Monday, December 29, 2014

Suit yourself time..

Thanks to my children, primarily my daughter, I have been introduced to a fantastic animation series (we don't call them cartoons, any more, do we?) called Sofia the First.. To quote IMDB,
 "This animated series features Sofia, an ordinary girl who becomes a princess overnight when her mom marries the king. The adventurous young girl, first introduced in the 2012 TV movie "Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess," must learn how to adjust to royal life. Offering Sofia words of wisdom are classic princesses -- including Ariel, Belle and Jasmine -- who make special appearances as they help advise the youngster during her transition to royalty. Throughout her journey, Sofia learns that it isn't having a title that imparts royal demeanor; it's that having the characteristics of honesty, loyalty, compassion and grace make one worthy of the role" 
And oh, it's "awesome!!".. There are Victorian palaces, royal wizards, Hogwarts style schooling, kings, queens, princesses (but of course), the works..

All this would be educational, but for one tiny problem.. While all the bit players - the butler, the school headmistress, the help - seem straight out of a proper British / Victorian era, the main roles are all speaking with an American accent!!

Now you might say, they're playing to a primarily American audience, and c'mon it's Disney!! And I get it.. I get it that the core audience of these princess sagas (of which my daughter is only an adjacency) is the American 8 year old girl.. And princesses, this way or that, HAVE to live in a Victorian world, and there has to be an ability to relate to the protagonist for any entertainment to succeed.. But this cherry-picking of entertainment is somewhere delusional..

I understand that children need to shielded from realities of life, but then there should be a limit to which you can cherry-pick facts and data, and randomly join the dots to make the most bizarre things look coherent..

But then I see our Prime Minister cherry-picking history about how genetic science existed in mythological times and some random dumbass turned political gadfly saying that a fictitious Lankan was actually a Dalit from Ghaziabad and then I wonder whether it's just preparing Annika for growing up.. :)

No comments: