Of Cartoons and Cultural Literacy

I once heard a joke that maintains we should be nice to bacteria, because they're all the culture a lot of people will ever get. Which is, sadly, true.

Much has been written about the lack of cultural literacy* among modern Americans. Much of this is because young people don't read as much any more, and what they do read is "fluffier**" than the classics we used to have to read. Much of it is also due to a modern emphasis on visual media (television, the movies, and online entertainment) that removes a lot of the need for imagination by presenting our children with fully-formed images.

And, according to one theory, it's because we don't have great cartoons any more.

I recently found this intriguing article by Annie Holmquist from the Intellectual Takeout site: How Classic Cartoons Created a Culturally Literate Generation. As I read the article, I was reminded of how much we'd absorbed without knowing it, and how many of the inside jokes in old cartoons and comic strips only made sense to me after I'd grown into my education. Here are a few examples:

In the mid-1960s "Roger Ramjet" cartoons, the intrepid hero faced villains like the evil "Jacqueline Hyde" ...

In one episode, a villain was creating havoc in the Navy by stealing and pawning all the anchors from its ships, and Roger Ramjet was ordered by his commander (Colonel Jack E. Shortz***) to "stop this anchor hocking!" It wasn't until years later, when I started to cook for myself, that I recognized what Anchor Hocking really was.

You may also remember the cartoon character "Underdog" from the same TV time period, one of whose archenemies was the villainous Simon Bar Sinister ...

Again, it wasn't until much later that I learned a bar sinister in heraldry is a diagonal line, running from top right to bottom left on a family crest, indicating the person is a bastard.

And lest we forget the evil Master Cylinder from the Felix the Cat cartoons. One needs to have a somewhat more adult concept of auto mechanics to recognize the joke.

So yes, there are a lot of inside jokes in old cartoons that we needed to grow up to understand. But the larger point of Ms Holmquist's article is that many of those cartoons also introduced us to classical music and literature, sliding high culture in under our detection threshold. She writes,

"These examples [of classical music and literature in cartoons] just brush the surface of the cultural literacy lessons which the old cartoons taught our parents and grandparents. Even if they never learned these elements in school, they at least had some frame of reference upon which they could build their understanding of the books and music and even ideas which have impacted culture and the world we live in today ... can the same be said of the current generation? ... a quick search of popular titles seems to suggest that the answer is no. A majority of the time they seem to offer fluff, fantasy, and a focus on the here and now ... In short, neither schools, nor Saturday morning cartoons seem to be passing on the torch of cultural knowledge and literacy. Could such a scenario be one reason why we see an increased apathy and lack of substance in the current generation?"

One of the reasons for the vast political and social divides we are experiencing today is the lack of shared cultural references once provided by our school and - yes - our cartoons. The rush to incorporate aspects of every culture in present-day America into our children's education has led to broader understanding, but a shallower shared culture around which to rally as a unified nation.

I'm not the first to note this, of course. E. D. Hirsch, Jr's, classic book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, and Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind both sounded this alarm long ago.

So ...

Look for a TV station that plays old Merrie Melodies cartoons and help your children and grandchildren connect with their cultural roots. Dora the Explorer and other modern shows will take them only so far.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "The ability to analyse and understand a particular society or culture; familiarity with the customs and characteristics of a culture."

** To use the precise, clinical term.

*** And isn't that an inside joke?