizing dancing or any other tools of happiness production. Instead, he builds and stocks an impressive safety bunker. This bunker is by far the most impressive structure we see a Troll create, and is not only fully stocked with food and water, but also contains a system for storing and filtering bodily fluids and a system of automated elevators unlike anything else we see in either the Troll settlement or Bergen Town itself. Clearly, his natural talents and inclinations lie more in the fields of innovation and construction than happiness generation. If he were able to join the traditional labor market, it would transform him from underperforming Troll into Galtian superhero. Allowing him the freedom to choose a different profession would also introduce the fruits of his talents to enter the general marketplace, where they could contribute to the betterment of all.

We can also assume, although we do not see them, that there exist Bergens who’s natural inclination would make them much more efficient Happiness Generators than traditional laborers. It could even be argued that Brigette is such a Bergen. She certainly shows much more talent for this field than any other Bergens we meet.

Therefore, while Branch is confined to the unsuitable role of Happiness Generator, we must assume there is at least one equivalent Bergen for whom the inverse is true. Although Branch is not consumed during the course of the narrative, it must be true that, given his actions, the quality and quantity of happiness he places on the common market is much lower than the average Troll, to whom happiness creation comes naturally. It logically follows, therefore, that if there is any single Bergen who is able to create happiness at the rate of the average Troll, Branch’s confinement to this role serves to decrease not only the total happiness available on the open market but the total labor available to purchase also.

We can only hope that, given the newly forged alliance between Troll and Bergen that we see at the end of the film, Trolls 2 brings us scenes of the two species working together to form a new society. A society in which a Troll can choose to use his labor to buy and consume the happiness of a Bergen, and a Bergen can choose to sell her happiness to purchase a life free of toil.

(Of course, given the natural tendencies of each species, and also their relative sizes, one can assume that a free market situation would still predominantly feature the consumption of Trolls by Bergens rather than the inverse)

Stage 1: Nostalgia

Your kid points up at the screen “Watch Wiggles?” she asks. “Why not?” you think, smiling to yourself. You were perhaps a little old for them when the Wiggles first appeared on TV screens, but you remember them nevertheless. The smiling faces, the brightly coloured outfits, the fun yet educational songs. What could be more wholesome?

You throw on the show. It’s just as you remember it. The faces may have changed, but the smiles haven’t. Here they all are – Red, Yellow, Blue, Purple, singing the perfect blend of the classics: “Hot Potato,” “Fruit Salad,” “Apples & Bananas,” with some new stuff thrown in. It’s like seeing your favorite band do the perfect reunion tour.

Stage 2: Confusion

Around episode 2 or 3, you start to notice something. This isn’t right. It can’t be. It’s just the same 8 or 10 song segments over and over again in different orders with short, dumb skits about the Blue Wiggle speaking in slow motion or some garbage. And there’s 52 episodes of this unwatchable hell. There’s no way it was like this when you were a kid.

Then maybe you do a little research and see that every Wiggle TV series ever, spanning over 20 years and 7 different titles, has been identical. It’s been this bad forever. This is when you start drinking.

Stage 3: Anger

By now you’re probably on episode 8 or 9. You’ve seen the same lip-synched video for ‘Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car’ a minimum of 5 times. The hooky melody combines with your whisky-haze in a way that feels like seasickness. You’re starting to lose it.

This isn’t a TV show. You can’t just record an hours worth of footage, then keep re-ordering it to generate “new” “episodes.” If Game of Thrones only shot one battle per season and then just reused the footage every episode, people would riot!

The Wiggles isn’t a TV show. It’s a fucking fast food chain. Just churning out something that looks and tastes enough like the real thing. Dead-eyed employees shovelling reheated slop into a bag. They don’t care what’s in it, so long as overheads are low and you keep coming back. It’s disgusting.

Stage 4: Fear

You’re 20 episodes deep now, and something permeates the dark fog of booze. It’s Captain Feathersword, that irredemable bastard. He speaks to you. “Let’s Go To The Wiggle Show,” he cackles grotesquely. “Yes,” you find yourself thinking. “That sounds great.”

Suddenly you are whisked to a familiar, comfortable location. Footage from the live Wiggles show. The one bright spot in a sea of repetitious mediocrity. Sure, it’s the same old songs and all the footage in the season is from a single concert. Sure, it’s the same people doing the same dances. But suddenly, they’ve come to life. This is where the Wiggles thrive, surrounded by their fans–their devoted followers.

Then you see him, in the center of it all. The Blue Wiggle. There’s a glint in his eye. He knows something you don’t.

And you realize.

This isn’t a band, a TV show, or a fast food chain.

It’s a cult.

Anthony Field, the Blue Wiggle, created The Wiggles. All of this was his idea. He has been the driving force behind them for 27 years.

