"We who raced the streetlights home..."
I am a child of the 80's and 90's and yes I am proud. If you listen to how most millennials behave and get on, we shouldn't have made it. I, in fact am one of the incredible 2% who actually survived those horrific times when;
There were no cellular devices, at all! If we got lost outside of the home we were DEAD!
Hardly any computers, and those which existed were so terrifyingly basic that one YouTube video took about a week to load. When you found out it was a bad one, you were distraught.
We had to go outside and play, actual invent it ourselves and cooperate in doing so. We had to 'race the streetlights' and be home before dark fell. Those who were too slow were eaten by witches. We often lost 24-30% of the kids on out street a week; up to 40% during holidays!
Adults could punish us for infractions; from minor to major. We could be caned at school, slapped on the rear by our parents, clipped on the ear by police officers and generally passed around as punching dolls by anyone over the age of 30. I was so traumatised that I spent a few years as a serial killer, drug addicted satanist devil murderer rapist but I'm better now.
Our - ahem - children's stories and shows were either filled with innuendo from evil perverted adults or eyeball melting horror which scarred us forever and turned me into a drug taking, puppy murdering, clown worshipping psychopath for a while. Again I'm fully recovered now. I've never recovered from Optimus Prime though...NEVER!
I should be dead or in jail, right? The FBI should have me on their most wanted list and I should be holding up grannies to pay for my drug habit. See that's what we learned as children, constructive extrenalisation of our problems. This internalising is so passive and irritating! OK, so we had no internet to complain on, this is true but we should've started it at least! Yes we all died or are either in jail or living under assumed identities in order to evade capture. It's true because nobody could have survived what we did, nobody! Here's my disagreement to all of that tract for you all. As this is all about writing and we are artists for the most part, let us focus on that most noble of arts; the motion picture or movie. Let's look at some nominally children's movies and examine them a touch eh? Let's also remember this is a light-hearted and humorous piece. No offense is actually meant it, if any is taken, there is a bag of nuts at the door and I encourage you to grab yourself a pair on the way out. Just remember you take, I give so your offense if your own. Nurture it!
My Top 5 Childhood Traumatic Deaths
5. The Skeksis, the Dark Crystal (1982); Anyone who is young enough to remember will recall the horror inducting zombie-vulture appearance of the Skeksis and their ruthless enslavement and horrific mild control of the peaceful pod people. To everyone of my generation the phrase hmmm-mm-hmmmmmm has a completely different meaning than anyone who was born in the 90's or 2000's could ever know. The death of the Skeksis emperor too...remember that?
Gave me bed-wetting nightmares for weeks this did. Youtube it and watch the whole scene, go on...A horrible zombie vulture thing slowly dissolving with death rattles and screams into dust....wow! This was for kids, if you recall. Remember too how the Skeksis stayed so - cough- young and vital too...they sucked out people's souls with the titular Dark Crystal and made soul-juice out of it, which they then drank and kept the mindless slaves around for entertainment...
3. The Witches, The Witches (1990); OK, so this one is later on but still, it comes from the dark mind of Roald Dahl so; well you know! In this example we had these...
Which were turned into this when defeated;
In revenge for having already done so to cute small boy #47 and his new friend. They were turned into mice which were then either killed or their death by cat was very obviously implied, I forget which now....
3. Watership Down (1978); This was the actual deepest horror-fest of the natural world translated into cartoon and child-oriented form. Basically an outbreak of rabies in a wild rabbit population due to extensive human influence. It was aimed at children I think, in order to "get 'em young" and make our youth aware of the impending environmental disasters we are still in denial about today; almost 40 years later. Seems we didn't learn a thing; we were too tormented by visions of bunny-pocalypse...
To be able to focus and, when all the horror was over and the bunnies saved, the hero, old Bright Eyes, pops it in a rather nasty way leaving us shocked and horrified!
Essentially almost everyone dies in the end and there is only a vague sense of hope set to a lovely and hauntingly beautiful track by Art Garfunkle. Also let's not forget Plague Dogs, my parents made the same mistake as many of letting me watch this because of it being by the same author as the bunny murder flick that it would be suitable for children. Dear lord it was not. The message was something we needed to know about, no denying that but it pulled no punches...
It was about the much fear consequences of experimenting on animals and what would happen should said animals escape... your man there bleeding from the eyes made me a little scared as you may well imagine! I'll tell ya what, you think an important message needs to be told, right? Tomorrow's decision-makers psychologically scarred into ensuring they NEVER see such horrors as these in the real world!
2. The Return to Oz (1985); Now there were some downright disturbing parts on the Judy Garland original if you look at it objectively but, compared to the 1985 'sequel' that was nothing! We had a depressed Dorothy taken to an institution for delusions and subjected to electroshock "therapy" to treat her for having sweet childhood dreams. Imaginings of all that stuff that happened to the ginger one and her dog in technicolor land all those years ago. She returned to Oz because of the trauma and found the magical land in ruins and people by not a band of joyful small people but by these...
