Twitter: Parental in Book Two: The Fifteenth Year of the Third Millennium of the Common Era

Ha! Parents are weird. My parents love The Big Bang Theory and love Two and a Half Men. I find both shows degrading, stupid and full of the kind of pandering humor reserved for individuals that don’t understand intelligent comedy. Even still, they made me watch the series finale with them. AND I had to explain a lot of the jokes to my dad because… he has no idea what things like “J Date” or “tiger’s blood” are.

Meanwhile, when Christian Slater shows up, dad asks who is that- is it someone important. I tell him it is an actor currently doing good work on Archer. I can’t even describe the level of contempt in his voice when he said, “Archer? Is that a cartoon?”

Call me paranoid but… to me? It says a lot about how that generation looks at things. Traditional Sitcom versus Creative Cartoon. Even if, perhaps especially because, the humor of a traditional sitcom is predictable and easy and non-challenging and very base. It is familiar and comfortable. The idea that an adult would watch a cartoon is “low”. Adults don’t want cartoons, cartoons are for children… an adult watching a cartoon is in a state of arrested development.

Or at least that is what I get from my parents. That they think that way. Probably inappropriate to suggest that their behavior says something about their generation but… it seemed fitting. The idea seems to be very prevalent in government and generational judgment about the younger kids having trouble in this still shitty economy. The idea that “even if it isn’t working, it is what is comfortable… we don’t want to be challenged and our (mis)conceptions can’t be shaken”

Last updated January 05, 2016