Curious George: A Bad Role Model For Our Children.
December 4th, 2008
I don’t usually go around blaming outside influences for my child’s behavior. I promised myself years before becoming a mother that I wouldn’t become that mother. But this time I simply can’t hold back. Curious George must be stopped.
I’m annoyed that he hides behind a guise of curiosity. I don’t see a curious monkey, I see a stupid monkey, one that teaches our children it’s OK to be ignorant, bigoted, cruel and irresponsible.
It’s even worse because a lot of children really like bananas and I think sometimes (for them especially) the line between “Human” and “Monkey” is blurred and so they start acting like monkeys. And if this is going to be the case—with the bananas and all—I think we need a more educated monkey for our children.
It’s time that mothers everywhere come together and put an end to Curious George. We need to collectively stomp our designer shoes and scream that we’ve had enough. (Gather up the nannies too, we need all the help we can get!)
No more George!
Exhibit A: George acts carelessly and dangerously.
When asked what George rides around his room, we are told he rides a ball. (See below.)
My son will most definitely give this a try if given the chance. And whenever he falls off said ball, we’ll have George to thank for it. Does this mean I can’t go out and buy him a large ball? Thanks, George. He’s a boy. All boys need their balls.
Exhibit B: George hangs out with strange men.
Who is the “Man In The Yellow Hat”? Does this man have a name? He shows up twice out of the four Curious George books I own. George gets into a blue car with him, he even lets this man talk him into going to the moon. (Is that a euphemism?)
And he wears knickers. NEVER trust a man in knickers!!!!!!!
And while we’re on the subject of strange men, who is Professor Wiseman? I think I heard that name used on a recent episode of “Law and Order SVU”. Got news for you, creeps, tacking “Professor” to the front of your name isn’t not going to make me (or anyone else for that matter) trust you.
While on the playground, please be on the lookout for any strange men wearing yellow hats and knickers. It’s a perfect disguise, one our kids have come to trust. This is just like the media letting terrorists know exactly where to find our least secure targets.
Curious George is a terrorist to our children.
Exhibit C: George is a pusher.
I don’t know about you, but this mother DOES NOT let her child eat cake or sugar of any kind. Curious George keeps cake around the house and that sets a terrible example. When I read that part to my son, I immediately had to explain what “cake” is. “What’s cake, mommy?” Naturally, I lied and told him that “cake” is fish food.
Lying is OK if it’s about God, sugar or sex.
Also, who uses cake to catch fish? An idiot! That’s who!
Exhibit D: George (an animal) is guilty of animal cruelty.
This one really kicks me in the cottontail. In one of the books, George is curious about holding a bunny, so George just takes a bunny from the bunny cage. (Poorly raised?) Naturally, the bunny runs off “like a shot!” (Pro gun?) And in order to find the bunny, George looks to its mother. He doesn’t ask the mommy bunny for help, instead he ties a string around the mother bunny’s neck!!!! What is this, Guantanamo bay for bunnies? (Terrorist?)
I have already sent an email to PETA. I have asked them to suggest that if this is going to continue—the printing of such dangerous literature—all future editions remove the bit about the string.
Exhibit E: Friends of Curious George think monkeys are more useful than women
Apparently this particular space organization was too busy hiring monkeys to hire any women.
Are women dumber than monkeys? NOT THIS WOMAN! Unite with me, mommybloggers. Curious George hates women, prefers strange men, condones sugar, and takes advantage of helpless animals. Please help me in my fight against George.
Tags: design, humor, motherhood, parenting
32 Comments on “Curious George: A Bad Role Model For Our Children.”
snort I love it! I always knew there was something creepy about that monkey.
What do you think of the Peanuts? When I was a kid, I never understood why their parents were never around. Did they leave them at home at such a young age to persue adult things, like whoring around and drinking? Why were they always watching TV? And why oh why was Lucy always such a bitch?
I’ve also been wondering what mothers think of Caliou. I’m still pregnant with #1, so I really have no excuse to have been watching stuff like that. Still, I was fascinated by his lack of hair. And his whining.
Not to mention that he smokes a cigar in the original story….
Sheesh.
And what about the ether? You didn’t even mention the ether he’s huffing!
