Hi, Iruka, I read your post with some interest, because it relates to a favorite topic of mine, the relation between psychology and art. While I can't offer anything on your specific reactions, I think I can help with your broader question about what it is you like about those cartoons.
I'd like to share this from Ayn Rand's book on art, THE ROMANTIC MANIFESTO, because of your post, and I think it is very applicable to many aspies. In the chapter "Art and Moral Treason," she shares an anecdote about an acquaintance who was living a dull existence. Nothing particularly bad happened, but nothing good, either. Just gray. He couldn't understand why. Then one day, he casually mentioned a movie that he had seen. "...he had seen a certain semi-Romantic movie and had felt an emotion he was unable to describe, particularly in response to a character....who was moved by a passionate, intransigent, dedicated vision of his work....it was the sense of seeing a different kind of universe-and his emotion had been exaltation. 'It was what I wanted life to be,' he said. His eyes were sparkling, his voice was eager, his face was alive and young-he was a man in love, for the span of that moment. Then, the gray lifelessness came back and he concluded in a dull tone of voice...'When I came out of the theater, I felt guilty about it-about having felt this." Why? "'Because I thought that what made me react this way to the [character], is the part of me that's wrong...it's the impractical element in me...LIfe is not like that."
WHY IS THIS MAN SO GRAY? A bit of setup here will reveal the answer in the last paragraph.
Ayn Rand presented her theory of art in a book called the Romantic Manifesto. In literature, she identifies two main schools of thought: Naturalism, which presents a view of the world as it is, and Romanticism, which presents the world "as it might or ought to be" (which she got from Aristotle.) Art, in essence, recreates reality according to our value judgements. As Rand defines it, it's "a catagory of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition." What you see in Romantic literature is people choosing for themselves their goals and the pursuit of those goals. More importantly, if the sense of life in the story is life affirming, you see those characters actually ACHIEVE those goals in this life, not in the afterlife.
Back to your cartoons....some people say that cartoons are not literature, or good, or even art. But Rand would argue. While she made a distinction between serious and popular literature, she recognized the need for such popular literature, even among "intellectuals": "Popular fiction does not raise or answer abstract questions; it assumes that man knows what he needs to know in order to live, and it proceeds to show his adventures in living." She adds: "Detective, adventure, science-fiction novels and Westerns belong, for the most part, to the category of popular fiction."
So coming back to your cartoons, which are very fantasy oriented. Sometimes we "aspies" are called things like "airhead," "space cadet," and treated like aliens on the "wrong planet." Rand was aware of this phenomenon, though not in the austistic spectrum. But she identified a major flaw in the thinking of those who would intimidate a child with those claims, which create the kind of gray character in the beginning of this post. Rand continues in "Art and Moral Treason" about why people abandon their values, that it usually begins with external opposition to a child's values. You talk of Pokemon, Xmen, etc., which feature amazing characters and creatures in pursuit of some goal. The "grownups" will often tell a child that they shouldn't watch these things, because of the fantasy elements. "It is easy to convince a child, and particularly an adolescent, that his desire to emulate Buck Rogers is ridiculous: he knows that it isn't exactly Buch Rogers he has in mind and yet, it IS..."
Rand mocks those adults who do this: "They arrest his value development on a primitive level, they convince him that to be like Buck Rogers mens to wear a space helmet and blast armies of martians...and he'd better give up such notions if he ever expects to make a respectable living. And they finish him off with such arguments as : "Buck Rogers? HAH! Never gets a cold in the head. And you had one last week, so don't go thinking that you're better than the rest of us!"
So you see what you get from your cartoons, people in action, living life. It's not about claws and eyebeams, or Pikachu or Squirtle, but what they represent: a symbolic, larger than life pursuit of what you want life to feel like. And you see the objection you'll get from others. They'll tell you it's wrong, it's stupid. That's because they've betrayed their own values already, and want you to be "like them," because every minute you live your life to its fullest is a reminder to them of their own treason. Hold on to that. Don't be grey. Don't let it go.
13 Aug 2007, 4:06 am
), The Simpsons.. And no matter what Ive found Stargate SG1 to always lighten my mood, its not really much of a humerous show at all, but its so amazing and the imagination put into it is so brilliant that it just facinates me. Also Comedy Central does the trick sometimes, depending on what you watch. Not sure if all this helps but usually it does when you know someone can relate to you : )
