They’re idiots.
Slack-jawed, dull-eyed, tuned-out, self-absorbed, mouth-breathing, addle-brained idiots. (Like all the hyphenated compound insults?)
They’re disengaged, disinterested, incompetent, petty… well, I think you get the idea.
And who or what, exactly has aroused the fire of my ire this day? you ask. The answer is simple: adults. To be more specific (and more fairly), most adults in any storyline where children are the protagonists.
Let me back up a little. My wife and I have recently been rewatching the first four seasons of Stranger Things in preparation for the imminent arrival of the fifth.
(This has been necessitated by the fact that entirely too many modern television series take roughly 50 years between truncated seasons --- consisting of a paltry six to ten episodes --- thereby completely destroying for viewers any sense of continuity whatsoever. Okay, perhaps I exaggerate a trifle, but it’s damned annoying, especially in a series like Stranger Things, starring young children… whom all adults, both intelligent and otherwise, know age at supernormal rates. According to Wikipedia, the Stranger Things season dates are as follows:
Season Set During Released on TV
1 November 1983 July 2016
2 October 1984 October 2017
3 July 1985 July 2019
4 March 1986 May 2022
5 Autumn 1987 November 2025
Now, I realize season 4 was likely delayed by Covid… but these kids, who were 13ish when season 1 debuted, are supposed to be 17ish by the time of season 5… and as anyone who’s seen recent pictures of Finn Wolfhard or Millie Bobbie Brown will attest, that’s just straining the concept of the willing suspension of disbelief a little too much, in my humble opinion. Anyway. This isn’t even my main point of contention for today, but you’re here, so you get to listen to my cantankerous rant.)
Watching Stranger Things, my persnickety little writer’s mind was constantly struck, yet again, by how so many of the adults in the tale are… well, idiots, as I stated at the beginning. Not all, no, but most of them. In particular, the kids’ parents range from totally clueless about their children’s lives and activities (how can so many parents in one locale be so completely incompetent at parenting? Is it something in the water?) to ineffectually hysterical (granted, one parent --- Joyce --- is certainly justified in being hysterical about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune the show’s writers keep hurling at her poor kid, especially during the first season). My parents certainly weren’t like that… and neither were my wife and I. (At least, I don’t think so. My kids might think differently.)
I’m not picking just on Stranger Things, either. I remember thinking much the same thing when I first saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, lo these many years ago… and my opinion hasn’t changed over the decades. Now, I realize Ferris is a comedy, and much of the rather heavy-handed, juvenile humour relies on Ferris outwitting all the moronic adults around him, but… come on. Is there no one over the age of 18 in this film who can’t see behind the --- well, frankly manipulative --- behaviour Ferris manifests? (His sister can, but she’s not over 18.) Perhaps that was part of the problem about Ferris, at least for me: I just didn’t like him very much. In fact, I found much of his behaviour, particularly towards his best friend, the hypochondriac Cameron, to be borderline sociopathic.
And in a more literary vein, much the same could be said of most adults in the Harry Potter series. They’re either malevolent, clueless, ineffectual, distant, unhelpful, incompetent, or some combination thereof. Again, not all, but most. It’s pretty much always up to our plucky teenage protagonists --- Harry, Ron, and Hermione --- to foil the malignant plots perpetrated by Voldemort and his Death Eaters. And frankly, Hermione is the only one of the trio who really has much idea of what’s going on and how to go about solving the problem. Never really understood why she’d fall for the buffoonish Ron, who is obviously so much less intelligent than her and whose primary role seemed to be mostly comedic relief. In fact, if I was feeling particularly Snape-ish, I’d probably observe that Ron is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
(I also really didn’t like the fact that much of Harry’s success come about by engaging in morally questionable behaviour --- a lot of the time, he gets results by breaking the rules and doing things which can most charitably be described as ethically grey. And it’s not really a message subtly delivered, either. I’m not alone in this… look up Ursula K. LeGuin’s comments regarding the Harry Potter books.)
So… why is this? Why do writers make these choices for their pint-size protagonists?
Part of it, I think, is because so many people have this perverse need to see authority figures --- who are almost always adults in our world --- taken down a peg or two, especially if said authority figures are self-important or arrogant, and especially if it’s the underdogs (i.e. the children) who are doing it. Oh, look! The kids are doing exactly what we would have liked to do, back when we were powerless children! Yay! Fight The Man, kids!
It also makes our plucky, can-do child protagonists that much more so, functioning effectively in a grownup world filled with grownups who are not functioning effectively.
Sometimes, as I’ve noted, there’s an element of comic relief in this, particularly in the role-reversal of children being capable while the adults are not. Macaulay Culkin’s 8-year-old character in the Home Alone films is a better example of this than Ferris Bueller, even though the level of violence he perpetrates on the hapless burglars is nothing short of Road Runner vs Coyote cartoon level.
I suppose… when you get right down to it, if the adults in these stories were doing their jobs properly and fulfilling their authority roles effectively… the kids in said tales either wouldn’t have to or be able to step up to the plate. It’s rather like that other ubiquitous narrative device, the characters who don’t communicate effectively with each other. If all characters did communicate effectively, sharing vital information, eliminating misunderstandings… well, we mostly wouldn’t have much in the way of stories, would we?
Desirable in real life… but not so much in stories.
