I never thought I'd see the day that I was defending Disney, but here goes:
The "Controversy™" over the company's "Baby Einstein" video series is just all kinds of dumb. For the uninitiated, the Walt Disney Company has now agreed to begin offering full refunds to pitchfork-wielding parents who claim that the videos didn't in fact spontaneously make their kids into little geniuses. Admittedly, and what should be to the surprise of no one, Disney did over-hype the intellect-enhancing capabilities of the videos -- which feature lots of moving shapes, hallucinatory colors, slightly creepy puppets and, in a clever meta-twist, the faces of aptly enthralled rugrats, all set to classical music. But really, how stupid and lazy do you have to be as a parent to think that all it takes is sitting junior down in front of a TV for a few hours to transform him or her into a surefire egghead? Like these things are some magic bullet that both babysits and educates your toddler so you can spend your day either trying to get work done or slipping in and out of a Valium coma, whatever your predisposition might be.
Disney is a multi-national corporate behemoth -- of course they lie to you. If you think differently, maybe it's you who could've benefitted from a series of quasi-educational videos as a kid. Only an idiot would believe that because a product is called "Baby Einstein" it'll actually turn your child into one.
For the record, Inara loves the Baby Einstein videos and I have no problem with her watching them in moderation; in fact, I often watch them with her. She loves the music and the colors; I love the acid flashbacks the images occasionally trigger.
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DXM: Montana Uber Alles/11.20.07
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