imagination – Bitch Flicks

“We’re All Mad Here”: A Closer Look at the Children of Oz, Fantasia, and Wonderland

Though Dorothy’s relationship with her aunt improves at the end of the film narrative, she still keeps her “imaginative” self hidden from her. When Dorothy calls for her aunt to come and see Ozma, Oz’s daughter and heir, in the mirror, the blond girl just shakes her head and presses her finger to her lips. It’s a really telling a moment, a moment that opens a dialogue about the obvious division between adults and children.

This is a guest post by Ashley Barry.

When I was younger, I had an imagination that was overflowing with all manners of people and expansive lands. Entertained by my own thoughts and ideas, I would play by myself for hours and hours on end. I used to dread play dates because I much preferred the company of my rich imagination and the companions that resided within it. What was the point of interacting with an ordinary person my age when I could be taking a refreshing dip with mermaids or assisting a prince on his journey through a dense, dangerous jungle? My mother would frequently find me, an odd and pensive child, in the most peculiar places: sitting cross legged atop the kitchen counter, wedging myself behind the furnace, and, much to her dismay and frustration, climbing around in my dad’s tool closet.

I’m now an adult woman and, aside from getting a little taller and acquiring more responsibilities, not much has changed in terms of my colossal imagination and insatiable hunger for fiction. I’m a 27-year-old woman who still likes to play and pretend, a kind of mindset that we should never age out of but often do. Even when functioning within an adult sphere at my workplace, I occasionally glance out the skyscraper window and imagine there’s an enormous dragon peering in at me. I allowed my imagination, despite my age and what society may deem appropriate. Adults who continue to nourish their imaginations are, more often than not, negatively stigmatized because it’s juvenile and childish. Why? What’s wrong with stubbornly grasping onto that childlike part of ourselves? Having an imagination is one of the best things a person can possess. It should never be dismissed or considered useless. On the flip side of this issue, there are several mediums in which fictional adults attempt to rid children of their imaginations and imaginative thoughts. How come?

In Return to Oz, Dorothy Gale, the heroine of the film, is sent away by her aunt to receive shock therapy because she’s unable to sleep due to her memories of Oz. However, prior to her visit to the mental institution, there’s a moment where Dorothy presents a mysterious key to her aunt. She excitedly tells her aunt that the key bears the Oz symbol and yet her aunt dismisses her claim. Her aunt then goes on to remind Dorothy to not talk about Oz because it’s just her imagination. Rather than believing Dorothy’s claim, the scene further supports the idea that the imaginative child is a child that requires some kind of fixing. Though Dorothy’s relationship with her aunt improves at the end of the film narrative, she still keeps her “imaginative” self hidden from her. When Dorothy calls for her aunt to come and see Ozma, Oz’s daughter and heir, in the mirror, the blond girl just shakes her head and presses her finger to her lips. It’s a really telling a moment, a moment that opens a dialogue about the obvious division between adults and children.

I always envied fictional children like Dorothy Gale and Alice Liddell. How could I not? They possessed agency in their own fantastical realms, befriended magical creatures, and experienced once-in-a-lifetime adventures (sometimes misadventures). Were their friends and experiences any less real than mine? Rather than looking to fictional adults for assistance and guidance, these fictional children oft rely on their wits and inner strengths. Whether it was Atreyu’s miserable trek through the swamp of sadness or Alice outsmarting an evil Queen that’s overly fond of beheading others, fictional children are just as capable and complex as adults, but they don’t always receive the proper credit or consideration they deserve. When operating as agents outside of their whimsical kingdoms, adults commonly other them.

When it comes to the representation of children in pop culture at large, most mediums commonly illustrate the dichotomy of power between adults and children. One of the more prominent examples that I can think of is the infamous power struggle in Matilda (1996). There’s a constant battle for power between Miss Trunchbull, a shockingly abusive school principal, and Matilda, a puny girl that can move objects with the power of her mind. There’s a scene in which Miss Trunchbull, large and horrible with her mess of teeth, loudly informs Matilda that she’s big and right and overall better than our exceptionally smart heroine:

“Even if you didn’t do it, I’m going to punish you because I’m big and you’re small and I’m right and you’re wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Matilda’s an interesting example because she’s mature and capable, but she’s still able to sustain her imagination and lose herself in a good book. She pushes against the idea that imaginative children are aloof, lost, or incapable. There’s a lovely instance in which Matilda, who’s much younger at this point in the film, is giggling in an oversized chair in the library, amused by whatever it is she’s reading. Viciously mean and dismissive of children and their ideas, Miss Trunchbull is a villain through and through. I always adored Roald Dahl because I felt that he was always rooting for the children in his novels. He crafted such detestable adult villains, adults that couldn’t be trusted or relied upon. He also created wonderful child characters that never lost sight of their imagination and used it as a way to succeed or solve problems.

