Raising Cain
Pirate-King has an interesting post about the cliches of TVLand. The one about girls being smarter than boys reminds me of a commercial the Kid & I saw last night on CartoonNetwork.
We were in the midst of Static Shock – a rather politically correct yet watchable show whose main character is a dread-locked high school black kid cum superhero. A commercial for Connect4 appeared – the game where you have to drop plastic coins to form four in a row. In it a 9-ish year old girl is playing a similarly aged boy. She then proceeds to kick his ass in this game, leaving him whining and frustrated – in a happy sort of way that you’ll never see in real life.
“You know, girls aren’t smarter than boys,” I said to The Kid.
“Girls are stupid,” the Kid replied.
“No, they’re just as smart as you are,” I said.
“They aren’t smarter than me?” the Kid asked.
“Some girls are, and some girls aren’t – just like with boys.”
Not that this matters. The commercial failed to make either me or the kid want to buy Connect4 – it’s sole purpose for appearing before us. The Kid’s got other things like video games and special train engines and cars on his “wish list”.
Parents 1 – Pop Culture 0.