Newsflash - Thomas the Tank Engine is Driving a Radical Right-Winged Propaganda Agenda

I have to start by saying I am a huge Thomas the Tank Engine. & have been ever since I discovered it as a part of the Shining Time Station TV series on IPTV/WPTV. Now I know why I developed into a radical right winged pro-life upholder of authentic Catholic teaching. It is all the fault of a character created by a moderate, pacifist Anglican vicar.

TRAINSPOTTING

Christopher Johnson

A Canadian academic named Shauna Wilton alerts parents to a grave danger threatening the well-being of their children:
Children’s favourite Thomas the Tank Engine has been attacked by a Canadian academic for its “conservative political ideology” and failure to adequately represent women.
A show with animated locomotives has an ideology? Who knew?
The criticism, by Shauna Wilton, a professor of political sciences at the University of Alberta, is likely to anger fans of the original books by Rev W. V. Awdry first published in the 1940s which were turned into an animated TV series now shown in 130 countries.
I don’t think fans will be angry about this. I think that they’ll be astounded that an alleged academic actually thinks this is a serious idea.
“It also represents a conservative political ideology that punishes individual initiative, opposes critique and change, and relegates females to supportive roles,” she said. “Any change is seen as disrupting the natural order of things.”
Lady? We’re talking about animated trains here.
Her study shows programmes for children are not as harmless as many parents think if they look more closely, she concluded, and she called for tighter controls of what is broadcast to them.
Trains, lady. TRAINS!! TRAINS!! TRAINS!! TRAINS!! TRAINS!!
“Eventually these children will attain full political citizenship, and the opinions and world outlook they develop now, partially influenced by shows like Thomas, are part of that process.”
Because everybody gets their political idealogy from cartoons. Canada? You must be so proud.
Props to Bloves.

& here is the post over at The American Catholic that lead me to the above:

Thomas The Right Wing Tank Engine

Posted by Donald R. McClarey

Hattip to the ever vigilant Christopher Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal. My kids loved Thomas the Tank Engine videos when they were little back in the nineties. Memories of those times still brings a smile to my face when I see some Thomas the Tank Engine trinket for sale in a store. Now I learn that I was not only entertaining them, I was also indoctrinating them in my political views.
A Canadian academic, surprise!, Shauna Wilson, has disclosed the political subtext underlying the Tank Engine stories:
The show’s right-wing politics shows the colourful steam engines punished if they show initiative or oppose change, the researcher found.
She also highlighted the class divide which sees the downtrodden workers in the form of Thomas and his friends at the bottom of the social ladder and the wealthy Fat Controller, Sir Topham Hatt, at the top.
You know, I think she is on to something. First, the two narrators of the cartoons, Ringo Starr and the late George Carlin, were members in good standing of the military-industrial-cartoon complex. Second, if you play some of the cartoon videos backwards 20 or 25 times and listen carefully while running a high fever you’ll eventually hear something that sounds vaguely like “Vote Republican”. Third, consider the above video. On its surface it is a harmless tale of a train frightened by a float of a Chinese dragon. However, for those trained to look diligently for a political subtext in every aspect of life, it is obviously a ploy to breed fear and hatred of Communist China in young minds.
Now I am sure there may be skeptics out there. (I’m looking at you Tito!) Some of you may even agree with the first comment on the story highlighting this landmark theory dreamed up on the Canadian taxpayer’s dime: “She, like a lot of her kind, needs her arse kicking and throwing out in the street.”, but you are simply blind to this obvious attempt at political indoctrination. I can’t wait for her analysis of the old Popeye cartoons they loved!

As for the analysis of Popeye, neither can I! I can just imagine what she will make out of his addiction to spinach. Sancho Panza was right when he sang to Aldonza about cuckoonuts being in season. Shauna Wilson is a prime example. Still love Thomas though.