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) is very positive in its presentation of imaginative children and adults. Like Dorothy, Alice frequently wakes up at night because of her fanciful experiences in Wonderland. However, at the beginning of the film, there’s a moving scene between Alice when she’s a little girl and her father. When she tells him that she thinks she might be mad due to her memories of Wonderland, her father informs her that all the best people usually are. He’s one of the few fictional adults that believes in Alice and is on her side. He’s not at all dismissive of her and her “imagined” experiences.

I adore adult Alice because she’s a positive representation of a creative person with an endless imagination. Though some adults are dismissive of her and think her a dreamer, I see her as an innovator and a person who is more than capable of changing the world. When her mother discovers that her daughter isn’t wearing a corset or stockings, I couldn’t help but laugh and like her even more. She doesn’t adhere to norms or traditions, a sure sign of a person who thinks outside the box. There’s a spectacular instance at the end of the film when she’s standing atop the deck of a ship that’s about to depart. As a blue butterfly lands on her shoulder, a friend from Wonderland, she welcomes him and doesn’t deny or overlook his existence. She grows to accept that Wonderland is not a dream, but a fragment of her true self. The film is really about reacquainting oneself with a lost and or forgotten identity.

The NeverEnding Story (1984) is another film that celebrates creativity and imagination. Bastian, the boy protagonist, differs from the other fictional children in that he nearly destroys Fantasia because of what his father says in one of the first scenes. When the childlike Empress pleads for his help, frantically asking him why he doesn’t “do as he dreams,” he tells her that he has to keep his feet on the ground, which was the exact phrase his father had said to him at the beginning of the movie narrative. It’s a frightening instance because his father almost hammered his whimsical ways out of him. When he saves Fantasia and accepts himself as the dreamer that he is, he’s able to cross into Fantasia or bring the creatures of Fantasia into his own world. The ending montage is great because it shows a much happier Bastian riding Falkor, the luck dragon, in both worlds.

The children of Oz, Fantasia, and Wonderland prevailed over the adults that attempted to fix or dissuade them. These fictional children are innovative, ambitious, and victorious. If anything, their innovativeness got them through various obstacles. I’ll always fight against the stigmatization of imaginative adults and children. I sure as hell know I’ll forever have one foot in an imagined realm because that’s where I belong and love to be.

Ashley Barry works at a publishing house in Boston and holds a master’s degree in children’s literature. Though her background is in the book business, she loves writing about all mediums. She’s also a contributing writer for a video game website called Not Your Mama’s Gamer. She can be reached at abarry4099@gmail.com.

Empowerment in the Imaginary Spaces of Zach Snyder’s ‘Sucker Punch’

By creating her own worlds where she is a force to be reckoned with, Babydoll reclaims that very thing that was taken away from her by her stepfather and the hospital: her humanity.

The women of Sucker Punch — The women of *Sucker Punch*

This guest post by Toni McIntyre appears as part of our theme week on Dystopias.

At first glimpse, I’ll admit that Sucker Punch looks like little more than Zach Snyder’s latent schoolgirl fantasies brought to life. That Emily Browning, who plays main character Babydoll, has: A) that patronizing name and B) the dewy wide eyes of an anime heroine don’t exactly help. That said I’ve never been one to dismiss a film on wardrobe choices alone, even if they do cater a whole buffet’s worth to the male gaze. Snyder himself has even hinted that the aesthetics of Sucker Punch were chosen deliberately to mock geek culture’s sexualized fantasy version of women. Whether he was successful in that endeavor or not is fodder for another essay. The point is that as waifish as Babydoll appears, and however we may be tempted to dismiss Sucker Punch as just another male fantasy, a close look at the dystopian spaces within the film and how Babydoll exists in those spaces reveals a more woman-friendly, if bittersweet, reading.

