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There are things in this world that we all need to be protected from, especially our young ones. The world has become an evil place where predators lurk not only in the shadows, but also in broad daylight on the streets surrounding our schools.
With all of the scary things that are happening on a daily basis we have become a society on alert. We sleep with one eye open and are ever vigilant of anything threatening to our well being. The human race has become the defense race. Like a lioness defending her pride we bare our teeth at the first sign of anything harmful.
If we don’t do it for ourselves, trust me when I say that there are tons of groups and individuals who will do it for you whether you want it or not. Aside from the obvious threats like child molesters, gang members, and drug dealers, there is many an insidious plot that forms unbeknownst to us that we must be protected from.
Thank god for those numerous watchdog groups that spend their every waking minute on the lookout for those conspiracies that want to rip apart the very threads of our existence. I shudder to think what our lives would be like if they weren’t there to protect us from the impending doom that, well, we didn’t even know was there until they told us about it.
So many times they have protected us from those savage and evil movies, more times than not that they haven’t even seen yet. The ones that they deem inappropriate for any members of our species to view. This is usually based on their personal moral and religious views.
Of course you have those groups who are not particularly concerned with the species as a whole and are only concerned with their own specific racial group. If anybody in the land of free speech is so bold as to speak negatively about their race, watch out. They will be sharpening their pitchforks and lighting their torches preparing to make the usual attacks on the corporate castles to punish the, well, as Dubya would say, the Evil Doers.
Then there is, as I like to call them, the Lunatic Fringe. These are the groups who, when you read the name of their organizations, you laugh and wonder if it is a real group or something made up for a skit on Mad TV. These groups seem to be flourishing and my only hope is that eventually they will run out of names and start attacking and suing one another over whom the names belong to. That ought to keep them busy for a while.
The latest one that I have stumbled onto is the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), formerly called Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children (SCEC). I wonder what they will be calling themselves next month? Just as the current and former names imply, this band of bitchers is dedicated to: “…support the right for children to grow up and the rights of parents to raise them without being undermined by rampant commercialism.” Whew!
Where do these people think they are living? Better still where do they think they are going to raise their children in this country? Maybe inside a bubble located in a cave in the middle of the desert? Well, that aside, if they think they are going to stop the commercial world from spinning, they are truly a part of the Lunatic Fringe.
If their mission statement isn’t enough to convince you that this group is a bunch of lunatics with too much time on their hands, check out who their most recent targets are. Are you ready for it? OK, here it is, The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Shrek.
 That’s right, I said Shrek. The much beloved, by children and parents alike, cartoon ogre who is about to have his third movie installment released. On the CCFC web site the number one item listed under their “Be Informed” section is a headline that reads “Tell Health and Human Services: Fire Shrek”.
Their major beef in this case is the fact that Shrek is doing a public service announcement for the DHHS, campaigning against childhood obesity, which of course is a good thing. The bad thing, according to the CCFC, is that he is also a figurehead for product campaigns for numerous food products that they find unsuitable. They claim that if Shrek is promoting unhealthful products, it sends a mixed message to the youth of America and promotes childhood obesity.
So the CCFC in their vast and infinite wisdom are sending letters to the DHHS demanding that Shrek be removed as their spokesperson. While this heavy-handed tactic may work on television networks where they have advertisers to answer to, their letters will hopefully fall on deaf ears as far as the DHHS goes.
As far as I can tell this goes in the cut your nose off to spite your face column. First of all, who else are they going to get to tell the kids to “get off their rear ends and get out and play for an hour a day” that they would listen to? Richard Simmons? I can just see the kids dropping those video controllers and jumping off the coach for an oiled up old guy wearing stripped satin hot pants instead of a funny green ogre.
Besides who better than Shrek? He is, after all, just like most of the kids that the public service announcement is directed towards. To put it gently, a tad on the portly side and he doesn’t exactly maintain the best diet. So which is better? To have him supporting the cause to help get kids to be more active or just sell Happy Meals, M & M’s and Cheetos?
One other part of this little equation that appears to be lost on the meddling folks over at the CCFC is that we are taking about a movie cartoon character. The key word there being movie and as we all know a big part of how movies make money is through merchandising.
So what is Shrek, or should I say Shrek’s creators supposed to do? Promote health food and vegetables exclusively? Oh yeah, there’s tons of dough in that. I think it was very big of them to partner up with the DHHS in the first place. So who are the CCFC to say anything at all?
When it comes to policing the activities of children, call me old fashioned, but I really think that should be the responsibility of, oh I don’t know, the PARENTS. They are the ones who buy the food in the first place and should be the ones monitoring their kid’s activities every step of the way.
It shouldn’t be left up to anybody else. Not Shrek, the DHHS, and certainly not the CCFC.
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