You pull out your phone, one eye on Anthony grinning at you from the TV, and google this demon. You begin to learn the Blue Wiggle’s dark secrets. The complete re-recording of albums to erase the existence of former bandmates. The Firing Of Moran. The punishing touring schedule. The fitness competitions. It’s all there.

The Blue Wiggle crafts everything to his whim, manufacturing an image, a brand, a message, all designed to cast a thrall over young minds. You see them all out there; the followers, dressed in the robes of their order, singing the sacred hymns along with their chosen leader.

Stage 5: Acceptance

But they aren’t dressed as Anthony. Even in your rye-soaked pallor you can see that the dominant color out there in the frenzied mob isn’t blue. It’s yellow. They’re not here for Him. They’re here for Her.

Emma Watkins, the Yellow Wiggle, dancing accross the stage, bow in her hair, genuine glee on her face. Everything is going to be okay.

You now know of Anthony’s machinations, and strongly suspect Lachy’s behind-the-scenes scheming and Simon’s blind obedience, but none of these things matter. Only the Yellow Wiggle matters. The whole sad affair is worth it for the genuine excitement and admiration on those kids’ faces. They love Emma. They love The Wiggles. And now, so do you.

Stage 6: Hands In The Air

Everybody clap *clap* *clap *clap*

Everybody sing, la, la, la, la, la

Bow to your partner, then you turn around, (yippie!)

Hands in the air, rock-a-bye your bear

Bear’s now asleep, sh, sh, sh

Bear’s now asleep, sh, sh, sh

Where You Are.

“Daddy, this you.”

My daughter loves to identify the characters she sees, in books, TV, movies, with counterparts from her real life. She’ll point to a random woman in a picture book and loudly declare, “It’s Grandma”. There’s an illustration snail she will reliably identify as “Mommy” for no discernible reason. In The Cat In The Hat, there’s a crudely sketched portrait of a dude with a huge nose

Every time we read the book she points at the damn painting and says “PICTURE OF DADDY” over and over again until I say “Yes, that’s a picture of daddy can we please move on?”

So it came as no surprise when she held up a figurine of Chief Tui, Moana’s father, and told me “Daddy, this you”. In fact, it made more sense than many of the characters that are “me”. My daughter obviously identifies with Moana and Tui is Moana’s dad. Simple.

Initially, the comparison seemed favorable. For a start, Tui is a pretty impressive-looking guy. If this is what my kid sees when she looks at me, I’m doing something right. He’s also the Chief of a whole dang island, which looks pretty good on your CV.

The Perfect Daughter

But the more I thought about the movie, the more uncomfortable I was about being linked with Tui in my daughter’s mind. Obviously, there is the fact of his being the main obstacle to Moana exploring the ocean, saving the world and finding herself in the process. But that’s just the start of it!

Moana is rightly praised for being a female-led film in which the heroine’s victory is her own. No man swoops in to save the day, or to offer a ring. Instead, the men of the film represent the status quo, the facts of the world that Moana must navigate around. It is no accident, therefore, that the two most significant male presences in the film are both authority figures. Tui and Maui are both powerful men, and each can be seen as representing different types of dad. (Stay with me here)

You’re Welcome

Maui’s is less so, but still valid. Maui is the figurative father of humanity. The litany of feats he lists in “You’re Welcome” demonstrate that without him, human lives would be unrecognizable. Tides, Wind, Land, Fire, Coconuts. All the things Moana and her people treat as givens, he handed to them. In the same sense that Prometheus is the father of humanity in Greek mythology, Maui is father to us all.

Maybe this is the dude I want to be compared to. Magic, heroic, legendary. Sounds pretty good!

But what kind of a father is he? As his song proclaims, he is a heroic one. He has performed incredible, dangerous feats to improve the lives of his children. He is brave and strong, fun and adventurous. But he also solves all his problems in the same way: Brute force.

He is also an absent father. His version of fatherhood consists of providing, but not sustaining. As soon as a complication approaches, he runs away.

His self-image is so dependent on his heroic victories & his strength that he cannot face the possibility of failure. I don’t want that.

Consider The Coconut

So I guess it’s back to Moana’s actual father, Tui. He has a more grounded, less spectacular, approach. He emphasizes tradition, tries to teach responsibility. I can get behind this, I suppose. I mean, kind of boring, but commendable.

Apart from two things. Firstly, he uses the twin swords of Tradition and Responsibility to hem his daughter in, stopping her not only from following her heart, but from coming up with genuine solutions to real problems they both face.

Secondly, it becomes clear he’s doing this not in order to help his daughter develop or grow, or even because he genuinely thinks its what’s best. He’s just projecting his own fear of the ocean onto her. His talk of tradition is just a cover for his own hang-ups. He doesn’t run away, he just hides behind his value-system!

I don’t wanna be either of these dudes!