The tragedy that starts the movie in earnest takes place in a very tight space. Babydoll attempts to shoot her abusive stepfather as he breaks down the door to a closet where Babydoll’s sister is hiding. The shot misses its intended target, ricochets in a way only bullets in movies can, and fatally wounds Babydoll’s sister inside the closet. Taking immediate advantage of the situation to unburden himself of his remaining stepdaughter, Babydoll’s stepfather carts her off to a mental hospital. Babydoll trades one menacing patriarchal force for another as crooked orderlies loom menacingly over Babydoll and the other broken but beautiful patients.

Rocket, Sweet Pea, and Blondie in the bordello world of Babydoll’s creation

Unable to cope with the reality of being in the hospital, Babydoll escapes inward and creates the first of two imagined worlds in her own mind. The first space is a richly adorned bordello and exists as the real world askew. The women from the hospital are still trapped, to a degree, in the bordello, but they have noticeably more power in how they present themselves to each other and to their male customers than they do in the hospital. It’s enough for Babydoll to become much more vocal once she’s imagined to be in the bordello—she becomes a plotting, rallying force for the other women.

It’s Babydoll’s second imagined world, one she accesses while she dances and enters a trance-like fugue state within the bordello, that Babydoll acts out her readiness to fight. While in the bordello everything is secrets and plans, in this second world, it’s all action. This second space is where things expand, where we get wide shots of extravagant landscapes—feudal Japan, a dragon’s den, a maze of soldier’s trenches. This second world is the tiny space of the closet where Babydoll fought her first battle, and where she lost in every sense of the word, blown wide open, given the space Babydoll needs in order to imagine battles she can fight and win.

Babydoll in her second world, armed and ready

Famed author and neurologist Oliver Sacks was observing a patient who experienced “transports” similar to Babydoll’s. Sacks pitied his patient and described the man’s imagined worlds as a “deceiving surface of illusion” that lacked anything deep or true. I’m not going to say Oliver Sacks is wrong in his observation, but I think it’s a simple way of looking at mental worlds or spaces—as untrue. I don’t think we’re meant to view any of the worlds Babydoll creates as false. And to quote another very wise and bearded man, Albus Dumbledore, even if something is happening only in your head, “Why on earth should that mean it’s not real?”

Babydoll had to travel within herself to worlds she created and could control, in order to discover a truth. We get a glimpse of what that truth is in a bit of dialogue delivered by the older matriarch figure the bordello:

“You see, your fight for survival starts right now. You don’t want to be judged? You won’t be. You don’t think you’re strong enough? You are. You’re afraid. Don’t be. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight.”

By creating her own worlds where she is a force to be reckoned with, Babydoll reclaims that very thing that was taken away from her by her stepfather and the hospital: her humanity.

Sucker Punch strives for optimism. The film wants to tell us that we have all the power within ourselves to rally against an unjust system. For a film bleeding special effects, it hits a real gut-punch worthy note of reality when we watch Babydoll fight—and fail. Again. The patriarchal forces at the hospital resurface and Babydoll sacrifices herself to ensure the escape of one of her fellow patients. Babydoll is lobotomized, her physical being trapped in the hospital, her mind free to sink down within the worlds she made for herself. Sucker Punch wants to tell us we have all the power we need to fight a unjust system, but, also, that that system sometimes still wins. It’s honest and brutal. Babydoll is made a prisoner twice over, and it’s a cold comfort that at least the second time, the decision to become locked in her own mind is hers. Sucker Punch is a story of finding your strength. It’s about looking in when those in control take away your ability to look out. It’s about making your own space when the space they give you is too small and too controlled for you to actually be. It’s equal parts a suggestion and a warning of what happens when you travel far enough into your own subconscious to really know yourself and all you’re capable of when the world outside may still beat you down. When I think about Babydoll, locked in her own mind, I think about when Gatson Bachelard warned that “he who buries a treasure, buries himself with it.”

Toni McIntyre is a native of Philadelphia but a Pittsburgh hockey fan. She once wrote a paper in grad school on Inception and couldn’t sleep for a week. She’s very often, too often, on Twitter.

