Disturbing Media that left an Impact
Guest Reports!This is going to be rather subjective, and will include the recollections of different people about kind of the same general things. Childhood media is fascinating, because media (which includes toys and activities, not just print or AV) aimed at children in particular, the 5-12 age group, is very... Different than media aimed at other age groups.
Generally I don't have much to say about things aimed at infants and toddlers. They tend to be pastel or primary colors and depict mundane objects, with a very rounded and minimalistic art style. Events discussed are usually going to the store or a picnic, or taking a bath or something. People depicted are usually drawn in a "one size fits all" fashion. A child character might have toy dinosaurs and posters of outer space crap on his walls, and he'll think these things are awesome, but they won't be framed in the story as being "real". If a character "goes to" "outer space" or "dinosaur volcano land", it'll be some dream or imagined sequenced framed in the main story.
Media aimed at the 5-12 age range is where all the heavy-handed programming is. This is the target demographic they push outer space, aliens, freaky cool monsters, robots, concepts of particular interest, social programming, and the like on.
Media aimed at the age 24-35 group is often "har har butts fart boobs sex fart blood gore hahahaha", which is... a highly ponderable thing in itself. I find that fascinating in its own little way. Imagine if Caillou or PBS Arthur went all "huh huh boobs ass blood guts huh huh huh". The irony is, you ever looked at an 8yo's notebook? They draw tanks and red splatters and f-bombs. They do that. The discrepancy between media aimed at children, and what children privately make for themselves, is fascinating, but a very very delicate topic, because... well... uhhh, who makes things that appeal to children? People who want to get close to children. Get my drift.
And I won't really bother with the stuff aimed at the senior crowd. It's "argh politics, grr dumb kids, look at these watches. Here's an ad for diapers, and 90% of the whole magazine is ads for prescription drugs that aren't really explained, but if you look them up, it's nightmare toilet stuff".
Oh man, this is going to be several pages, isn't it?