Stuff I’m watching with my daughter
I honestly have no idea if and what I was watching on TV when I was three years old but I do remember that after just a few years, like any good Italian kid of my generation, I was addicted to anime. Sure, I watched some American TV shows (even though I didn’t really like many of those), I watched Disney movies and, for a few years, there was the annual “Fantasia is again at the movie theater, let’s go” with my mother. But the Japanese stuff, in Italy, was all the rage, since the late Seventies. At first it was mainly giant robots but then, in the Eighties, a huge amount of different stuff reached our TVs, with fantasy adventures, hard sci-fi, police stories, sports stuff, even some horror shows and, of course, the whole soapy/teen comedy/drama genre. It was amazing. I’m sure that, if I were to watch them today, not many of them would stand the test of time, but back then they were amazing. They looked beautiful, they had amazing personalities, they almost always gave you the sense of an evolving storyline even when they were mainly based on stand alone episodes and, for a kid, the themes felt so adult. I’m pretty sure that a huge chunk of people from my generation grew up absorbing moral values from those TV shows. I’m not sure that’s necessarily a good thing but, well…
I kinda stopped watching TV animated shows midway around the Nineties, even though I still occasionally dabbled with the most interesting ones. I remember a huge comeback from the US production: the beautiful Batman: The Animated Series, of course, and the great superhero stuff that came later, but also all the “adult” animated shows (you know what I’m talking about), bizarre, cute, smart things like Daria or Doug, and then the whole Tartakovsky school of crazy schizo animation. I wasn’t really following the whole “scene” but I remember periodically being amazed when I happened to watch a few minutes of this and that.
Of course, now I’m a father of a three years old and I’m starting to get back in the deep dark world of kids shows. Not too much, we’re still trying to limit her screen time, but, yeah, I started watching stuff with her, partly because I want to be sure she’s watching stuff that makes sense, partly because I’m honestly curious about it. Also, for the time being, I’m still the one who handles the scepter of power, the Harmony all-in-one remote control, so it’s not like she could watch stuff without me at her side. It’s stored out of her reach and, anyway, she still really doesn’t know how to use it, even though she knows what the “turn it off” button is and just in the past few days she apparently learned how to pause stuff when she needs to pee. By the way, I’m really proud about that. She’s starting to “pause” stuff, whatever it is that she’s doing, to go pee. I’m sure any parent knows how huge a victory that is.
Anyway, we, as a family, kinda stopped using “regular TV”: we basically turn it on only for the news, the weather forecast and the occasional special event. But of course there’s streaming and for now that’s the major source of visual entertainment for my daughter. There’s the occasional video on YouTube (mainly trailers: she loves trailers, they are quick, flashy and fun, with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse being a recent hit) but it’s mainly Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
The seminal moment was the transition from “She watches what I watch, she doesn’t really understand any of it” to “OK, she’s starting to get the meaning and the language of what she watches so, maybe, even if she loves the visual aspect of them, BoJack Horseman, Rick and Morty and Big Mouth aren’t really appropriate anymore”. Actually, the other day she did ask me out of the blue to watch Big Mouth; she still remembers it fondly from months ago but, well, maybe in a few years, when it could be… educative, I guess? So we jumped onto other stuff. Aggretsuko is, I think, still fine. She loves the animals and the aesthetics of it, even though she really doesn’t understand what’s going on. And she likes to hear japanese voices. But that’s kinda faded away too. Now there’s other stuff. Three things, if we wanna be specific.
On Netflix, we have Hilda, because of course I’m gonna make her watch something that’s tagged +7 when she’s only three years old. I’m a degenerate father.