The Wheelies, sounds innocent and childish right except that even with their masks on they were creepy but when they took them off....scary evil thinking robots of a steam-punk style thingy! Add widespread devastation and a complete absence of Lollypop Guilds and Munchkins and you realise this isn't a children's movie anymore. Now purists will say that this is what L. Frank Baum wrote and this is also true but, after dissolving witches, people being drugged in poppy fields and flying monkeys....oh....so they just hid it better back then! Still dissolving witches are nothing compared to this;
Yes, she's switching heads and, in fact, has quite a large collection to choose from. The heads which are not taking part in shoulder duty are still capable of conversing and they do, scaring the bejeebus out of both Dorothy and us childish watchers!
1. Transformers; The Movie (1986); We all remember the TV show, the exciting characters and socially aware storylines. We all came to love our favourite characters, both the noble Autobots anf the evil (though in the cartoons they were more annoyingly inept and slightly bad) Decepticons. We looked upon the coming movie with great excitement, it would be an event....it would represent the murder of everyone we loved! Yes! Goerge R. R. Martin must have been involved in writing this movie! It was carnage! It also contained a complete and unexpected trauma....
The death of Optimus Prime! Nooooo! After a heroic charge, rescuing the beleaguered AutoBot City from an overwhelming surprise attack he meets Megatron, Mr Evil Bot himself in single combat and wins, only to be mortally wounded in the process. He then, against all children's movie convention, does not miraculously recover. He dies after making a stirring and emotionally charged speech. The theatre was silent with the hush of hundreds of devastated children. Many even cried, I believe I cried. It wasn't over yet either. The Decepticons retreated and the bodies of the wounded were callously dumped into space. Later on they were resurrected by a dark and capricious god. They exacted vicious revenge on Optimus' successor by carrying out an ancient Greek army punishment on him, they quartered him between four 'horses', tearing him apart as he screamed. So traumatic was this scene I can find no trace of it anywhere except in storyboard form. I watched it though, I have it on VHS somewhere, they cut it out later. Also everyone remembers this callous scene right at the beginning;
"Such heroic nonsense!" he growls as he executes, yes EXECUTES a downed man for fun. Before, the Transformers fought but no-one had died before! This was right at the beginning of the movie too! Before they'd fight and a few would get injured or knocked out but now it began with complete and permanent death for what would be all of our favouriter toys almost. The Hasbro "Toycopalypse" murdered all of our friends to stirring 80's rock and pop ballad music with rousing guitar riffs and meaningful lyrics.
So, all of this on top of the previously mentioned facts, as well as all the other stuff which will circulate on the internet often, makes it hard to believe we made it here alive and undamaged doesn't it? I mean, this is why I have little time for all the silliness of today about the hardships today's generation face. I mean, we had movies like the ones I just spoke about as standard and we were mature enough to handle both the content and the message. We we're swept off to a therapist with PTSD after such movies as kids of today would be. We had a nightmare or two and we took the knocks. We played on the street and raced the streeetlights home. We didn't have all the stuff kids had today and we were alright. We were punished when we did wrong and we did OK. We suffered what people of today would call 'horrible abuse' but we are not sociopathic monsters. We're fine, we're adults and we are, for the most part, responsible ones.
Now I think things go in cycles because this generation overcompensated, wanting their children to have an better upbringing than they did but, in doing so, look at the society we have made. I used to come home from school BY MYSELF after having walked three miles. I then vacuumed, cleaned my dog's messes in the yard, washed dishes, took said dog for a walk, did my homework and then sat down to watch some TV. Then, about a half hour to 45 minutes before my mum was due home, I would make her dinner, nothing special, mostly toss in the oven stuff but the thought was there, right? Now I have kids for whom just washing dishes once a day is a horrible and gargantuan task. Kids who worship the throne of the computer and will spend all day on it if we let them. Gosh they'd stay on it all night if I let them. Me, the idea of me as a child being up after the adults just wasn't something I thought about! The things is, we created this didn't we? Now kids call the police on us if we raise a hand to them; cry child abuse for not having the lastest technology or clothing, want to make the rules and answer back...If there is no respect and discipline at home, how can we expect there to be any outside of it?
Now they enjoy spending all their time on the internet and computer, igonoring their schoolwork and complaining about all the horrors they have to endure, then writing sad poetry and song lyrics about it so they can mope on the internet with other "abuse victims". They don't actually realise how better they have it than we did. Now my generation was accused of this but we had respect and were grateful for what we had. Calloing the police on my parents or answering them back as if I were their equal were concepts alien to me. Suicide was unheard of, as was self-harm; it wasn't fashionable like it appears to be today. We were raised to "deal with it" when life did not go our way and because of that, we here today and we are wise (mostly).
We, who raced the streetlights home, not the next instant satisfaction generation...
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