Contract Hit: Robin Roth
Because I'm Your Father | February 21From time to time we Blogfathers may decide that it is in our best interest to have somebody whacked. Whether this particular person is interfering with the family business, or they just get under our skin and need to be clipped, we’ll deal with the problem here. So I begin a new feature: The Contract Hit.
A cartoon controversy has been making headlines over the last week or so, but I don’t think this one will result in any structural damage to the Danish Embassy. Although, Barnes & Noble might consider beefing up security a smidge. It seems a Los Angeles area animal rights activist, who moonlights as a high school english teacher, has a few issues with a certain inquisitive little monkey and his flamboyantly adorned caretaker.
Robin Roth, managing editor of Ark Online, told the San Francisco Gate recently that she believes the immensely popular Curious George series of books are both “irresponsible” and “sickening.” In her review of the series entitled, Curious George: Educational Tool or Irresponsible Menace? Children’s Classic Demands Socially Responsible Reading, she says:
…a closer reading reveals a much darker side to the popular tale… Not only does the story reveal the sinister side of a corrupt wildlife trade with perilous roots in Western imperialism, but recent ethical, legal and scientific considerations on the personhood of primates makes a traditional reading of Curious George both impossible and irresponsible.
I’ll give you all a minute to stop banging your heads against the wall, and to pick your chins up off the floor… Good? Ok? Moving on then.
Look, Robin. I don’t know who pissed cows milk all over your Grape Nuts when you were just a budding little birkenstock, but something fairly traumatic must have happened to your Malibu Barbie for you to grow up and make the leap from, “What a nice little monkey… I would like to take him home with me” - to - The Evil White Man In The Yellow Hat, who dabbles in the animal slave trade, snatches the poor little monkey boy from the grips of his mother, only to abandon him in the big bad world.
I’m quite certain that author H.A. Rey, a German Jew, wasn’t thinking about how “public attention and conservation efforts (of the time) failed to focus on a dangerous and controversial wildlife trade where millions of apes and monkeys are slaughtered” as he and his wife fled Paris just before Hitler invaded. If you want to protest a subversive agenda in children’s stories, go picket Dr. Seuss‘ house. Go picket with a mouse. And say hi to The Grinch for me while you’re there, would ya?
Curious George IS just a harmless children’s adventure Ms. Roth. I would wager that most of us who read the books growing up have never considered it as anything more. Our favorite little monkey is but a toddler, stumbling his way through this big, new world. And his lessons learned give us parents an easy opportunity to teach our children the difference between right and wrong.
And guess what… I own them ALL. And I’ve read them to my son. And I will continue to do so, in the happiest, most pleasant voice I can muster. And then we will have steak and eggs. And they will be nyum nyum good.
Some people will go to any lengths to
facilitate the evolution of the human racefind something to complain about. She can picket on a train, she can picket in the rain.Note also that since he likes a good pipe before bed (doesn’t every toddler?), George is also a thinly disguised marketing flack for Big Tobacco.
Ms. Roth named her dog Bingo, what could be more cruel to an animal?
There are alot of people in this world with alot of free time on their hands, worrying about all sorts of nonsense. Please do not pay any attention to the activist behind the curtain.
The reading of Curious George impossible?
I say her sentence structure makes reading her quote impossible.
Curious, as in “Bi-Curious.” That “good pipe before bed” is clearly an analogy.
I’d comment, but I don’t think I’d be able to stop. So let me just say that she’s a nimrod and I’ll move along.
Nimrod gets my vote.
“the personhood of primates”
Puh-lease.
WTF? I mean…did she get paid for this? I feel ill…really. Why oh why does this country have to pick everything apart?!!! Just enjoy the friggin book and GET A LIFE Ms.Roth!
I do know people in Jersey…if ya know what I mean…bada bing. ;)
OK DGM, now I will never be able to read the books again without that running through my head. This woman clearly has more free time than necessary. Someone needs to stop her suffering from diarrhea of the mouth.
email her and let her know how you feel…
RobinRoth@aol.com
Am I allowed to say; “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” here?
Oh … nevermind.
I’d jump directly to inbreeding, but then she wouldn’t be able to fling all those big words around that make her so damn hard to understand, so I’ll guess I’ll just go with lack of sex!!
We could kill her with a brick. We could kill her with a stick.
nyum nyum, steak and eggs… or maybe green eggs and ham. Can I have them served in a box by a monkey?
Idiot! Puling whining no-sense medler! I’ll take the contract.
I admit to being taken aback by The Travels of Babar when we opened that up a month or two ago. But Curious George? Harry the Dirty Dog must send her ’round the bend.
Amen!
OddMix - I have to salute you my friend. It is so clear to me now that I should have tagged that entry with the Green Eggs & Ham reference. Dammit, how could I have been so careless!
You people are all soo rude and ignorant! Give her a break!!! She is just expressing her opinion, and NO she doesn’t get paid for this! Think about it. Curious George does express some innapropriate behavior. So shove it! Especially you retarded people who say it’s a lack of sex and why is Bingo a bad name?! WTF! It’s a cute name! If anything, you guys are all nimrods!!!! More power to you Ms. Roth! Comment back!