A2 - My childhood was an indoctrination!

As a Gen X parent, I already know how incredibly problematic my favorite teen movies are. There's a meme that I can't find right now (good job, old guy) about how hard it is was for us to show our favorite movies to our kids. We'd watch something we hadn't seen in decades (and thought was HILARIOUS) and realized just how insanely inappropriate they were. Rape? Yup (16 Candles, Revenge of the Nerds). Racism and sexism (almost all of them)? Totally. Ageism and body shaming? Everywhere. And this just scratches the surface.

What most of us didn't realize until much later in life is the overwhelming prevalence of racial, sexual, economic, body appearance, and gender stereotypes. As Christenson points out, it was (and IS) EVERYWHERE! I like to consider myself fairly aware of stereotypes, but I had no idea just how prevalent this "secret education" is, or, honestly, that it was really that prevalent. I remember showing my very progressive mother Weird Al's "Fat" (a spoof of Michael Jackson's "Bad"), and being shocked that she was offended by it and didn't find it as hilarious as my brother and I did. 

The sad thing is that this secret education still exists all over our media. S.C.W.A.A.M.P. is constantly reinforced. Sure, we see way more representation of different cultures and races, religions, genders and sexualities, etc., but the dominant ideology reinforces most (if not all) of the "standards". 

In addition, quite often a big deal is made when a non-SCWAAMP character is a lead character, the story is usually about their not falling into the dominant culture. We need way more presentation of "other" groups without their "difference" as a plot point. Frankly, I can't wait for the day when having primary characters that aren't cis/het/white/wealthy is prevalent. 

I love, and am simultaneously bothered, when the narrow-minded get all offended about representation. "Why do they have to have so many gays or black people in commercials now?" they question. Of course, it could be argued that this bigotry is a key factor on the rise of MAGA, as well as pushback against all things not SCWAAMP, so the "I love" is mainly just schadenfreude.