Toy book: the opportunity to enter the world of children
When we have more money and more choices to buy more expensive, more advanced, and more exotic toys, our chances of entering the world of children are becoming less and less. This is a great irony and sorrow.
[Chinese and foreign toys and gift nets] If you regard play as your child's work, then toys are the tools of children. This is the theory that children's educators and toy researchers have embraced in the past century. But Gary Kroos, professor of modern history at the University of Pennsylvania, said that the subtitle "The Toys and the Change of the American Childhood World" in "The Gadgets" seems to have clearly stated that the aforementioned theory ignores the rich and profound connotation of toys: it can be young. The generation passed on the values ​​and expectations of the previous generation. It can tell parents about the recognition and freedom that children seek. It gives us the opportunity to enter the world of children. More importantly, the rapid development of the consumer economy in the 20th century makes it even more It may reflect changes in the historical connotations of childhood and parenting. By looking back at the American modern childcare concept and the history of the American toy industry from the end of the 19th century to the present, Cross hopes to capture more subtle and important changes in the social significance of consumption, popular culture and American family history.
Barbie makes the girls look forward to the arrival of carefree fashion consumption, it seems that it will be accompanied by the arrival of adult nature.
On toys, we can easily find the imprint of fashion and trends, as well as the projection of society and the times. One of the few toys of early American children turned out to be Noah's Ark, which was based on biblical stories. It was given to children by devout parents, "Let them play a game of moral sublimation on the Sabbath." With the modernization process, the number of children in the real family has been greatly reduced. Accompanying this is the increasingly popular baby doll toys, which claim to be “can stimulate the maternal love of girlsâ€. The Xiulan Deng Boer doll marked the character doll into the "celebrity period" in the mid-1930s. When the popular Ginny dolls of the 1950s still tried to keep girls in the children's game world, later the more prestigious Barbie dolls let the girls "have been looking forward to the arrival of carefree fashion consumption. It seems that it will be accompanied by the arrival of adult nature."
In this sense, the decline of classic toys is not so much the result of the intentional planning of the toy industry, but rather the result of changes in our society. Adults once thought that building assembled toys and toy trains are actually teaching boys the dream of becoming engineers and scientists in the future. "This toy appears in most adults and believes that there is an infinite history of technological progress in the world. "Times"; Nowadays, even if such a letter is likely to exist, the symbols that carry its hopes and aspirations have become consumer computers and Internet games targeting children. On the other hand, to a large extent, in order to teach girls to be a modern housewife and mother's toy house, miniature kitchen utensils, toy ovens and dolls , the future role of most American girls is full-time housewives. . When the background of the times behind these classic toys is no longer eternal, the classics themselves can only helplessly bid farewell to the historical stage along with “the dreams of inspiring real war memories, western adventures or future space adventuresâ€.
In addition to analyzing the changing times behind the toys, Cross also has a lot of ink on the changes that they reflect in the American concept of parenting. According to Rousseau's very representative point of view, "children are innocent, their natural simplicity is their virtue. Parents should encourage this kind of spontaneity through education that appreciates individual expression and personality development, so it should be guaranteed that young children do not Influenced by older children and adult life. In the 1890s, the group of prints produced by Brownie to make children's filled dolls well recognized the traditional view above, encouraging people to regard childhood as a happy youth and time for the game, rather than for adult roles. The stage of preparation. But in the late 1920s, family kindergartens and do-it-yourself toy houses, parents who bought them had hoped to cultivate their children's creativity and competitiveness from an early age so that children could prepare for the future competitive world. What's more, can you imagine a guillotine toy in 1964? Such unreasonable, bloody and violent designs are only meant to "satisfy children's curiosity about strange things."
More importantly, the impact of consumer culture and consumer economy must not be ignored. Cross believes that until the end of the 19th century, parents gave little toys to children, and the only toys did not meet the children's desires and imaginations, but only the convenience and taste of adults. In the 1960s, the main buyers of toys were parents who missed their childhood and hometown, or believed in some radical educational philosophy and intellectual approach, who have been working to protect children from excessive consumer markets. But when the toy industry finds a good way to do business directly with children, they are finally accustomed to developing toys with the protagonists in the mass media, attracting children's attention and interest, parents can control with their offspring. Sharing happiness in the limited and limited world of consumption, but they finally found that they have lost bargaining power in front of the ever-expanding toy industry. They can only become bystanders rather than participants, and can only pry out their wallets for their children. . In this sense, it is not difficult to understand why Cross can see children as participants in economic activities.
Neil Bozeman pointed out in "The Childhood of Escape" that if typography creates the concept of "childhood," television with a more powerful image language than the language of words makes "childhood" disappear. The description of Cross in this book can complement this argument. The toy company represented by Mattel and Hasbro is no longer a traditional training and educational toy, but a more illusory, novelty toy; the child is no longer imitating the family and the office adult. The active game world, but more to imitate the game world in the TV movie; in the end, contemporary TV toys have been characterized by the pursuit of novelty and the capture of children's imagination, "there is no longer a message transmission between parents and children. It also lost the function of entertainment resources shared by generations."
Today's more powerful media, such as television and the Internet, make us feel depressed for the disappearance of childhood, but we can't do anything about it. But when the media's propaganda colluded with the consumption of toys, the children could say that they were once again hurt and brainwashed in the process of playing toys, and those values ​​that were advocated and instilled by the media and toys were double strengthened and consolidated. When we have more money and more choices to buy more expensive, more advanced, and more exotic toys, our chances of entering the world of children are becoming less and less. This is a great irony and sorrow. (Left to come)
"Gadgets: The Change of Toys and Americans' Childhood World", (US) Gary Cross, translated by Guo Shengli, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, January 2010, 30.00 yuan.
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