I'm not the type to sit around and comment about how back in the early 80s when I was a kid things were infinitely better than they are now, but at least back then we were allowed to be kids.
Every show on Saturday morning TV was nothing more than a half-hour commercial for toys or cereal in cartoon form. Our toys shot spring-loaded missiles and rockets, were made of metal, and probably some of them had lead paint.
Yet somehow, in an act of sheer defiance which remains unfathomable to today's prevalent sense of over-regulation and over-protection, most of us survived. Our eyes weren't shot out by GI Joe friendly fire. We watched Transformers, played with them, and hit each other in the head with them, and we're not all raving sociopaths.
My generation sustained a heavy barrage of marketing from birth and yet, here we stand.
Which brings me to this sad commentary on the state of our culture.
A child advocacy group complained Thursday to the Federal Trade Commission that ads and toys tied to the upcoming "Transformers" movie are aimed at children as young as 2 years old even though the film is rated PG-13.
Oh my GOD. The inhumanity. We must not continue to expose our children to Transformers. Children all around the country and perhaps even the world will cry themselves to sleep with visions of transformers in their heads.
"Transformers," due to be released nationwide July 4, is rated PG-13 for violence and other content. Hasbro has released dozens of toys related to the film, some for children as young as 3 years old.
It's so nice to know that there's so little else wrong with the world that our attention can now be turned to solving this crisis.
Maybe this has changed since I grew up, and I could be off base here but I had a mother and a father that monitored what I watched and could either take me to a movie or in some cases even tell me no. They could choose to buy me a toy, or, and this is where it gets good, they could say no.
Marketing is always going to exist, it's the nature of the capitalistic way of life we know. Groups like the CCFC are certainly well-meaning, but the impetus here must be on parents to decide if their children should be exposed to certain movies, toys, music, and so on. Launching an all out war on marketing Transformers to kids is foolish as it attempts to take responsibility from parents, and assumes that there is irreparable damage being done here. I highly doubt a child today is going to grow up to be a serial killer because he might catch a glimpse of Optimus Prime punching Megatron.
I've seen that hundreds of times in my life and I think I turned out ok.
Common sense and personal responsibility are the keys here. Let parents do their jobs and let kids be kids.
