Is "G.I. Joe" a good role model? I think NOT!
When I was a kid, Hasbro decided to create a doll that boys could play with. It was an action figure called G.I. Joe, actually created in 1964 -- the year I was born. This military doll with guns, grenades and whatever other weapons he could get into his Kung-Fu grip was an overnight success and like his female counterpart -- the voluptuos and materialistic Barbie, the focus on having a G.I. Joe was to get more clothes and items than your friends had. In 1969, Hasbro decided to change Joe's image (a wise move for the most part) from military to all around adventurer, but Joe always retained a little of that military image. Again, more clothes, more adventures, more vehicles to buy and overall it was an incrdible cash cow for my parents to keep me happy by buying more and more Joe stuff. Ironically I had to give a huge box of these items away when I moved and in recent years I could have made a fortune selling them in auctions on the internet. If I had only kept them.
Joe taught kids that war was ok. Joe taught kids to live life dangerously (as did James Bond 007 -- but that's another blog). Joe was thoroughly American, spreading that we are better than anybody else kind of patriotism that I now despise and detest.
An American hero? Not in my book. Joe made me believe all of the things as a kid that I usually protest against today.
What are your feelings? Have you ever heard of G.I. Joe? I have a picture of the classic Joe in my gallery. Take a look.
Views: 66
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Comment by Rory Penland on January 28, 2008 at 7:44am
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And that is the absolute truth my friend. But that's another blog - another time.
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Comment by Artndesign on January 28, 2008 at 12:39am -
WELL even though i fancy a great gary cooper movie...and find that westerns are even a better way to teach about honor even than GI Jose (been along time since joe has let his latin and african american brothers shoulder the burden of defending a free world)
i find the continued need for american's to bear ak 47's
uzi's et al a bit neandrethal...i have lived in Bogota,Harlem, Detroit, NYC among other places...and if there is one thing I am happiest about living in China..is their lack of need to stock their pantries with more guns than tomatoes. i have never owned a gun..never will and feel it is something from the past. The need to bear arms is a bit of an insecurity complex. Maybe Europe and China have developed better ways for their citizens to grow up than america...martial arts seem a much better way to self esteem than a dirty harry pistol.
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Don't get me started on gun control. If you like guns, move to the southern part of America and you can lube yours up every day and compare barrel size and muzzle velocity. Not for me anymore.
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Proper education is good. As you all know by now, "isms" (in my book) -- not so good.
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Ok. I concur that Marvel's Captain America was fighting against the Axis Nazi powers. His main villian was The Red Skull - a metaphor for Communism (red) and famine/death (uh... skull). True. So true. But I never liked Captain America. I also concede that Wonder Woman who I mentioned earlier also fought the Nazis early on, but she did not fight them for America or any other country. She was from the Utopian "Paradise Island" and was fighting what she felt was evil. Does anyone want to disagree with that? Was the German invasion "not a bad thing"? I am surprised whe some of my Chinese students claim Hitler was a great man. True, he wrote a very successful book (Mein Kamph) and true he rallied huge support for his party unlike we rarely seen before or since and in doing so he was - well... famous (infamous?). But is this not another danger of patriotism? If you follow a system so strongly that you are exterminating other members of the human race by the hundreds of thousands -- when your ideals cause you to destroy human lives -- not in defense -- but because you want to be superior to all others, is this not pure and simple EVIL?
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Comment by Artndesign on January 25, 2008 at 6:23pm
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it is usually hard to find intelligent repartee in these parts
but if i learn some chinese maybe there are many hilarious court jesters lurking...
lets work on a new microchip for G.I JOE...or replaceable memory chips...we could have them come in different tastes and flavours...A Rush L chip...a Ron Paul Chip...
an Al Sharpton G.I Joe...like going into a Stuckee's and buying a coffee cup with your name on it...just an aisle over you can get G.I. Joe reads the Walton's...G.I Joe does a cameo on "Weeds"season three..."
the possibilities are endless.
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You amuse me, Mr. Design!
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Comment by Artndesign on January 25, 2008 at 5:43pm
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i think they were booted out of the country during the last enactment of the ex-Patriot act.
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Speaking of Pandas... are Ling Ling and Yong Yong still in a zoo in the USA? Uhp! I am getting off the thread again. Uh... If they are still in the US, would that make them Chinese Panda Ex-Patriots?
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Comment by Artndesign on January 25, 2008 at 5:34pm
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ling ling chi...that was the panda that turned out to be working with mossad...and turned out not to be a panda at all..but actually a small person who was a stand-in for c-threepio
was not calling anyone a wannabee was just strumming on the banjoe of prose...now we are back at the original thread.
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