Well, guys, Hilda is amazing. Yes, it’s for bigger kids, there’s no doubt about it: the themes are complex, there’s some spooky stuff, and even though of course every episode has got some kind of lesson in it, it’s not shoved down your throat, it’s a bit more subtle. Which is not how shows for little kids work, of course, and that’s fine, but my daughter saw the character in the thumbnail on the Netflix app, she wanted to watch it, it looked promising… we tried. And I was amazed. It’s such a smart, kind, imaginative, tender show, full of fun ideas, frankly batshit crazy in the ways it reinvents classical fantasy tropes (i love the little invisible elves that go crazy for bureaucracy and make you sign papers to interact with them), really enjoyable for an adult even though it’s clearly a kids show. I loved it so much that I bought the first paperback of the original comic book and it entered the rotation of the good night fairy tales. And yeah, I don’t think my daughter understands everything that’s going on or grasps all the themes, but she loves the creatures, she constantly mentions her favorite characters, she is sometimes amusingly spooked and hides behind me during the dark-ish scenes. Plus, I think Hilda is a really nice main character: a smart, kind, messy, curious, adventurous girl, who loves nature and creatures, is fun and open to new stuff but is far from perfect, she makes mistakes and has character issues. Also, the relationship between her and her single mother is adorable.
Sometimes the rhythm is not great, not all episodes are amazing but overall it’s a lovely series, it’s visually beautiful and I can’t wait for season 2. If you like animated stuff, give it a try even if you don’t have a kid.
By the way, while watching it (and while watching the second show I’m gonna write about), I noticed something I read somewhere about and I think it’s really nice: in contemporary kids stuff, there’s a great attention for diversity, both in main characters and in the background ones. Hilda’s school (in a little city from northern Europe, I assume) is full of kids from different extractions and they’re just there, they’re normal, they’re part of the community, without having to explain anything. I may be wrong, my memory is not faultless, but I don’t think that the stuff I watched as a kid made this kind of effort. And I think it’s cool, because it reflects the reality kids live in their everyday life, in this multicultural world, if nothing else.
Then there’s the Amazon stuff. I mean, on Netflix there’s a lot of really promising stuff that I want to watch (I stumbled on the preview for Teen Titans Go and I was laughing my ass off), but it’s mainly tagged +7 and, well, let’s try to aim lower. So, we went on Amazon, because I thought the little kids stuff in there looked more interesting. We browsed together and we landed on Pete the Cat. I had, in fact, tried to show it to her a few weeks earlier but she didn’t like it. She wanted Hilda. But it probably stuck in her mind because, when she saw the blue cat on the screen, she asked for it. And so, we watched the special first episode and the whole season, plus the new Christmas special when it came out. And it’s cute.
It’s also based on some literary work and it’s about a bunch of anthropomorphic animals, cute kids that love to have fun together, play outside, sing, surf, cook, whatever. It’s got a bit of a musical vibe, with the kids putting together a band and Pete’s parents voiced by Elvis Costello and Diana Krall, a nice cast (Pete rarely speaks, but when he does, he’s voiced by Jacob Tremblay) and a vibrant visual style. Hilda it is not, and at first I was kinda bored by the more childish attitude: plots are really simple and the message is always explained by whatever character is cast in the expository role for that episode. But of course it’s fine, it’s what you should expect from a cartoon aimed at little kids, and it’s got a nice, kind, gentle, colorful appeal. Plus, there’s some crazy moments, usually involving Sally Squirrel, a manic, well, squirrel, who always screams and acts like she’s from a different show. Basically, she’s the Nicolas Cage of Pete the Cat. Also, we (meaning “me and my daughter”) actually got at least one good lesson/idea from one episode: the Three Bites Rule.
There’s a character, a frog named Grumpy, who’s always, well, grumpy, and in a specific episode he doesn’t want to try new food. So, Pete and his mother (fun, cute, little fact: Pete’s parents don’t seem to have proper names, everybody calls them Pete the Cat’s dad and Pete the Cat’s mom) introduce him to the Three Bites Rule: before you can decide if you like something or not, you have to try it three times. It can be applied to other stuff (like, I don’t know, playing cards) but it works perfectly with food. And it really works! I’m sure it works because it comes from Grumpy and not from me, and of course it helps that my daughter has always been quite willing to try new food (I like to think I deserve some credit for it, but maybe it’s just dumb luck), but we embraced the Three Bites Rule. She eats at least three bites of almost everything she doesn’t find appealing: sometimes she changes her mind, sometimes not, but she tries. And three bites of that dirty vegetable she doesn’t want to eat, sometimes, are a victory anyway.
