empathy

We made the great mistake back over thanksgiving of watching "Finding Nemo" with geekygirl. I had seen the movie before and recalled it being a cute story about fish. Which it is. Apart from the sharks, the whales, and the deep sea creature with the huge snapping jaws. Geekygirl was terrified of the movie, and this has begotten a wariness about TV in general. She is happy watching the things she knows and likes, her Elmo ABC, her Charlie and Lola, but is suspicious of anything new, in case a seemingly pleasant scene suddenly erupts into sharp jawed violence.

This made our 'superbowl party' experience a stressful one for Geekygirl. We were with some friends, who happen to have the hugest high definition TV you have ever seen. The kids and I were in and out of the TV room, but we watched a few commercials. And that is when the trouble began. If you watched the superbowl you will recall a commercial from pedigree about adopting a dog. In the commercial various unsuitable animals, ostriches, wild boars etc are shown as unsatisfactory pets. In one scene a guy throws a frisbee to a water buffalo. The water buffalo, understandably, does not run to catch it as a dog might, but stands there (quite huge on this monster of a TV) as the frisbee slaps into his wet bovine nose.

Geekgirl stood open mouthed and horrified, and retreated to a corner of the room behind the couch.

"Mummy, what did those people do to the cow?" she asked

"It is just pretend on TV" I explained. "They were pretending he was a dog and threw him a frisbee".

"But Mummy, how does the cow feel? I think that hurt his feelings" She was close to tears.

You can't argue with that really, so I conceded that it wasn't nice to throw the frisbee at the cow, and yes he probably was a bit upset. But that he would be OK. And it was just pretend.

It seems humor at the expense of innocent animals is not appreciated in Geekygirls world. I will have to remind her of this the next time she tries to wake the cat by pulling on his tail.