So many of the older “classic” kids stories are really quite frightening and there are actually very few positive female characters anywhere. Most all of the stories are about little boys and fathers or weird parentless children.
My daughter likes “The Little Mermaid.” The original story is about a 15 year old mermaid girl who is in love with a prince so she makes a deal with the sea witch to get legs. If she doesn’t get the prince to marry her in a few days she will die. To get legs, she loses her voice and will have horrible, endless pain in her legs. For love, she goes through all this horrible suffering and potential death. When the prince marries someone else, her sisters make another deal with the witch that if she stabs the prince with a knife she can save herself. She can’t do it and sacrifices herself so she dies.
Tell me what that tells women about themselves, about love and about men.
Speechless.
Apparently we need more female children’s book authors. I had no idea the LIttle Mermaid was so damn disturbing!
I do remember being completely disturbed by books as a kid. The ones that really troubled me were the animals that die books. Charlotte’s Web was a favorite of mine. But I was so disturbed as well. The ENTIRE book is about a spider working herself to death to keep a pig from being slaughtered. It was exhausting.
And Watership Down? Sweet jesus, I am still trying to remove the knife from my heart.
Another: Long Eared Xmas Donkey. That little dude was ridiculed for having long ears and his mother froze to death trying to keep him alive during a blizzard after HE gets thrown out for being a freak.
Curious George is curious indeed. If you were to swap out that monkey and put a little boy in his place, that little boy would be accused of doing some mighty questionable things. But since it’s a monkey, I kind of question Bill and the Man With the Yellow Hat. What are they doing with that monkey?
I guess I wasn’t all that speechless after all.
“Tell me what that tells women about themselves, about love and about men.”
It tells me, women these days are just plain not as awesome as mermaids!
The animals-dying one that kille me was Where the Red Fern Grows. That book resulted in me sitting on the floor of my parents’ closet and sobbing, until my mother finally came and found me, and I was like, “The dogs, so sad,” and kept wailing. That book broke my heart.
You know what I’ve always wondered about Mermaids? Do they have vaginas? And if they do, where are they?
(Amber: gonna stay FAR away from that one.)
who cares if they have vaginas, they are permanently topless and completely selfless. i think looking at bare breasts 24/7 trumps having a vagina. there has to be a hole there somewhere. how do they go to the bathroom? how do mermaids reproduce? why do the mermaids have a father, no apparent mother, and no other males ever appear in the mermaid stories? the questions are endless.
Our children are going to see way worse things growing up. Curious George is a book. It’s fiction. It’s our job to teach them the difference between fact and fiction. I’m sure a lot of childrens imaginations are far crazier than Curious George!
FACT: Children are more influenced by cardboard books than anything else.
Only IDIOTS think it’s a question of nature vs nurture. It’s actually more complex:
nature vs nurture vs curious monkeys
We were successful in the 80s, proving that the Smurfs were satanic. It’s now time to rid our libraries of these perverted monkey books!
I’ll buy the fertilizer.
Michele: I guess you’re right. Shirtless girls are pretty awesome (unless of course they are breastfeeding, that’s just gross).
I’ll skip the vagina and take two tits straight up.
All this being said, I think there are so many great books out there. I think so many of the books out there are sweet, creative and totally wonderful and not at all scary like the so-called “classics” so I largely think kids are better off in that area. Books today reflect a much bigger world I think.
Television and movies are another story, though. I’m constantly outraged at how very adult material is easily accessible to small children and that stuff makes little Curious George looks perfectly innocent. There is little or no effort in our culture today – from TV commercials, advertising, movies, billboards, etc. – to keep the images floating around at a kid-friendly level.
We live in a culture for childless adults with poor impulse control, despite any lip service to the contrary. Everything is made available.
When I was a kid, in the 70’s and early 80s, adult content wasn’t on until after 9pm at least. I saw the Holocaust miniseries when I was a kid, and that was very adult but they let it on in prime time because of the important historical content. I saw a scene of a girl getting raped, by today’s standards a very tame scene, and I was freaking traumatized for weeks. I can’t imagine what it would do to a child to see repeated graphically violent images on primetime television day after day, year after year. And you know that’s what most kids in America are doing…watching TV unsupervised. I think we’re dehumanized by all this content and it makes me want to cry because I see the repercussions everywhere I look. I will take Curious George any day. At least George isn’t intentionally evil and he doesn’t kill people.
