Thomas the Imperialist Tank Engine

[Firky]

I watched an episode the other day and notcied there was a bit of a theme going on, all the passenger carriages are ditzy little women, the diesel engines are gruff PFCW and Thomas is well Guardian with a little C. So with this in mind I googled it and noticed I was not alone in this thought.

What follows is a damming insight into the world of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.

There is something rotten on the Island of Sodor, home to Thomas the Tank Engine. Viewers won't find guns, violence, or anything even approaching a double-entendre. There's none of the blatant racism of early Disney Song of the South or religion delivered through talking produce, as in Veggie Tales. Yet something about Thomas and Friends gives liberal parents the creeps.

For example: In 2009, academic Shauna Wilton wrote that Thomas carried a "conservative political ideology." Her report was derided as whimsy-hating "political correctness" by conservative media outlets. But wait: Thomas espouses top-down leadership, is male-dominated, punishes dissent, and is uninterested in the mushy sensitivity of its PBS counterparts. (Thomas and his "friends" often "tease" like this: " 'Wake up lazy bones! Do some hard work for a change!") Its innate conservatism is as obvious as the liberalism of cooperative, solar-panel-building Bob the Builderand his band of hippie hammer-lovers. Given charges that Thomas is anti - Semitic and that Sodor is a fascist paradise, Wilton's assessment is mild. Obviously, it's foolish to claim that Thomas is a fascist. He and his friends are clearly imperialists.

Continued...

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/07/thomas_the_imperialist_tank_engine.2.html#

 

[equationgirl]

{{{my nephews who love thomas}}}

 

[8115]

Chuggington is better. Fairly right on too I think.

 

[Stigmata]

I like the one where a crate of treacle falls on Percy and all the hay sticks to him

 

[Firky]

I like the one where an engine won't come out of a tunnel because it is raining. As punishment they brick up the tunnel and effectively bury him alive.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

having said that, I have seen the management style of Sir Topham Hatt (the fat controller) commented on positively in a transport professionals' journal.

His management style involved getting out and about, knowing the staff (and the engines) by name and dealing with things. Not having multiple layers of corporate management.

Ivor the Engine, however managed to be mildly subversive, including sabotaging a fox hunt (hiding a fox in Mrs Porty's hat box)

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Chuggington is better. Fairly right on too I think.

Chuggington is shit.

Totally impractical and unrealistic track formations for starters. Never mind the fact that one of the characters is clearly based on a Gresley A4 pacific yet has no tender.

 

[DotCommunist]

Heres the episode where he scabs when Gordon goes on strike:


http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Trouble_in_the_Shed

 

[imposs1904]

I think the American version of Thomas used to be voiced by the late George Carlin.

 

[Firky]

Heres the episode where he scabs when Gordon goes on strike:


http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Trouble_in_the_Shed

What a cunt

 

[Firky]

Essentially the steam engines represent the middle class who are subservient to the upper class as represented by the fat controller (who is corpulent, representing wealth and luxury). Their only purpose is to serve him and be loved by him. If not, they are potential scrap. The trucks represent the Proletariat or the working class who have to be kept under control in case of some kind of Marxist insurrection, in which the ‘natural’ order of the island would be disturbed.

The trucks are constantly trying to create disorder but are bullied violently into submission by the engines, all with the blessing of the fat controller. Women are either docile subservient creatures who follow their men dutifully around or are represented as diesels, who threaten to overthrow the steam engines, possibly a nod to the feminist movements challenge to the patriarchal order. A

As for blacks, they are represented solely in the evil Diesel who intends to overthrow the Steam Engines, perhaps a nod to West Indian immigration into the UK mid 20th century. Finally, the program is obviously some kind of nostalgic reflection on a ‘lost’ Britain where everyone, in a class based society, knew their place. In this show all is well and peaceful when everything is in its correct place (unless of course you don’t fit in, in which case, like the trucks, you are brutalised).

http://soundandmind.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/the-hidden-sub-text-of-thomas-the-tank-engine/

 

[quimcunx]

Chuggington is shit.

Totally impractical and unrealistic track formations for starters. Never mind the fact that one of the characters is clearly based on a Gresley A4 pacific yet has no tender.

are you trying to say that conservatives do a better job of running the railways?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

are you trying to say that conservatives do a better job of running the railways?

No, I'm saying that Chuggington is shit.

 

[quimcunx]

Too late. I've got your number, boyo.

Ivor was best. Can't be doing with these johnny come lately train cartoons.

 

[weepiper]

No, I'm saying that Chuggington is shit.

It is. Dreadful little capitalist lackeys, learning how to be good little lickspittles. Give me Ivor the Engine any day.

 

[Firky]

"Come on Ivor, up the hill."


But trains don't go up hills you brutal bastard

 

[ddraig]

Heres the episode where he scabs when Gordon goes on strike:


http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Trouble_in_the_Shed

The Fat Controller asks Edward to get Percy acquainted with the yard and the pair set off for work. Edward is very impressed by his hard work and wheeshing - something he learned in the workshop so as to be heard. The Fat Controller then decides to send for Thomas and calls all three engines to the yard for an announcement. He tells them that he has shut-up the big engines in the shed until they learn to behave and that, in Gordon, Henry, and James' absence, the two tank engines and Edward will run the railway.
Edward and Thomas are put in charge of the main line, while Percy takes care of the branch line and Annie and Clarabel. While there are fewer trains, the passengers understood that the three engines were doing their best to keep the railway running and that the big engines were in the middle of learning a lesson.

