Thomas the Politically Incorrect Tank Engine

Our children’s first exposure to children’s programmes was with Playhouse Disney channel and wow, children’s programmes have come a very long way!

Nowadays, the shows are infused with a lot of good moral values, require some physical activity when following along dance moves, encourage young children to recognize feelings (sad, happy, scared) and help to enhance listening skills. The shows from the US are especially good about portraying a multi-racial environment, including children of various sizes as well as those who are physically challenged.

So we thought it might be a good idea to get some CDs for our children to watch. Since our elder son likes Thomas the Tank Engine, we bought 2 CDs for him and his brother to watch.

Wow.

How different Thomas is from the other children’s programmes that we are used to! It’s totally politically incorrect, there’s a lot of name calling, sarcasm and sometimes just downright mean.

The simplest example is the nickname for Sir Topham Hatt, the man in charge of the railway lines. He is called “The Fat Controller”. I don’t see why they can’t just use his real name.

Below is a scene from Vol. 3 of the Thomas series.

Thomas meets Terence the Tractor for the first time:
Terence: Hullo, I’m Terence. I’m a tractor. I’m ploughing.
Thomas: Hullo, I’m Thomas. I’m a tank engine. What ugly wheels you’ve got. (How mean! What are they teaching children?)
Terence: They’re not wheels, they’re caterpillars. I can go anywhere with them. I don’t need rails. (Sarcasm creeping in.)
Thomas: I don’t want to go anywhere. I like my rails. (Ok, now this little meeting is just degenerating.)

There is a scene in Vol. 1 where Thomas shows up late when he was supposed to help Gordon, another train.
Gordon: Hurry up, you.
Thomas: Hurry yourself! (A bit cheeky, isn’t it?)

I suppose if you can actually sit through and watch the entire episode, you might actually see some form of ‘lesson’. For example, in the episode where Thomas meets Terence for the first time, it turns out that Terence managed to help Thomas out of a fix and then they become good friends, Terence’s wheels aren’t so ugly anymore and the name calling and sarcasm stops.

But there’s really no need to include all the “bad” things just so we can get to the “good” ones, right?