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We cannot, said Pritish Nandy with all due respect to the court, have an entire nation sitting in front of the TV watching Cartoon Network. Oh. Hmm… Er… May I ask why? Cartoon Network is not bad. Not all that bad anyway. As Dumbledore would put it, “There are worse things.”

Mr. Nandy was talking about the telecast of U and U/A cetificate movies being banned from Mumbai television. There must be a lot of people who would have reason to agree with this decree. I do not doubt their reasons. What with all the uncomfortable groping around for the remote control when the actors suddenly decide to do what they shouldn’t do in front of your grandmother. I understand. I really do.

But coming back to my original rant: Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network is not bad. The goodie, simple, cute image that many have of television animation, lends itself to patently unjustifiable comparisons. As I said, Cartoon Network doesn’t come anywhere close to Animax, when it comes to ‘adult’, and therefore, in India, ‘bannable’ programming. Most of the ‘adult’ jokes would not make any sense to the average school-going animation fan. That is not the point.

I would like to see a parent or two sit with the kids one day and watch Animax and get an idea of how BLIND we are about the nature of family-friendly TV despite all our attempts to keep the innocence.

The way things are going however, I won’t be surprised if this boils down to a ‘Japanese culture is destroying Indian culture’ thing. Life is beautiful!

Posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 at 5:37 pm and filed under learning, news.

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