A Girl Who Loves Her Island, A Girl Who Loves The Sea

In the end, though, Moana herself doesn’t outright reject either of these flawed father figures. She embraces the Tui’s responsibilities and traditions while rejecting the fears that guided him. She embraces Maui’s bravery and sense of adventure but rejects his fear of failure and his violence. She takes the best of each of them, rejecting their shortcomings, and becomes her own, stronger, person, finding solutions neither of them could ever see. (Obviously, this is also in large part due to the supportive maternal figures in her life, but you knew that.)

So I suppose I don’t mind whether my kid sees me as Tui, or Maui, or Heihei. I just hope that she can take the best of me, and use it to forge her own, better, way.

Whether we like it or not, our kids are going to learn from the movies they watch. What’s more, we have very little control over which lessons they take to heart, and which they miss. Films have messages on the surface, messages buried within, unintended messages, poorly constructed messages. Whether the lesson they take from Spirit: Riding Free is “horses are great” or whether its “horses are terrifying” largely depends on which parts they were paying attention to, which parts linger in their little brains.

Dreamworks’ 2010 animated feature How To Train Your Dragon has a lot of different messages in it, most of which are great. There’s the lesson about being true to yourself, finding your own purpose. There’s a story about a young boy raised in an aggressive, violent society, taking it upon himself to redefine what masculinity and courage actually mean. There’s even a message in there about what loss and grief can do to a family dynamic if you really look. I don’t know which of them my daughters’ will take on board, but I know which one lingers in my little brain: The message about warfare.

Towards the end of the first act of the movie, there’s a line which feels weird, out of place. Its spoken by Astrid, after Hiccup yet again embarrasses himself in anti-dragon training. Furious with his ineptitude, she loudly yells “Our parents’ war is about to become ours!”

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The reason it stands out is that in an instant, the conceit of the film is reframed. It brings the concept of warfare to the front of what was previously more an issue of pest control. Suddenly we are thinking about HTTYD in terms of War, it’s lessons recontextualized as being about not everyday life, but about conflict.

This is a deliberate act. The film-makers wanted to make a connection between the Vikings’ “war” against the Dragons, and present-day warfare. Well, if they want to make that connection, let’s do it.

What does How To Train Your Dragon have to say about warfare?

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At first blush, the message is a simple one: Humanize your foe. By treating your enemy with empathy, you can learn about the underlying cause of your conflict (be it socio-economic, or, y’know, a Big Dragon with a magic roar). This is a nice message, and it is handled well by the film. Hiccup slowly builds trust with Toothless, then teaches others to do the same. It is only after everyone learns to think of the dragons as sentient creatures that the larger problem can be addressed.

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Unfortunately, that message falls apart when they reach the Larger Problem. As mentioned above, the larger problem is just a much larger version of those creatures the film has spent its entire run-time teaching us to sympathize with. So is the message “Empathize with the enemy unless the enemy is very large?”, “Empathize with the enemy unless they have a power you don’t like?”, “Empathize with the first enemy you encounter, but kill the crap out of the second one?”

Worse, it’s pretty clear that the Big Dragon is acting out of self-preservation. Sure, she’s enlisted an army of smaller dragons to help feed her, and that’s no good. But how else do you expect her to eat? She’s clearly too unwieldy to do much hunting herself. And given Toothless’ appetite, can you even imagine how much a dragon of her size would eat?

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Hiccup, after risking everything to convince the Vikings that dragons aren’t so bad, doesn’t even ATTEMPT any of his non-violent tricks to subdue Big Dragon. He just goes straight for destruction. He makes no effort to delve any deeper into the socioeconomic or evolutionary circumstances that have created this nest. Perhaps dragons operate something like bees, and by destroying their queen he has doomed them all to extinction. Perhaps Big Dragon is an elected official and the food brought to her is akin to taxation.

I mean, yeah, that bit where she eats another dragon seems bad, but to be honest, it’s not even super clear she realized he was there. Even if she did, plenty of places still have the death penalty and we don’t know what kind of heinous crimes that dragon committed. At the very least we see him attempt to get away with tax evasion. Seems like a harsh punishment, but I imagine Hiccup’s remote village of literal Vikings has some pretty backward ideas about law & order too.

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But none of this matters to Hiccup. All he sees is a big ol’ dragon getting fed, and that’s enough to scare him into destroying her.

Of course, it always had to end this way. Final acts require a climax, action movies require a final fight. The dictates of the genre have to win out in the end, no matter how good your intentions.

Perhaps that’s the real lesson behind Astrid’s words. We humans can empathize, we can form alliances, we can learn to see the humanity in even our deadliest enemies, but when it comes down to it, when we see something we don’t understand, something that scares us, our first instinct is always to shoot first and ask questions later. No matter how sensitive or evolved we are, when something new comes along, we fear too much, too quickly, to ever consider understanding first. The cycle of violence repeats. Thoughtlessly, we attack. Our parents’ war, inevitably, tragically, becomes our own.

Hopefully my kid just picks up on the “Be nice to animals” thing.

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