Wednesday, September 12, 2012

In Which the Disney Channel Makes Me Want to Hang Myself

With an 8 yr old in the house, I guess I ought to expect this, but the Disney Channel is becoming the bane of my existence. 
I don't know if other people get stuck watching this crap, as I do, but it drives me INSANE! 
All the kids are smart-alecks, have many, many layers of trendy clothing, and seemingly unlimited funds.  The adults, when there ARE some, are idiots.  The young girls all have on a thick, goopy layer of lip gloss.  The premises of these shows are made up to appeal to every pre-teen's fantasys.  Take for example, "I Carly."  A teenage girl lives in a huge, cool apartment with her big brother, as her parents are overseas.  Her brother is a sculptor, the teen girl runs a web show, they have money to do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it.  Then there's "Zoey 101."  The teenagers are at a co-ed, live-on-campus school by the ocean.  Everyone looks like little tiny soap opera stars and have the freedom to have boys in their dorm room, visit the local Japanese food place with no supervision, etc...
Besides all of the above, I also hate it because the acting and writing on these shows is HORRIBLE!  And so many of them involve music or dancing.  Dalton goes around trying to do the dance moves he sees on "Shake it Up" and singing the songs from "Ant Farm."  It's baaaad, not so much in a moral sense, but just in a he-looks-like-an-idiot sense.  
Hard to know what to do, because I don't let the kid watch regular adult tv, and then the stinking channels for kids are excruciatingly bad.  I guess I don't want my 8 year old watching tv shows where the kids have free reign and money coming out the wahzoo for the same reason I don't wanna read fairy-tales to my little girl, namely: Life is not really like that.  You are not any more likely to get to live away from your parents, wear cool clothes, and talk like a smart-aleck to everyone you come in contact with than your baby sister is to meet prince charming and live happily ever after.  It's all a bunch of garbage, and I don't like it being fed to my kid. 
I think it's time I put some major limits on TV watching time.  When I lay down the law, my son will probably say something smart-alecky and then bust out some jacked-up dance move.  I hope, for his sake, no one's watching.

5 comments:

  1. Thankfully Benjamin has no interest in those shows. He does however obsess over River Monsters and other fishing shows....Isabella is in love with the landbefore time movies on netflix...with catchy yet annoying songs that get stuck in my head

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  2. I agree with you...having watched a few episodes of I Carly. I don't think Samantha watches it though. She is in middle school this year and we are just waiting for the changes people have said will be coming this year.

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  3. Ahhhh...empty nest syndrome. Something to be grateful for.

    Just think, another few months and you'll be watching Barney, Yo Gabba Gabba, Dora, and all that brilliant, insightful stuff!

    ...Although I guess it beats wish fulfillment teen fantasy shows that involve moronic parents constantly being bested by their offspring.

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  4. I completely agree. my kids are offered very limited TV time, mostly for the sake of my sanity, but also for their benefit. Thankfully, for many years we never had anything more than a basic antenna, and we could only get pbs. Now that we have cable, I'm hating all of the commercials and preteen shows. Fortunately Kenna is perfectly fine with turning the TV off on her own accord after a 30 minute show of curious george and Alex always has his nose buried in a book.

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