Slack-jawed, dull-eyed, tuned-out, self-absorbed, mouth-breathing, addle-brained idiots. (Like all the hyphenated compound insults?)
They’re disengaged, disinterested, incompetent, petty… well, I think you get the idea.
And who or what, exactly has aroused the fire of my ire this day? you ask. The answer is simple: adults. To be more specific (and more fairly), most adults in any storyline where children are the protagonists.
Let me back up a little. My wife and I have recently been rewatching the first four seasons of Stranger Things in preparation for the imminent arrival of the fifth.
(This has been necessitated by the fact that entirely too many modern television series take roughly 50 years between truncated seasons --- consisting of a paltry six to ten episodes --- thereby completely destroying for viewers any sense of continuity whatsoever. Okay, perhaps I exaggerate a trifle, but it’s damned annoying, especially in a series like Stranger Things, starring young children… whom all adults, both intelligent and otherwise, know age at supernormal rates. According to Wikipedia, the Stranger Things season dates are as follows:
Season Set During Released on TV
1 November 1983 July 2016
2 October 1984 October 2017
3 July 1985 July 2019
4 March 1986 May 2022
5 Autumn 1987 November 2025
Now, I realize season 4 was likely delayed by Covid… but these kids, who were 13ish when season 1 debuted, are supposed to be 17ish by the time of season 5… and as anyone who’s seen recent pictures of Finn Wolfhard or Millie Bobbie Brown will attest, that’s just straining the concept of the willing suspension of disbelief a little too much, in my humble opinion. Anyway. This isn’t even my main point of contention for today, but you’re here, so you get to listen to my cantankerous rant.)
Watching Stranger Things, my persnickety little writer’s mind was constantly struck, yet again, by how so many of the adults in the tale are… well, idiots, as I stated at the beginning. Not all, no, but most of them. In particular, the kids’ parents range from totally clueless about their children’s lives and activities (how can so many parents in one locale be so completely incompetent at parenting? Is it something in the water?) to ineffectually hysterical (granted, one parent --- Joyce --- is certainly justified in being hysterical about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune the show’s writers keep hurling at her poor kid, especially during the first season). My parents certainly weren’t like that… and neither were my wife and I. (At least, I don’t think so. My kids might think differently.)
I’m not picking just on Stranger Things, either. I remember thinking much the same thing when I first saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, lo these many years ago… and my opinion hasn’t changed over the decades. Now, I realize Ferris is a comedy, and much of the rather heavy-handed, juvenile humour relies on Ferris outwitting all the moronic adults around him, but… come on. Is there no one over the age of 18 in this film who can’t see behind the --- well, frankly manipulative --- behaviour Ferris manifests? (His sister can, but she’s not over 18.) Perhaps that was part of the problem about Ferris, at least for me: I just didn’t like him very much. In fact, I found much of his behaviour, particularly towards his best friend, the hypochondriac Cameron, to be borderline sociopathic.
And in a more literary vein, much the same could be said of most adults in the Harry Potter series. They’re either malevolent, clueless, ineffectual, distant, unhelpful, incompetent, or some combination thereof. Again, not all, but most. It’s pretty much always up to our plucky teenage protagonists --- Harry, Ron, and Hermione --- to foil the malignant plots perpetrated by Voldemort and his Death Eaters. And frankly, Hermione is the only one of the trio who really has much idea of what’s going on and how to go about solving the problem. Never really understood why she’d fall for the buffoonish Ron, who is obviously so much less intelligent than her and whose primary role seemed to be mostly comedic relief. In fact, if I was feeling particularly Snape-ish, I’d probably observe that Ron is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
(I also really didn’t like the fact that much of Harry’s success come about by engaging in morally questionable behaviour --- a lot of the time, he gets results by breaking the rules and doing things which can most charitably be described as ethically grey. And it’s not really a message subtly delivered, either. I’m not alone in this… look up Ursula K. LeGuin’s comments regarding the Harry Potter books.)
So… why is this? Why do writers make these choices for their pint-size protagonists?
Part of it, I think, is because so many people have this perverse need to see authority figures --- who are almost always adults in our world --- taken down a peg or two, especially if said authority figures are self-important or arrogant, and especially if it’s the underdogs (i.e. the children) who are doing it. Oh, look! The kids are doing exactly what we would have liked to do, back when we were powerless children! Yay! Fight The Man, kids!
It also makes our plucky, can-do child protagonists that much more so, functioning effectively in a grownup world filled with grownups who are not functioning effectively.
Sometimes, as I’ve noted, there’s an element of comic relief in this, particularly in the role-reversal of children being capable while the adults are not. Macaulay Culkin’s 8-year-old character in the Home Alone films is a better example of this than Ferris Bueller, even though the level of violence he perpetrates on the hapless burglars is nothing short of Road Runner vs Coyote cartoon level.
I suppose… when you get right down to it, if the adults in these stories were doing their jobs properly and fulfilling their authority roles effectively… the kids in said tales either wouldn’t have to or be able to step up to the plate. It’s rather like that other ubiquitous narrative device, the characters who don’t communicate effectively with each other. If all characters did communicate effectively, sharing vital information, eliminating misunderstandings… well, we mostly wouldn’t have much in the way of stories, would we?
Desirable in real life… but not so much in stories.
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