Exploring Imagination and Feminine Effacement in Cartoon Network’s ‘Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends’

Why examine this offbeat show through a feminist or ethical lens? Because ‘Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends’ (Craig McCracken, 2004-2009) is wildly inventive and subversive. Its plot, which explains that children’s imaginary friends must eventually go live at Madame Foster’s zany orphanage after he or she has outgrown their friend, insists that a child’s imagination has the power to make something real, whether adults believe it or not. At this home, young children are welcome to come and “adopt” one of the friends who is housed there. In this way, the friends are concepts that are “recycled” in order to accommodate children as they grow up.

Written by Jenny Lapekas as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

Why examine this offbeat show through a feminist or ethical lens? Because Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends (Craig McCracken, 2004-2009) is wildly inventive and subversive. Its plot, which explains that children’s imaginary friends must eventually go live at Madame Foster’s zany orphanage after he or she has outgrown their friend, insists that a child’s imagination has the power to make something real, whether adults believe it or not. At this home, young children are welcome to come and “adopt” one of the friends who is housed there. In this way, the friends are concepts that are “recycled” in order to accommodate children as they grow up.

It’s interesting that Wilt is created with physical defects (his eye and his arm), pointing up the fact that these are not considered flaws by his young creator, but rather just part of who he is, like a hairstyle or shoe size.

There’s a certain level of manic energy present in some of today’s children’s cartoons (see SpongeBob SquarePants), and Foster’s is no exception. It seems as if so much is taking place all at once–most of which is pure nonsense–that we must comb through a cartoon’s goofy dialogue and fast-paced antics to discover central themes of kindness, friendship, and teamwork. I grew up watching David the Gnome, Eureeka’s Castle, Will Quack Quack, Noozles, and Faerie Tale Theatre, all shows that were modest and plodding, patient in their moral messages for kids watching at home. Although Foster’s can be grouped with other kids’ shows that consistently feature a great deal of commotion, this Cartoon Network show boasts some of the most creative characters and engaging plots, even for adults who are fans of clever cartoons with positive messages for everyone. I never had an imaginary friend growing up, and this show is a reminder of that for me.

The commercial for Foster’s states that it’s a place “where good ideas aren’t forgotten.” — The commercial for *Foster’s* states that it’s a place “where good ideas aren’t forgotten.”

We have an eclectic mix of primary characters who we follow throughout the series. The atmosphere at Foster’s rests somewhere between a low level psych ward and a daycare full of rambunctious trouble-makers. Although female-gendered “friends” are largely underrepresented on the show, the lessons Foster’s has to offer to child viewers are healthy and powerful, as they promote building friendships, using your imagination to have fun, and exploring the world around you.

After a fight with his brother, Terrence, which leaves the apartment in disarray, Mac’s mother tells him that at eight years old, he should have outgrown his imaginary friend, Bloo, by now. The fact that after Mac is forced to surrender his kind imaginary friend, yet continues to visit him every day, is evidence that Mac is not quite ready to grow up yet, and perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. We’re never too old to dream, imagine, and tell stories. This pressure to “grow up” translates to a sort of censorship, which inhibits our creative impulses as adults. We can’t be afraid to embrace nonsense; it can always be the root of something spectacular.

We can assume that Mac creates Bloo to cope with the bullying he receives from his obnoxious older brother on a daily basis.

Since the inhabitants of Foster’s are the products of children’s imaginations, it may make more sense to focus on these characters, rather than the humans who help to run the institution. If we simply take a look at the appearance of many imaginary friends, we may surmise that this show is the ultimate lesson in diversity for children viewers. Wilt is very tall with some bodily “deformities,” Eduardo is a Latino creature resembling a bull, and Coco is a bird-like friend whose vocabulary stops at her own name. By observing many of the friends, we get a sense of the psychology behind each creature’s origin. Coco, for example, was dreamed up by a little girl who survives a plane crash and becomes stranded on a desert island; if we look closely, the bird’s head and hair mimic a palm tree, and her body looks like a crashed airplane. In this way, Foster’s can be seen as literally fostering childhood stressors, including the confusion many of us can remember from our early years; the home we find in this cartoon works to make sense of that uncertainty.

Coco’s image is a direct reflection of her little girl’s trauma after a near-death experience.

