I saw the most incredible thing today on television. I have a nine year old nephew who my son adores. Today we went to visit him at his house. Like most nine year olds he is rather addicted to television and sure enough cartoon network was on when we stopped by. The boys were playing and watching TV, actually my nephew was watching TV and my son (who is two) was leaping on him and running around making funny noises. In the middle of all of this I look up and see a cartoon. Only it's not your average japanamation cartoon. It was Samurai Jack (http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/samuraijack/), this incredibly beautiful stylized cartoon. Samurai Jack is of course the hero and he has battles against evil doers who always seem to come after him. Now why would I be writing about this on an internet gaming casino portal? I'm writing about this show because today's episode had an evil character whose costume had casino cards, and card symbols, all over it.

The episode has the character in an old saloon from the typical Westerns you used to see with John Wayne. As my son was in hyperactive mode during the show I didn't actually catch the characters name, but the insinuation of playing cards and evil was so obvious, so blatant. I was mesmerized. I sat there contemplating how much of the message would actually get through to the kids. I figured that the goal of the artists and writers was to get kids to think badly of playing cards. However, what I think the actual end will be is children becoming even more accustomed to the site of playing cards and gaming in general as an acceptable practice. It's desensitizing the kids, instead of spreading a message, because the message was too obscure. The other question that comes to mind is why making playing cards as an evil character at all? Is it typical for a nine year old to think of gambling when they see a stack of 52? I know when I was nine a stack of playing cards meant my mom was playing solitaire or my brother was most likely going to make me play 52 – pick up (the game where the evil older brother flips the cards all over the place and the sweet little sister gets to "pick" them up.) I'm not a sociologist so I don't have the answers to these questions, but I still thought they are interesting enough to ask.

Posted on: November 15, 2005

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