Rare News Desk
Tracy Van Slyke, who seems like the worst person to run into at a party, recently wrote a piece for the Guardian about why Thomas the Tank Engine is pretty much the most terrible thing to happen to children’s television.
Videos by Rare
Here are five reasons why anyone with a stick up their ass shouldn’t watch this seemingly harmless kid’s show.
1. It’s racistÂ
For the record, all the “villains” on Thomas and Friends are the dirty diesel engines. I’d like to think there was a good environmental message in there, but when the good engines pump out white smoke and the bad engines pump out black smoke – and they are all pumping out smoke – it’s not hard to make the leap into the race territory.
2. It’s sexist
And that’s not even to get started on the female trains. Well, actually it’s hard to get started on them, because they barely exist. Take a quick scan of the more than 100 trains and characters in the Thomas universe– it spans multiple books, toys and continents in addition to a TV show – and you can quickly count on two hands the number of lady trains that populate is Isle of Sodor. Emily – the only lady train to get name checked in the opening credits and the only one who regularly hangs out with the boy trains – is said to “know her stuff.” That’s the sole description of her personality. What does that even mean?
Last year, the British Labour shadow Transportation Secretary even called out Thomas for its lack of females, saying that the franchise setting a bad example for girl wannabe train engineers everywhere.
 3. It’s classist
For one, these trains perform tasks dictated by their imperious, little white boss, Sir Topham Hatt (also known as The Fat Controller), whose attire of a top hat, tuxedo and big round belly is just a little too obvious. Basically, he’s the Monopoly dictator of their funky little island. Hatt orders the trains to do everything from hauling freight to carrying passengers to running whatever random errand he wants done, whenever he wants it done – regardless of their pre-existing schedules.
Inevitably, the trains get in a fight with or pick on one another (or generally mess up whatever job they are supposed to be doing) until Hatt has to scold one of them about being a “really useful engine”, because their sole utility in life is their ability to satisfy his whims. Yeah, because I want to teach my kid to admire a controlling autocrat.
4. It’s morally corrupt
It revolved around James, a red engine who is described in the opening credits as “vain but lots of fun.” (Wait, it’s OK to be vain if you can show others a good time occasionally? Great – that’s going in my Parenting 101 book.)
5. It has a terrible theme song
And really, that theme song makes me scream. Thomas can just go bust my buffers.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnrwM7vFn_U&w=640&h=480]
Ok, well Tracy does have a point there.
