Hoo-boy... leave it to paranoid, screwy-brained "progressives" to out a train engine in a childrens' show for perceived sexism as well as lack of mandatory hard-leftwing political correctness-infused storylines, whilst ignoring all those shows out there these days containing all the corruption of hard-leftwing political correctness propaganda.
Dr Wilton said the show conveyed a number of positive political values such as tolerance, listening, communicating with others and contributing to the community.
"It also represents a conservative political ideology that punishes individual initiative, opposes critique and change, and relegates females to supportive roles," she said.
Dr Wilton analysed 23 episodes of the model train-based series, which is shown in 130 countries. She said there were storylines in several episodes that divided the characters into different social classes and punished those who tried to gain individual power.
"Any change is seen as disrupting the natural order of things," she said.
Ah. She found a kiddy show that refuses to jump onto the Obammunist Bandwagon. Therefore she feels she must expose this horrible refusenik, making up a bunch of accusations to hurl as if dung.
WTF does she mean by "punishing individual initiative"? I'm afraid that without specific examples from the episodes, this claim is meaningless. Besides, isn't that what "progressivism" does? Conservatism is all about individual initiative, so to accuse, in one breath, Thomas the Tank Engine of being both "conservative" and "punishing individual initiative" is rather bizarre and does require the accuser to painstakingly make the case, by showing us specific examples so we can judge for ourselves.
Besides, "progressivism" punishes individual initiative, most frequently by taxing the hell out of it and regulating it to the point that people quit doing the whole thing out of frustration!
I've never watched the show, but I betcha that the university lady may very well have mistaken an emphasis on teamwork as "punishing individual initiative". Wouldn't surprise me.
"Relegates females to support roles"? Oh, dear... what's next, the university lady's going to criticize Thomas for not having enough black engines, gay/lesbian/bi/tranny engines and Muslim engines in higher-level positions in the organization? Sheesh! Dammit, lady, it's just a kiddy show, for gosh darn sakes! We're not talking about real life! Get a life, eh!
As for the university lady's apparent obsession with "change" and her perception that Thomas the Tank Engine is change-phobic, well, I'd suggest she's been swigging the Obammunist-Ade from her dirty mug as she professes to her classes of slack-jawed youth...
Yep. Political correctness extremism running amok. And now we know what those universities are doing with our tax dollars: Investigating and outing kiddy shows for infractions of hard-left idelogical dogmae.
Kind of reminds me when Tinky Winky and SpongeBob Squarepants were outed as supposedly being homosexual. And the old guy, (whassisname, "Voldemort"?), on Harry Potter, same thing. Sheesh! They're not even real, fofecksake!
I don't think we need to worry as much about kiddy shows as we need to look more closely at REAL LIFE. Of course, if kiddy shows go too far, somebody ought to say something. If the People find a particular show to be extremely objectionable, such as when Sesame Street took a clear, obviously partisan, and too close to reality, aim at the most popular news network, FOX News, as supposedly being "trashy", then they can inundate the producers and advertisers with their opinions, thus bringing appropriate consequences upon the offending producers.
Kind of like the following, ain't it: