On Watching Feminist Television With Your Kids

Are your children tired of reading? Are you?  In this moment of what my friend and colleague Sammi King calls “multiplying catastrophes,” I seem to be able to bring myself to read less than usual.  My feelings seem to have feelings behind feelings behind feelings.  I feel like 10-year old Bea in The List of Things That Will Not Change.  Bea has anxiety and is seeing a therapist about how anxiety makes her hate a lot of things.  (I hear you Bea, I seem to hate a lot of things too: emptying the car, all news, and the stupid timers I set to limit my children's screen time, which I secretly change so that I don't have to go back to parenting just yet.  "That 5 minutes felt like an hour honey? Wow! That's so great! Well, that's because it was!")

Bea hates all things that she finds scary.  The year she turns eight, she hates a speed boat ride that she had to take at her friend Ben's birthday party.  During the entire ride, Bea stayed committing to yelling: "I don't like this!" at 30 second intervals until the boat had come to stop:

"You didn't like the boat ride, huh?" Mom asked me on the way to the subway.  She had her hand on my shoulder.

"I hated it," I said.

[My therapist] Miriam says that, a lot of the time, behind the feeling, "I hate this" are other feelings.  Like maybe "I'm afraid of this" is hiding behind "I hate this."  And maybe hiding behind "I'm afraid of this" is "I don't know what's going to happen next" or "I don't know if I can do this."  There are a lot of feelings behind feelings.

When Miriam first told me about that, I got a picture in my mind's eye of a girl standing very still, with someone hiding behind her, and someone else hiding behind her.  And they're all standing perfectly straight so that no one can tell how many people are actually there.  Sometimes I feel exactly like that.  Like I'm a bunch of different Beas, all lined up to look like one."

-excerpt from The List of Things That Will Not Change, by Rebecca Stead

Listening to this as an audio book in the car while I drove her to the park, a kid-friend of mine said to me: "doesn't everyone know that? That there are feelings behind feelings?"  "No," I said simply, thinking that there are a lot of adult men who think they are being rational when they are acting enraged and feeling terrified.

Rather than optimistic at how much kids know, I felt a great wearyness.  At the feeling behind the feeling behind the feeling behind the feeling.  And that wearyness led to my watching hours of TV.  

If this is you, or if you are feeling tired of what one of my sons has called “the pressure coconut of badness,” here are some other forms of media for you to consume. (with thanks to Dr. Shanta Varma for her suggestion I choose this topic).
 

 Dead End: Paranormal Park
*available on Netflix

This brilliant, intersectional work of genius is in a league of its own.  Described succinctly by one of my sons as “good, because there’s lots of monsters and it’s not as boring as most of the shows my mom make me watch”, Dead End: Paranormal Park is funny and joyful and beautiful and uplifting.  Based on the graphic novel series Deadendia, the most beautiful contribution of this TV series to me is that it definitively refutes the racist notion that racialized and/or Muslim communities are more homophobic than their white counterparts.  Instead, it features a beautiful connection between Norma, the South Asian girl heroine who also has ASD and Badyah, the girl who is her courageous and smart friend/crush.  Alongside Norma's protagonist is a trans boy named Barney who has been made to feel unwelcome at home, as his parents refused to protect from his cruel and transphobic grandparent Grammy Grams.  At one point, Barney’s parents invite him home, and he refuses to come “until they make home feel like one.”

To me, my favourite part of this series that it features a neurodivergent girl as its heroine, and she just honestly reminds me so much of my beloved partner.  When monsters are preparing to eat her and her fellow protagonist, she’s too busy info-dumping about her special interest to her pal Barney to really feel afraid.  I can’t even tell you how much this reminds me of a time my wife and I were walking along a dark street and some scary group of boys called us rug munchers.  Not wanting to be disturbed from her descriptions of Seinfeld dialogue, my partner seamlessly called out “Fuck off” and refused to be rushed since she was busy trying to show me the funny dance Elaine had done.
 
Whether it speaks to you about the neurodivergent people in your life, you love monsters, horror and camp, or you just want to watch something with your child that you will both like, Dead End: Paranormal Park is it.

Nimona
*available on Netflix

Based on the graphic novel of the same name, this film does so many things well – tortured queer male love between a working class outsider and a racialized prince of the realm, shapeshifting, strong girl heroines – but my personal favourite contribution of Nimona is its absolute commitment to the depiction of justified girl rage.  Nimona is a shapeshifter, and she is MAD.  She is interested in violence, in bloodshed, and in murder – and the film skillfully represents this fascination while being clear that she is not interested in doing harm.  Nimona has Bea's “feeling behind the feeling” big-time.  Her rage is covering up her grief and loneliness at being cast out for being a shapeshifter.  One of my favourite moments of life was watching the reaction of my then 6-year old niece: as Nimona bared her shark teeth and prepared for battle, this girl said to me: “I never get tired of watching her get mad.  Even if she’s sad underneath.”  Wow, ok, she knows more at 6 than I knew at 40.  For complex emotional scaffolding, the beauty of queer love, and some hilarious dudebro takedowns, do not miss Nimona.

The Owl House
*available on Disney+

Somehow I missed this witch-stravaganza until it was already over.  The amazing thing about this show to me is that the main character, Luz Noceda, a Latinx grrl-power kind of girl whose has family from Colombia, is being raised by a single foster mom working class witch who needs to take lots of odd jobs to make money on the side.  I also love that the witch has to take a potion so she doesn’t turn into a monster – I feel like I am like that too – except sadly they don’t make a potion that serves as a good antidote to modern life – which makes me and everyone I know more irritable than they would like with their children.

Oh life.  It's hard, it's hard, and it's so magnificent too.  To me, art makes life so much more meaningful and bearable and beautiful.  I was watching one of these shows with my sons and I felt overcome by the moment - hearing my son laugh - enjoying media together - the slowly darkening room.  I took his hand in that moment and was feeling so close.  "Too much, too much mom," he said to me irritatedly.  "I'm WATCHING!"  And that totally regular experience - annoying my child while watching something we both like - was pretty sublime.

I have more workshops coming up on helping caregivers to help your children with their big feelings if this interests you or anyone you know.  Hop on to www.picturebookstogrow.com if so.

Until soon,