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Goshzilla-1
(Sat Jul 19 11:39:11)
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 UPDATED Sat Jul 19 12:21:42 |
Okay maybe I am shinning a different kind of light on the television show Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius, but man, did it reach an apogee in philsophical depth(I just wish kids would know what I am talking about) for a tv show of its nature. It is essentialy a children's program, but occasionly makes a wink at areas such as philosophy, psychology, human nature, and aesthetics(yes, there is a philosophy as to what makes art, art).
Almost any t.v. channel will play some kind of movie, or show, where there is a plotline similar to The Prince and the Pauper(by Mark Twain). Where two people will trade lives for a day. There has been at least two major motion pictures using this premise, one of them being Like Father Like Son, another titled The Prince and the Pauper. Comming soon will be a movie titled Freaky Friday. There have been at least two made for television movies prior to 2001 made by ABC alone that carry the exact same premise found in Freaky Friday. But none of these reach the same areas that the television show Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius touched in 15 minutes. Usually the premises goes like this: one night during an argument between the two people in question, both of them imply to the other that their lives are so diametrically opposed that an exchange in the positions of their lives would cause someone to undergo intensive care because as each individual puts it "You wouldn't last a day in my shoes." So something happens, "Why am I in her body" "why am I in his" etc. Both realise the ups and downs of each other's lives, and they get back to their original bodies feeling a renewed since of respect for one another. All I have to say is, BORING.
Basically the premise for the episode of Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius in question starts out seemingly like all other Prince and the Pauper clones. It emerges from a freak accident. Basically Jimmy(the boy genius), messes up on an experiment, and somehow gets mixed with Cindy(the most popular girl in school, and happens to be an "archrival" to Neutron). So basically Neutron's self is inside of Cindy's body, while Cindy's self is inside of Jim's. Already the two realize something is wrong. The best part is, neither one wants to even "live in each others' shoes." This has alot to do with physical perception defining what the self is. People like Martin Buber, and Jean Paul Sartre tend to believe that the "self" is defined through physical relationships with others. How others percieve us, makes us what we are. This automatically makes it a milestone for Jimmy(now in Cindy's body), and Cindy(now in Jimmy's body) to try and overcome. They could convince one or two very close friends as to who they actually are now, but they cannot convince the masses. They have already projected their self image towards everyone else at school prior to the accident. There is no way Jimmy can run up to his parents(whom he isn't all that close to, that is a different article all together) inside of Cindy's body and convince them who he is. Likewise Cindy can't do that with her parents. They, like the masses see the physical self. That is the real kicker, some people cannot see past the physical.
So now, it becomes a game, between Cindy and Jimmy(from here on out, I am referring to the selfs, not their physical bodies). Insted of trying to live with this dramatic change in fortunes, they each try to set the other up for an embarassment. For example they first started playing jokes on each other, Jimmy putting an ink bomb inside of Jimmy's(the body) desk at school, but when Cindy fell victim to the immature prank, she turned it on Jimmy's self. In effect, she made an attempt to destroy Jimmy's self to the masses. In the scene when Cindy opened the desk, an ink bomb went off and splattered on her(actually on the face of Jimmy Neutron's body), but insted of trying to outwardly do a similar prank, she announced to the classroom that "I Jimmy Neutron is a blue faced moron who picks his own nose." Jimmy seeing what Cindy has done got really mad, and did one better by turning down a guy who asked him(or Cindy's body) out to a date. He announced to the class that "there is no way I would ever go out with you, cause I am a stuck up[forgot the rest of the sentence here]." After that it became a vicious contest to destroy one another's self. During class both decided to get a failing grade on a test(the real Cindy, and Jimmy never got F's on a test before), then they both assalted the teacher with insults to get detention. It went so far as Cindy wearing a dress to school(meaning the body of Jimmy Neutron was wearing a dress), and Jimmy demanding that all of Cindy's clothes be given away to the homeless.
Eventually the contest broke down. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't destroy one another. Meaning that Sartre, and Buber are not 100 percent correct on what defines a self. It is alot more than just physical interactions with others. Perception of a self is different than an actual existance of a self. Which lends to Jimmy's realization that the self is actualy a collection of memories that are embedded in our brains. This idea not surprisingly does not disagree with many of the world's most profound thinkers, including those such as David Hume and Buddah. Both Hume and Buddah agree with "the self" is not permanent. Hume tends to believe that what we call a "self" is just a stream of ideas and perceptions collected together in our minds. Hume could not prove the existance of a self, so his conclusions were that no self existed, nor was it actually needed to create an indentity. Buddah had similar views, except that the self does exist, but it is constantly changing, the self from yesterday is not the self today, or tomorrow. Somehow this leads to Buddah's own realization that if a permanent self does not exist, then no self could exist.
What does Jimmy do to fix the situation? He does exactly what Hume would suggest. Build a machine to collect the memories of him and Cindy into a computer system. Once there, someone(a very trust worthy friend) would have to sort out the memories and assign them to the appropriate person. Basically to put Cindy's memories into Cindy's body, Jimmy's memories into Jimmy's body, via a point and click graphical user interface system. Jimmy builds the machine in no time. After finding some trust worthy friends, Cindy and Jimmy get hooked up to the machine, which will effectively suck out their memories, mix them together, leave their bodies limp, while their friends try and figure out which memory belongs to who. There was some funny examples of confusion between the friends of Jimmy and Cindy as they try and identify which memory belonged to who. One example is a memory which is summarized by the computer system as "the ability to whistle" neither Cindy's or Jimmy's friends could figure out if Jimmy or Cindy could whistle. Well, after an intense amount of effort to put all the memories back into the proper bodies they reach a dead end on one that had a title that went on forever "dislikes guys, who dislikes girls, who dislikes show off guys, who dislikes..." Jimmy's friend who was the only one still awake must have been thinking "to hell with this, I am tired", so on that very last piece of memory, he presses the done button, and the last memory gets deleted.
