Prince - the Master of Hidden Subtext...

“It’s Saturday night, I guess that makes it all right. I mean, well, what have I got to lose?”

Apparently, my mind, if that quote from Prince can be followed to its logical conclusion. I’m home, and I find that I have nothing I want to do. I mean, I could be doing laundry or vaccuming, but why bother when I still have clean clothes, and can still distinguish a pattern beneath the dog hair on the carpet? It’ll keep until tomorrow. The real indication that I’m losing my mind is that I find myself engrossed in the same cartoons as my 3-year-old. I actually want to know if Tarzan breaks out of the prison of the French Foreign Legion. I mean, it’s obvious that he will, if only to continue the series, but still. Long gone are the days, apparently, when I used to view films and highbrow public television. Evidently, cartoons are my entertainment of choice.

In my defense, however, I offer you one of the new (to me) ones in Disney’s arsenal: Fillmore. I love the counter-culture feel of this cartoon that still manages to captivate young minds and teach valuable moral lessons. Examine the episode where X Middle School Safety Patroller Ingrid Third had to bring in a student responsible for stealing the “Satty 9” tests – tests that Officer Third opposes in principle as stigmatizing. Instead of blindly apprehending the perp, Officer Third almost allows him to get away. Yet, she realizes that the law must stand, regardless of individual opinions. After a stern upbraiding by her Safety Patrol partner, the eponymous Cornelius Fillmore, she admits as much, and apologizes for her hesitation. The writers of Fillmore skillfully acknowledge that although some of today’s educational assessments are inaccurate measures of any individual student’s aptitudes and talents, taking illegal measures to stop these assessments is still wrong. Ingrid joins a lawful protest march, thus the cartoon shows an appropriate alternative to violence and felony. Don’t you love how they managed to stick it to the man by denigrating pigeon-holing standardized tests in a children’s cartoon thus indoctrinating another generation of young minds?

And, as previously stated, I’ve lost my mind. Searching for (and finding!) subtext in cartoons. What’s next? Thinking that the song Little Red Corvette is all about sex?