So, while I’m telling basically everybody I know they should give a shot to Hilda, I wouldn’t recommend Pete the Cat to an adult audience without kids to entertain, but it’s quite good. Also, to circle back on the diversity thing, there are some nice touches here too. One kid, the duck, is basically an immigrant, with a parent we only see via videochat, and the squirrel has got two fathers. And again: these are just facts, they happen, they don’t need to be explained and they are not necessarily plot points. Nice.
OK, Tumble Leaf is clearly the most childish of the three. But it’s nice. First of all, it’s made in stop motion and it’s visually really, really cool. Even when the story is frankly a bit boring for me, I’m still amazed by the aesthetics. It’s about an anthropomorphic blue fox that lives on an island with some bizarre friends (I have to admit the hen called Rutabaga cracks me up) and every ten minutes episode revolves around a specific object the kids use to play with, learn stuff, experiment. The lessons are always clearly explained by the main character (many different variations of “Oh, I figured it out: I have to do this and that”), so it can be a bit dull for me, but it’s smart, full of interesting things, and it’s about kids playing outside, learning things by experimenting with stuff and getting their hands dirty. Which is a cool thing I hope my daughter will do more and more, even though she hates having her hands dirty.
So, again, Tumble Leaf is only for kids, but it’s good.
And, well, for the time being, this is where we are. We’re still stuck on season 1 of Tumble Leaf because, while we were watching it, my daughter entered the “I wanna watch it again” phase, which I understand is a very healthy thing for kids: they always want to watch the same thing, they always want to listen to the same song, they always want you to tell the same story because (1) the familiarity is comforting; (2) for them it’s hard to get every detail, so repeated visions/listens help them grasp more stuff; (3) when they already know what’s gonna happen, they can focus on the details. And, I mean, the perspective is different but those three things remain true for repeated visions/reads/listens even in adult life, so…
The situation, right now, is that she asks for specific episodes of those three series and, once in a while, she wants to watch a new one from Tumble Leaf. Let’s see where we go from here.
I’m also asking myself if it’s time to start occasionally showing her some feature length stuff. I think she could endure through anything, if she likes it, but I’m not sure if I already want to keep her in front of the screen for an hour and a half or more. At the same time, I have to admit, on some days, it can happen that she watches three episodes of something. Maybe not in a row, but still, that’s not that far from watching a Disney movie. We’ll see.
Being a movie buff, I’m of course eagerly waiting for the moment we will be able to watch movies and/or go to the theater together and I’m wondering how and when I could try to have her watch this movie, that movie, that other movie. I’m also thinking about what I watched as I kid, what I would like her to watch or not to watch and so on. I guess every parent who’s got even a mild interest in cinema does that. Plus, I’m one of those annoying parents of a female child who don’t want her to watch a certain kind of old school Disney movies until she’s a bit older. Yeah, hate me if you want, but my daughter will not watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs until I think she will be able to contextualize its artistic merits the right way. I do tell her the story of Snow White, because she saw her in a book and asked about her, but in my version of the story, she meets the prince together with the dwarfs, they become friends and fall in love by hanging out. And then the story goes on. In my version of the story, she doesn’t instantly fall in love with a random rich dude who saves her by molesting her while she’s sleeping and then says it was true love. Deal with it.
Anyway, going to the movies with my daughter. In fact, just watching movies with her at home. That really excites me on a visceral level. Seriously: I’m getting excited just by writing it, right now. I find myself wondering how it would have been to watch the amazing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in a movie theater together with my wife and my daughter. We will get there.