What is funny was, that the "thin line between love and hate" that writers like Shakespeare has written about, gets deleted between Cindy and Jimmy. When Cindy is back in her body, and Jimmy in his, Cindy asks weither or not they shared the same image while their memories were mixed together. The image, had them together in an open field walking together, holding hands, "yeesh, that is in my head too, but it was probably you that thought it up" Jimmy replied defensively, and all of a sudden that thin line gets drawn again, and they are rivals again. This reenforces Hume's notion of Empiricism, of all knowledge comes through experience. So although that line was deleted, the experience where Jimmy replied defensively to it, remade that line again. So you see, althought it started with Sartrical notions it ends on a Humerous note(Hume and Sartre would kill me for that one ).
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I forgot during my passionate ramblings that I wouldn't mind feedback .
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Gosh, I'm a bit too groggy right now to give this the attention it deserves. But let me commend you for an excellent post and I'm glad that you brought us this story from Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius. I agree with you, it's very impressive that a cartoon plumbed this issue to deeper depths than any of the popular films that have been done about it (I also recall "18 Again" and "Vice-Versa". Say, did you just happen to mention "Like Father, Like Son" because it had Sean Astin in it?). I really like the novelty (and idea) of the way they solved the problem.
I would snare not even an orc with a falsehood. 
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Okay I'll smack my forehead for that one. I chose Like Father Like Son because it was on the top of my head when it came to a movie that was defined from a long line of similar movies. But I had no idea Sean Astin was in it.
Wow, what a strange stroke of luck that was.
I don't think I have seen 18 Again, or Vice Versa. I just know from the sheer amount of t.v. movies, and the like that these plots have been done over and over again, with very little new material. Now that might be unfair to Freaky Friday, which I have yet to see, but the basic premise is obvious, and I can only guess at the outcome("I really have a new respect for what it is like to be you").
The show Jimmy Neutron didn't do that at all. It did something in the opposite direction, and some valuable(but not obvious) lessons about what defines a "self" were learned from it.
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Vice-Versa Totally forgetable, kind of the male version of Freaky Friday Father and son swap roles (played by Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage), gain appreciation for what the other is going through...you know the story. Like Father Like Son was funnier, as I recall. What was the deal with all of these movies coming out in an 18 month period though?
18 Again I don't remember as clearly but it was a little different than these others. This was a grandfather switching with his college age grandson. It's hazy, but they were already close, and there wasn't any of this "You couldn't handle my life!" The fun thing about the film was that George Burns was the grandfather. When he is in the kid's body it's him dealing with the kid's problems in an old school sort of way, using those 80+ years of wisdom. It was also funny to watch the actor playing the grandson do a George Burns impersonation for most of the film - he was pretty good at it.
All light fare, I don't know that I'd bother going out to find any of these. I think your boy Johnny Neutron trumped them all.
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I was thinking of another formulmatic movie or tv show concept. Twins that are seperated at birth. There have been at least five films that are titled "The Parent Trap," all containing the exact same concept. One film starring the atrociously ungifted acting duo Mary Kate, and Ashley Olsen called It Takes Two. Another television series titled Sister Sister, and there might be a few hiding in a corner somewhere.
So it got me thinking, if Jimmy Neutron took the same old stretched out Prince and Pauper concept, and made it into something incredibly worthwhile, maybe somehow the show can dive(though not intentionaly) into the realm of metaphysics and parallel universes with the "twins" concept.
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That was some very deep thinking for an episode of Jimmy Neutron. I actually love it when people can analyze some of the seemingly light and harmless entries of pop culture. I do the same thing myself.
Do you think that in shows (or episodes) like this, the writers intended that much meaning to be gleaned from the situations and dialogue or do you think that we sometimes bring out own interests to the material and find more than is actually there?
P.S. I like Freaky Friday.... Remember Vice-Versa too?
"Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it."
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I think whoever writes Jimmy Neutron, does not directly realize the significance of their work. They just might think "wouldn't it be funny if the part of Cindy that hated Jimmy got deleted?" but subconciously their brain is telling them something they may not understand at first.
I think what really happens is the writers have an understanding for human emotions. While people like me, who really like the show, try and explain why it happens.
For example there was an episode where Jimmy clones an extinct plant for his botony project(everyone in class had to do one). Now that is a marvelous feat in its own right. However, he lost to Cindy, because she had the prettiest flowers, and apparently no one cared that he brought new life, to a plant that was extinct long ago. Some kids watching the show will know how important Jimmy's plant was, they realize it has more significance than asthetic qualities. This realy strikes at the core of their emotional state where kids at this age just don't want to be ignored for what they do. In some ways, Jimmy's misfortune is actually funny to them as well because they might have been in that situation(though not nearly as exaggerated).
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| by -
damianarlyn
(Sat Jul 19 13:06:24)
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| UPDATED Sat Jul 19 13:07:36 |
I would agree and think that it is the case with a lot of other great TV shows as well.
Now, I think a show like The Simpsons is actually aware the significance of what it is doing/saying in terms of philosophical, spiritual and social issues. I am sure that the writers of that show are extremely well-educated.
"Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it."
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sinaes
(Tue Aug 5 01:51:58)
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I'm like a good haines t-shirt: tagless 
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