Subliminal Messages in Popeye By James
Regulars to the site will know that I'm a rather outspoken critic of the subtle and often unseen lessons and influences in basically anything geared towards children. Popeye, with it's spinach promoting theme may be easily passed of as a very positive influence on children, however, there are a number of other, slightly more 'under the surface' issues that are perpetual themes throughout every single Popeye episode.
In a nutshell, Popeye is the story of a really ugly one eyed sailor and his undying affection for leafy vegetables. Whenever he eats spinach music plays, images of cannons, armored vehicles or battle-cruisers appear on his biceps and he gains super-strength. He's in love with Olive (who has a child called 'Sweet Pea'), and she in turn divides her love between Popeye and his arch-nemesis, Bluto.
THE NEGATIVE INFLUENCES
1. Single Motherhood
Although Popeye and Bluto both ignore the existence of Olive's bastard son Sweet Pea, the very idea that she has a child with someone other than either of the aforementioned two begs more questions than Mariah Carey's breast size. Who is the father of this child? What kind of a name is 'Sweet Pea' and Why the hell does he look like Popeye? It's made extremely clear in the cartoon that the 3 twins that feature in the later episodes are Popeye's, but Sweet Pea is not.
Assuming the children don't pick up on Olive's evidently wholesome sex flings, you still have to wonder if its really the right message to be sending out to all the girls that watch the show, that the only female role-model is a single mother.
2. Anorexia
The two 'heros' of the cartoon are Popeye and Olive. Now, although Popeye appears deceptively muscular, its clear to see that everywhere other than his biceps is absolutely stick thin. As for Olive, she is obviously anorexic - it looks like someone took Calista Flockhart, cut her in half and starved her for a few weeks.
3. Healthy Eating
a) Is it really healthy to only eat spinach? Popeye worships it like nothing else, and the only thing we ever see him it is that canned spinach. Now, I'm willing to overlook the fact that canned vegetables are preserved in salt, which is not particularly healthy at all, but it's impossible to deny that a diet which consists of 100% spinach is not good eating.
b) Wimpy only eats hamburgers. Society today loves to be different, they like the person/people who nobody else likes so as to stand out, thus explaining why so many people love Pheobe in Friends, and why O-Town still exist. Therefore, it's only fair to assume that there will be a percentage of the viewers (no matter how small) that will like Wimpy. Now, if Popeye's slant is to get kids eating vegetables by appearing to have a diet entirely consisting of them, does Wimpy not do exactly the same by being seen in every scene, often not only eating hamburgers, but sometimes he even has his own little hamburger-making machine.
4. Two-Timing
This is the biggest issue in Popeye. I mean come on, the cartoon blatantly promotes whorism, as Olive constantly plays off both Popeye and Bluto against each other, lending her temporary affection to whoever buys her the nicest dress or the most flowers.
5. Violence
If there's one thing that Popeye teaches us, its that all disputes should be resolved by violence. The day that Bluto says, "Ok Popeye, how about you take Olive out today, I'll take her out tomorrow and we'll see who she likes the best" is that day that Jennifer Lopez celebrates a two year anniversary.
On top of this, the fights that inevitably break out at the end of every episode, use the most down-right dirty moves ever concieved. I mean, Popeye grows massive muscles, but instead of using his enhanced power to slug the shit out of Bluto with his fists (atleast somewhat fairly), he uses his new-found strength to pick up massive steel girders and such to pummel Bluto in the face until he passes out.
6. Smoking
Come on, Popeye always has that damn pipe in his mouth. And if he isn't puffing away on it, its because he's using it to play some god awful whistle ditty on it.
On top of this, half the time, his pipe saves him from near death, by performing some of the most far-fetched things I've ever seen on television. I've seen one episode where Popeye's hands were tied together with iron bars, so he put his pipe into his shirt to get his can of spinach out, before blowing into the pipe to make it into a surrogate freaking blow torch, burning a hole in the tope of the tin, therefore allowing him to eat it.
Not only are kids going to think that it's cool to smoke because Popeye does, but they'll think that it may in fact save their lives one day and they need one.
All in all, Popeye is quite obviously one of the most disturbing influences on today's children aside from the parent hating perpetuations of those god damn Disney cartoons.
* all article and graphical content is property of james & louis - 'suckball'