In the sheds, Gordon, James, and Henry were cold, lonely, and miserable as they realised just how silly they were.

 

[frogwoman]

omg

 

[legz]

Its thanks to Thomas and friends that all the little preserved lines up and down the UK get a regular source of income, and in some cases stay afloat.

 

[DotCommunist]

but at what price, legz, at what price!

 

[legz]

at a price I can cope with!

When Mum And Dad take their little cherubs to see Thomas trundle up and down a little branch line somewhere, its probably that lines biggest payday of the year. For the sake of painting a little industrial tank blue and putting a smily face on the front, it makes it that little more possible for the rest of us to enjoy that same little branch line with a black 5 dragging a couple of GWR or LNER compartment coaches, and maybe that line expanding over time, or running more regularly

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I watched an episode the other day and notcied there was a bit of a theme going on, all the passenger carriages are ditzy little women, the diesel engines are gruff PFCW and Thomas is well Guardian with a little C. So with this in mind I googled it and noticed I was not alone in this thought.

What follows is a damming insight into the world of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.





Continued...

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/07/thomas_the_imperialist_tank_engine.2.html#

Thomas was written by the Rev. Awdrey in the 40s. It's not surprising that he come across as a bit of a conservative. His father was a vicar.

 

[ymu]

Heres the episode where he scabs when Gordon goes on strike:


http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Trouble_in_the_Shed

Gordon the Big Engine is named after my Dad. Awdrey lived near by when he was growing up.

 

[19sixtysix]

All the boy engines live together in a big shed.

 

[DotCommunist]

omg

No more heroes

I liked He-Man. He just punched problems into oblivion, and with his trusty Man at arms secured peace throughout eternia. Then some bastard pointed out the homoerotic subtext to the TV movie 'Masters of the Universe'


I've got no problem with what people do with their bits, but He-Man was sacred, it was my favourite cartoon from a time of innocence.


Next I'll be hearing that Lion-0 had a secret pact with mum-rah to distribute illegal nose powders

 

[cesare]

Essentially the steam engines represent the middle class who are subservient to the upper class as represented by the fat controller (who is corpulent, representing wealth and luxury). Their only purpose is to serve him and be loved by him. If not, they are potential scrap. The trucks represent the Proletariat or the working class who have to be kept under control in case of some kind of Marxist insurrection, in which the ‘natural’ order of the island would be disturbed.

The trucks are constantly trying to create disorder but are bullied violently into submission by the engines, all with the blessing of the fat controller. Women are either docile subservient creatures who follow their men dutifully around or are represented as diesels, who threaten to overthrow the steam engines, possibly a nod to the feminist movements challenge to the patriarchal order. A

As for blacks, they are represented solely in the evil Diesel who intends to overthrow the Steam Engines, perhaps a nod to West Indian immigration into the UK mid 20th century. Finally, the program is obviously some kind of nostalgic reflection on a ‘lost’ Britain where everyone, in a class based society, knew their place. In this show all is well and peaceful when everything is in its correct place (unless of course you don’t fit in, in which case, like the trucks, you are brutalised).

http://soundandmind.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/the-hidden-sub-text-of-thomas-the-tank-engine/

Sounds like revol analysing the LOTR

 

[Firky]

Sounds like revol analysing the LOTR

Belfast's Revolutionary Owl

Revol's great, one of my favourite people off here.

 

[geminisnake]

I like the one where an engine won't come out of a tunnel because it is raining. As punishment they brick up the tunnel and effectively bury him alive.

Think that would have been James(red) or Gordon(blue) because they didn't want the rain to spoil their shiny polish Son is 23 now, can you tell what he watched a lot of??
It was the first thing he ever sat down to watch, for me TtTE was wonderful! He SAT DOWN!!!!! He stopped being manic. I didn't care about the inferences.

 

[19sixtysix]

Watch Thomas. Bah the youth of today. I had a 45 record of Johny Morris reading James and the Bootlace and a book of thomas stories.

 

[StoneRoad]

Think that would have been James(red) or Gordon(blue) because they didn't want the rain to spoil their shiny polish Son is 23 now, can you tell what he watched a lot of??
It was the first thing he ever sat down to watch, for me TtTE was wonderful! He SAT DOWN!!!!! He stopped being manic. I didn't care about the inferences.

Nope, it was 'enry (green) wot got bricked into the tunnel...
but Sir T Hatt did let him out again, eventually.
.../mis-spent youth.
Rev Awdrey plus son (Chris) were products of their time, and Thomas (etc) reflect that.

But holding events themed around "Thomas" are not the money makers that they used to be, nor are any of the galas / specials at most heritage/preserved railways. Unfortunately. So, If you do go to such things, please spend some (extra) money with the hosting organisation......

Ivor is quite good, but does anyone else remember "Sammy the shunter" ?