3rd
Good Vs. Bad or talking to a 4-year-old about moral ambiguity
My nephew, like all 4-year-olds, has some major obsessions. His include sharks and messy potties, Spiderman and Peter Pan, and bad guys and good guys.
Captain Hook is a bad guy, my nephew tells me. I say maybe there was a good guy inside Captain Hook once. Maybe he just got fed up with consistently getting clowned by Peter Pan. I ask him if he knows about moral ambiguity. Well, yes, he says.
Spider-man beats up bad guys, he says. I ask him who the bad guys are. Doc Ock he say. He has lots of arms for grabbing, he says. I tell him that Doc Ock wasn’t always a bad guy. He’s just a smart guy who made some bad decisions. My nephew turns the conversation to Venom and his scary teeth.
I’m reading Sandman. My nephew sits beside me, points to Squatterbloat and asks if he’s a bad guy. I tell him not necessarily. He’s just a guy in a bad situation. My dad thinks this is hilarious. My nephew asks me to read it to him. He flips through Sandman and points at people, at creatures. Is this a bad guy? Is this a good guy? Sharks eat bad guys, he says. Will a shark eat him? I tell him Etrigan does not look particularly appetizing.
My brother says there is no moral ambiguity in Disney movies. There are good guys and bad guys and nothing in between. That’s all you need to know when you’re four, he says. It’s easy to know the good guys by their simple virtuousness, by the music that swells when they’re caught up in another heroic act. The bad guys don’t have hidden motives. They are easily recognizable by their outright nefarious deeds and their dark wardrobes. Maybe that’s okay when you’re four.
We switched to Where the Wild Things Are. We read it four times in a row. There are no good guys or bad guys in that book. There are just wolves, wild things and returning to the place where you’re loved the most of all. There, supper is waiting in your room. And it’s still hot.
