Arthur

I chose to watch three episode of Arthur for my required 90 minutes of cartoons. It brought back so many childhood memories, but it was very weird watching it now and realizing how easily entertained I was. One half of an episode really struck me, (there are two stories per episode) it was about Brain, the smart nerd character that was training to be in a free throwing basketball contest to earn money for the library. He slipped on a banana peel and broke both his legs (very realistic) so he was bound to a wheel chair which made him declare the library was doomed in the upcoming contest. A young girl who is also in a wheel chair, but has been her whole life over heard Brain say this and reassured him that he could still win the contest with her help since she is on a wheel chair basketball team. Now this is where it starts to get interesting, she convinces Brain to give it a try by writing mathematical equations that prove he can still shoot a hoop from his wheel chair. I then thought of the connection that the two kids in the wheel chair are both considered nerds. The show went on and after they practiced shooting the young girl brought up the math once more on her notepad and that’s what they really bonded over, she even wrote one of the formulas down on his cast because Brain wanted to memorize it. What really shocked me was when the two of them decided to write down the Pythagorean theorem on Brains cast for decoration. To any elementary student hearing a fellow student using mathematical terms that aren’t introduced until high school would be considered geeky and nerdy. Introducing kids in wheel chairs to children who probably don’t see that very often, you would probably want to stay away from any idea of creating an outcast situation. By portraying the only two kids in a wheel chair as nerds to an audience that most likely aren’t used to kids in wheel chairs will make them assume that anyone they meet who are binned to a wheel chair is a nerd. I don’t think the producers thought this part through very well because we want to be teaching our kids of acceptance, not stereotyping.