When I was younger, I grew up on a copious dosage of what seems
today to be irreverent cartoons. One of my favorites, and I had
many, was Transformers. The cartoon, incidentally enough, was my
first introduction to the hazy realm of good and evil. I never
minded the fact that there were a lot of robots running around
blasting each other to pieces. The important thing was, the robots,
especially the good guys, never died, and was up and about in the
next episode to kick some serious bad guys ass.
That was my primary escapade from tedious homework and chores on
Wednesday evenings. For some odd reason though, my mother hated the
cartoon. To her, the screeching noise of lasers blasting was just,
well, noise. To me though, it was my way of understanding how to
deal with the bad guys of the world...Gimme a laser cannon anytime,
honey...
But my mother's disapproval was an inconvenience I had to live
with. It was no small thing, I tell you. I had always been a slow
learner, and the numbers on the clock remained very much a mystery
to me even when I was in Primary Two. I had to depend on either my
mother or my sister to tell me the time. (My sister is two years
younger than me!) So let's say Transformers came on at 6:30pm, I
would ask my mom what time it was, and she would never tell me the
correct time. It would be 6:30 on the clock, and she would tell me
it was 6pm on the dot. I guess that this was a very fun and
meaningful activity for her, but it left me with an extremely foul
disposition. I love my mom to death, but I just could not
understand why she did this. It was a calculated act of cruelty, I
always thought.
Well, if you were to put a child in front of Transformers today,
they would laugh out loud at the primitive animation, and the
childish storylines. But they will have missed out on the essential
theme of the series. It is about a group of robots, called
Autobots, who crash-lands on the Planet Earth. Following them
across the millions of light years is another group of rogue
robots, called Deceptacons, who are bent on enslaving the planet
for their own devious ends. And the story goes on to describe the
generations of robots who wage war across the planet. The
characters are nothing but memorable. With cool names like Optimus
Prime, Megatron, Soundwave and Starscream, who can go wrong? They
were the precursors of such inane heroes like the Power Rangers and
Captain Planet.
So let us give thanks to the makers of these violent and brainless
cartoons...I grew up okay, so that should always be a comforting
thought to all those parents who overreact when it comes to letting
their deprived kids watch these sort of entertainment...
