asylums

Television stations in the US are required by FCC regulations to have a minimum of three hours a week of "educational programming" aimed at children. This actually began in the 90s, and initially television stations met the requirements by having little life lessons tacked on to their various cartoons. Some of you may recall very peppy "Sailor Moon Says!" segments, or "Knowing is half the battle!" from G.I. Joe. Other "edutainment" shows baked the lesson right into the text, such as Captain Planet and the Planeteers (pollution is bad, environment is good, go Captain Planet!) and Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? (geography and fighting crime!). More recently, FCC regulations have tightened up a bit, and shows need to do a bit more than say "Drugs are bad, m’kay?" to quality for an E/I rating, but we still have a good decade of important "educational" cartoon shows to look at and consider the life lessons we're to learn!

So, what can watching cartoons teach us about people who are crazy? Oh, lots of fun things!

This post discusses abuse in asylums, including sexual assault. It discusses the history of lobotomies and describes (briefly) the procedure. It also contains spoilers for the movie Sucker Punch.

I went to see Sucker Punch expecting a light piece of fluff that involved conventionally attractive young women with swords fighting a dragon. It's a movie where one of the lines highlighted in the trailer is "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." I was prepared for a light popcorn-type film and showed up for a midnight screening with one of my friends, two martinis to the wind.

I was really not expecting a film that laid out how abusive asylums and long-term care centers can be—and often are. I was not expecting a film that laid out how asylums could be used to silence uppity women. And I was really not prepared for a film that showed bluntly and horrifyingly what lobotomies involved and how they completely destroyed people's personalities.