It's also made me more aware of (and ambivalent about) the questionable quality (and, yes, morality) of some of the shows i otherwise unreservedly love. Naturally, i'm happy to witness Roy's enthusiasm for the old 60s Spider-Man cartoon. But there's no getting around the fact that — beyond the infamously crap animation and inane scripts — Spidey often comes across as ... just a bit of a thug, really.
What i remember from growing up is mostly how cool it was to watch him swing above the streets of Manhattan and make that weird squirty web-shooter sound. And of course the song.
What i notice most now, watching Roy watch the show, is how basically Spidey just about always saves the day with a resounding right-hook. Ok, fine. But it's not helping with our efforts to socialize him in a non-smacking-everyone kind of way.
But the point of this post is actually an inspiring story — also (partially) from the house of ideas. A few days ago, a story broke about a 4-year-old kid in New Hampshire named Anthony Smith who was born without a right ear, and only partial hearing in his left. Stories of things like that make my heart ache already, just thinking of the basic existential injustice of it all. But Anthony's mom is a pretty heroic advocate for her son, and when he wanted to stop wearing his hearing aid — which vastly improved his ability to interact with others — she sprang into action.
She contacted Marvel. The result is a new icon. A columnist at CNET says: "I defy you not to be moved by this."
"Fight bad guys and help people." Yup. Maybe not always in that order, but it sure sounds good to me.
Oh, by the way, the best pun i've heard in quite a while has got to be: "The vending machine doesn't take Spider-Sense."
In this world of (mostly) mean and obscene spider-memes, long live The Blue Ear!
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