What We Need; March 5 2025

I am seriously struggling to find a topic to write about today. One that isn’t full of rage, and exhaustion, and disgust, and incredulity. I know I don’t always manage, but I try to make this blog a positive space. Something that makes me reflect on things when they’re hard, try to find the good inside.

Holy hell are politics ever making that difficult.

I think what I’m going to talk about is my kid’s current obsession – the Barbie movie with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, because that’s been both a delight and quite funny to me.

We plan on going to Toronto Comic-con next week, where my daughter will be dressing up as Barbie. She’s completely fixated, which really struck me when we first watched it. I expected the jokes, the themes, to all go over her head.

And they do. Thank god for that.

But! That hasn’t stopped her from enjoying it and wanting it played on repeat. Now, part of it is definitely that Margot Robbie is pretty, and my daughter loves nothing more than watching pretty women do things. It just has me thinking about ‘age appropriate’ content though, and how media these days has worked harder to include parents in their kids’ spaces.

She makes fun of me frequently for crying at movies aimed at children, for example. I was a wreck during ‘Inside Out 2’, I sobbed at ‘Wild Robot’, I will put work aside to watch ‘Bluey’ from the corner of my eye. It’s just nice that this has been the evolution, I think? That the creators of kid-friendly content recognize how much easier it is to spend time watching stuff with their kids when the themes resonate with us.

(Disclaimer here. Spending time with my kid also involves, you know, other things. Usually games. I’m not a great imagination-game player – it gets too dark too fast – but sit me in front of a board game and I’m good to go.)

To contrast, one of the shows my kid is on a kick with is ‘Good Luck Charlie’, which isn’t as current. And wow is it ever parent-unfriendly (at least, to me). It made me realize how much of sitcom humour is actually just characters – who are often total strangers to each other! – being snippy and mean. The ‘comedy’ of situational comedy comes from exaggerated characters making fun of each other’s flanderizations. It all seems so mean-spirited.

But that was a kid’s show that endeavoured to appeal to parents, too, and I think it falls flat.

The best written shows are the ones with heart. The ones that are about kindness, at their core – kindness to others, kindness to ourselves.

And we really need that right now.