| Pondering the deeper meanings
of the Tarzan series Today, I watched little flakes of snow falling in the mid-November air, and I thought, how would it be to look up one day and see such a thing, and have no concept of what those tiny white things were that kept falling and swirling from apparently nowhere? A squirrel fed on my balcony, a blue-jay. Those things aren't in the jungle, so what might it be like, learning new names for animals you'd never seen? Why are the trees bare of their leaves when it gets cold outside. Why does it get cold outside? So many questions would fill your mind if the whole world seemed new to you. "Who made all these tall buildings?", "What is it like to make a car go so fast?" Think of all the comical discoveries you'd make. "What is this box that cooks things?", "If I put these on my ears, I hear music!", "This machine makes my shirt dry and warm." - It's really amazing when you stop to think of all the things we take for granted every moment of our lives, that someone with no experience would find absolutely unbelievable. I can only imagine the expressions and curiosities like a child as each thing was poked at and discovered purposely or accidentally. How dangerous it might be as well, for a child in the care of their parents makes discoveries as well, but they are hopefully brought up with behavior to model, and in the case of a person who had no models to follow, they might well touch and feel everything, overwhelmed by the desire to know the world around them. Aside from imagining humorous encounters with things such as microwaves, hot water just by turning a knob, subway rides, fast food restaurants, and the like, I began to think of other things. A person who hadn't been exposed to anything such as criminal behavior, racism and bigotry, prostitutes on the corner, drug addicts, homeless people, child abuse, pornography, political scandal and all the filth and muck that again, we take for granted as part of our everyday world. Can you conceive NOT knowing any of that? What innocence it would be to not even know what the word "rape" meant, or understand what "terrorism" is. I think of that and I yearn for the luxury of not knowing. I yearn to be ignorant to these rampant inundations which the world forces upon me, and indeed upon all of us, every day. The character of John Clayton Jr. has been dragged into this harsh new world, and seen many of these things in action already, though he does not know perhaps, the names for the acts or scenarios he has witnessed. That alone is somewhat of a saving grace, and yet as I have watched, I see that character portrayed so wonderfully by fledgling actor Travis Fimmel. With few lines, he manages to convey both the wonderment and confusion that is seeping into his mind as the days go on around him. When he sees someone getting hurt, he reacts in primal fashion. When he experiences confusion at the ways people behave, you can see it in his eyes, and his postures. We, the viewers must take ourselves down to that place with him, to think, "What would it be like to know the behavior was wrong, instinctively, and yet have no conception of such a thing as ulterior motive?" We are given his pain and his fascination, his confusion and innocence in every episode of the show. The supporting cast does a superb job of balancing the story so we are, sometimes unfortunately, brought back to the real world where those motives of greed, power and jealousy fuel so much destruction. We are shown how it affects everyone, interplayed, and this too is a real-world lesson. What you do doesn't just affect who you place the intent upon. Deeds, both good and hateful, spread like ripples on the surface of a pond. John is learning this and we learn along with him, or perhaps are reminded as we see the struggles he is forced to endure at the hands of his Uncle, and indeed at the hands of a world that has in his 24 years of seclusion, become a place where mankind is. often not so kind. Now, I'm hearing that the show has been cancelled. Why? The ratings machine didn't crank out the right numbers. The "viewership" just wasn't there. It's not making the network enough money on their return despite the highly visible, cast number of advertisements per episode. Put aside the fact that there are others aside from me who get more out of the show than just an hour break in their evening to watch an interesting piece of eye candy jump around on the screen. Put aside the fact that this show has more to it than teen sex, drinking, partying in general, pregnancy, scandal and/or supernatural occurrence. I suppose we can put it all aside. Click off the television and forget that we ever saw such a thing. Go on with our lives and wade through the muck, go to our fast food restaurants and get instant gratification from our automated thingamajoos. We'll eat our food in our luxury cars while we talk on cell phones to automated response systems. We'll go to sleep in warm beds, wake up and go to our jobs, and never give much thought to the strangeness that is all around us, every day, every minute. Life in this world perhaps just wasn't meant for a show about innocence, learning, humanity, triumph over corruption, humor and tenderness all wrapped up into one. Tarzan, is a victim of everything it struggles against, and the network is merely another machine, another icon of the decline of our so called "civilized" society. We love you John Clayton Jr. Your fans love you. There are those of us who know your struggles, your tender curiosities and your depth. We will hold you forever, even if the corporate machine cuts you loose. We know you don't understand. The tragedy is, they don't either.
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MUST give credit to the autor: Shannon Peirce. Thanks. |