Analog Storytelling

Photo by Jennie Clavel on Unsplash

My nephew is 4 years old. He’s my sister’s son, and he loves the typical children’s TV shows available through streaming services (like Prime, Disney+, and Netflix). It’s 2021 in suburban America, so these streaming services are fairly common, and the shows that kids watch through them are pretty popular with various age groups. Finley was all about Curious George for a long time, and then he started getting into Thomas the Tank Engine (the new, digitally animated version), Paw Patrol, various cars and trucks shows, etc. While I can appreciate the value in the lessons taught through these programs, it occurred to me that they are all lacking in one element that was pretty dominant throughout my childhood television experience: reality. I don’t mean reality in the sense that everything was too fantastical for kids to grasp real life, I just mean that there was no tangible, real-world presentation of these stories. Everything shown is a polished, completely seamless, digitally edited and produced animation story. There are no puppets. There are no real faces, no hands-on learning experiences, and no interactive demonstrations of real-world events or activities.

I grew up on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, the old Thomas the Tank Engine (with train models as characters and painted, frozen facial expressions), Eureka’s Castle, Reading Rainbow, Barney the Dinosaur, and perhaps my all-time favorite, Sesame Street. All of these shows used diverse storytelling methods, including puppetry, reading aloud, interviews, acting, mechanical and artistic discovery, traditional animation, and creative play. I was constantly wondering about how things were done, and I believe that this innate curiosity is present in all children. However, without the edge of the curtain being pulled back, the child has no way of knowing a "behind the scenes" even exists, and is unfortunately limited to taking performance/product at face value.

All of this musing has led me down the paths of research into digital vs. traditional storytelling methods, puppetry, product vs. process art, and more. I want to learn more about what makes children ask those questions in the first place, and what inspires them to learn more about the "happening" of creativity. I think these investigations help to develop critical thinking skills, like taking information one step further, and questioning all parts of information, including how and why in addition to what. I think it is important to provide creative context to the final products that children read, view, and otherwise absorb, because it serves as an early introduction to the creative process, problem solving, mechanics, and more. Seeing artists and artisans in the process of their craft has always been a draw for children, and I can attest to that personally from my work live-sculpting at art shows and conventions. There is some profound draw for people to want to know how things are done. Instead of these cute, but sterile animated pieces, I think it’s crucial for kids to be exposed to more analog forms of creation and storytelling in their daily media consumption.