Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, December 23, 2009 1:20:46 PM
Having a small child, I end up watching a lot of children's television, and, watching children's television, I inevitably end up watching a large number of shows produced in Canada. Thanks to Canada's endless subsidies for films and television produced using local talent, it seems almost everything not made by Disney is produced in Canada.
At this point I am sure most regular readers are bracing themselves for another broadside against subsidies and government involvement in business. But you can relax, for once I am going to simply skip over the topic of subsidies, as I have something a bit more entertaining to cover.
You see, I think some clever Canadian actually managed to sneak through a government-funded argument for G-d.
I know, it sounds strange. Children's television, while not exactly anti-religion is defintiely niot fertile ground for those with any firm beliefs. Excepting a few explicitly religious programs, such as Veggie Tales, children's programming seems to treat religion as a cultural quirk, like one's language or cooking style, something to be "tolerated' or "celebrated", but certainly not something in which one believes.
But this morning I think I watched an episode of
Miss Spider's Sunnypatch Friends which, seemed to be making a not-so-subtle argument for the reality of G-d.
Now, I have seen this episode before, and each time I have thought of writing a post, but stopped myself. You see, it is not quite explicit, and I can see readers thinking I am imagining things, and so every time I see it I start to write a post like this one and then stop myself, concerned that I might be reading too much into a children's show. But this time, for whatever reason, I decided that I had to mention it, as it really did seem to be saying just what I thought it was.
The episode centers around one of the young spiders who makes friends with a "
No-See-Um". She explains that she doesn't like to talk, as most people don't hear her, because she is so small. However, all his family thinks he has an imaginary friend, and even tells him it is OK, as many people have imaginary friends. The spider then has a discussion with his tiny friend about how people don't believe in what they can't see, but they would find out she was there if they would just listen. In the end, the other children are threatened by a chicken and the No-See-Um chases off the chicken, at which point they start to listen and can hear her.
Now, is it just me, or does this sound like a remarkably religious theme? Even the dismissal of an unseen figure as "an imaginary friend" sounds like some of the more crass caricatures of religion as "the imaginary friend in the sky". Similarly, the idea that G-d is present but can only be heard if you listen sounds quite religious, as does the discovery that most won't believe until something miraculous happens.
On the other hand, there are some concessions to the traditional children's television themes, the bits that make me doubt my reading of it. After all, Pippy (the No-See-Um) is "too small" to do anything, and is shy and unnoticed because of it. And in the end Pippy comes to realize she is big enough. And that superficial theme often makes me doubt my reading of this. But, on the other hand, all the talk of invisible friends in which no one believes really does sound very much like a believer irate over the generally dismissive attitude many hold toward religion. And so, after going back and forth several times, I finally decided to make this post, even if it might be wrong.
Well, I leave it up to my readers to decide. But I am almost entirely convinced that some believer, somewhere in Canada, pulled off the greatest miracle since Fred Thompson got
Law and Order to treat conservatives with an iota of respect (if not much more than that*). Someone got the Canadian government to fund an argument for the existence of G-d, not just that, but one aimed at children.
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* Though, to be fair, a recent episode did seem to not only criticize trial lawyers, but even set up a very John Edwards-like character as a murderer. Of course that could be more about the decline of Edwards' fortunes than any hint of political balance among
Law and Order's writers.