Sorry. I went off on a tangent there. Nevermind my rant.
Don’t you dare apologize! Everything you said is right on, Michele. And I agree wholeheartedly with you.
I never want people to not speak their mind. Y’all teach me stuff, like about vagina-less mermaids.
I think tobyjoe just called me an idiot….
Lauren: Tobyjoe has called me much worse, if it makes you feel any better. Probably not, but I just wanted to let you know that.
Plus, I don’t think he was directing it at you per se. Really.
But, yeah, I got you beat!
A more educated ape, you say? I am reminded of this:
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/history/wnk/ape.html
Oh, the Smurfs. Now they really are fucked up.
And Michele, I have wondered the same things about mermaids. Mainly ever since I saw Splash.
No, I was totally making fun of the idea that this post was serious. Just playing along with you guys!
Nature vs nurture vs monkey is still serious business, though!
who would win in the nature vs nuture vs monkey fight? i give it all to the monkey. that little monkey can do it all and make children laugh at the same time.
I don’t care what the monkey does – Curious George on PBS allows me the time to cook dinner every night. That’s good enough for me!
I know this is not germane to monkeys, but I figured this was as appropriate a spot as any to rant about my aversion to Beauty and the Beast. A girl. Kidnapped. Threatened. Held hostage. Begins exhibiting signs of Stockholm Syndrome. With a Beast. As in bestiality.
Does no one else get icked out by this scenario? No? Just me?
just about every princess story is disturbing when you think about it. and your skin will crawl if you ever watch one of the barbie movies. the animation is creepy and the characters are vapid.
little boys and curious monkeys get to have fantastical adventures – girls just dream about prince charming, beautiful dresses and sacrificing themselves for a man. not fair.
Curious George taught me the most important lesson of my life—that if you ignore the directions, prohibitions, and warnings of an adult or supervisor but feign regret afterward, you can learn much and have wonderful adventures. That lesson has served me well time and time again.
Granted, I’m sure that wasn’t the lesson my mom wanted me to learn, but it seemed pretty clear to me when I read the books.
Is this for real?
LOL! In seriousness, I have a two year old with a personality VERY much like George’s. And I frequently cringe at George’s antics as we read about them, realizing that they will be mimicked by my son…and that they aren’t at all safe or recommended!
Late on this post but what about all the Disney movies that “kill off” the moms? Does Disney hate moms or what? Let’s see, there’s Bambi, Dumbo, Cinderella, Snow White, The Little Mermaid….Finding Nemo, wait that’s Pixar before Disney……but do you get where I’m going with this? And all the step moms are wicked of course. Thanks for giving me a forum to write about this, it has bugged me for years!
CS
Lady are u insane? Speaking as a 12 year old, when I was 5 I didnt think about any thing like what you are talking about. except… this is SO funny and thats a cute monkey. No 5 year old EVER think’s about this kind of stuff and just for the record you are an over protective MOM!
P.S Crazy you should keep your opinion to your self!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sincerely: not your friend Nathan. :(
Holy crap. This is the most insane thing i’ve ever heard of in my life. Is this lady actually for real ? What is wrong with this woman ? Curious George dangerous ? Come off it, Lady. Get a grip on reality. Sooner or later your son is going to find out what CAKE really is, and when he does, you’ll have to have some answers ready.
Loved it! I can’t wait to read the books now and share the goodness with my son! I especially like the last two comments on this blog in Nov and Dec ’09 – did they not read the earlier comments?
LOL This article had me laughing soundly! My favorite line is “And he wears knickers. NEVER trust a man in knickers!!!!!!!”
But I actually found this article looking up “Curious George must be stopped” for a different reason- If anyone has seen the TV episodes, you’ll notice the George seems to have an IQ above 200. He knows how to construct simple machines like pumps, pulleys, conveyors, etc. He’s like a furry brown MacGyver. I swear he’s far too intelligent for the good of humanity.
(Especially since the types of idiot mothers you mock in this article actually make up a significant portion of the country between the coasts!)
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