Because Coco is the only female character within our primary group of imaginary friends, I think it makes sense to focus on her presence in the home. Foster’s houses dozens of more friends, a few of them female, and many of them become entangled in the lives of the main characters. One secondary female character we meet right away is the insufferable Duchess, who believes that she is the best idea anyone’s ever come up with. This leaves Coco as the only primary character who is an imaginary friend in Foster’s (excluding, of course, the humans who help to run the home). What luck that Coco, in spite of her limited vocabulary (or perhaps because of), is simply delightful.

Because Coco is only able to say her own name, she must alter her tone to let her friends know if she’s happy or upset, or if she’s asking a question or giving a direction, etc. This communication has its own set of rules in relation to the other characters (see Stewie from Family Guy). When Bloo first meets her, he repeatedly says “Yes” because he thinks she’s asking if he’d like some cocoa. However, Wilt understands her and explains that she was offering Bloo some juice.

In the first episode of the series, Coco repeatedly squawks “Coco!” at Eduardo as he rescues Mac from a vicious monster created by a “jerky teenage boy,” and Eduardo eventually says in Spanish, “Yes, thanks, Coco, you have a way with words,” clearly an ironic joke that Coco is adept at resolving tense situations, despite the fact that we can’t understand her on some level. It’s also made clear that when we make friends, we eventually begin to speak the same language, even if outsiders are unable to translate it. The show’s inclusion of a Latino character also exposes children to the Spanish language, which can only be a good thing. This scene also solidifies Eduardo as a character we cannot and should not judge based on appearances alone. Despite his large stature and booming voice (not to mention that he’s a bull!), he’s the gentlest friend at Foster’s and is often terrified of children, another example of comical irony in the cartoon.

In season three, Mac responds to Coco’s “gibberish” with an ominous, “Coco, I think if we did that, we’d go to jail,” alerting us to a darker side of Foster’s and its whimsical friends. Like everything else on the show, her thought is left to our own imaginations. What’s convenient and exciting about having Coco around is that she can lay eggs that contain fun prizes. She’s so excited when Bloo arrives at Foster’s that she lays an egg filled with a Ming vase, in addition to a bundle of other mysterious items that Mac carries off when he leaves. Coco also proves her kindness on Bloo’s first night at Foster’s when she gives him an egg with Mac’s photo inside.

Mac is delighted to gather the plastic eggs Coco has laid.

Coco is important not only because she’s one of the only female characters in the house, but because her presence is a mark of understanding: that childhood is its own language, and that play and learning are interconnected and necessary for growth. What children can take away from Foster’s is the understanding that imagination is not synonymous with foolishness, and that it is a muscle to be flexed as often as possible. If this key lesson is instilled in children at a young age, we can expect them to become more creative and tolerant adults who in turn raise their own children to view the world as being full of possibilities, as opposed to the frightening monsters we carry with us from childhood. We may find that those monsters hiding in our closets when we’re kids become the unrealized ideas we hide from as adults. Foster’s materializes this concept beautifully and offers adult viewers the opportunity to live vicariously through each imaginary friend we meet.

Foster’s appeals to kids as it depicts authority figures in a patronizing light, such as the uptight Mr. Herriman, who happens to be a huge rabbit (and also reminds me of the androgynous and high-strung Rabbit of Winnie the Pooh). And yes, most of the friends we follow on the show are males. However, these are forgivable offenses considering the lightheartedness the show promotes, not to mention its celebration of childhood and the endless possibilities of the imagination. Madame Foster’s home offers childhood friends a second chance, proving that imaginary friends don’t die or disappear but are lovingly passed on to the next child who is in need of a wacky companion. Child viewers who actually entertain imaginary friends can easily find some validation in this show’s exploration of that thin line that separates reality from make-believe. Foster’s is a fantastic wonderland for young viewers and a gentle push to adults to pay attention to their child’s imaginary friend, who is always very real for the child.

Note: Season one of Foster’s is currently available on Netflix.

______________________________________

Jenny holds a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at Alvernia University. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema. You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.

The Imaginary World of ‘Mona The Vampire’

The series chronicled the adventures of Mona Parker, a young girl who enjoys dressing up like a vampire and sees saving her town from monsters as her mission in life. The stories are Buffy-lite: a giant bug substitute teacher, a robot babysitter, doppelgängers, a computer virus with mind-control powers, and new cafeteria cooks who aim to poison the school with salmonella. Though the show often pulls out from Mona’s fantasies to reveal the reality of the situation, Mona’s fights against the forces of darkness, usually end up somehow solving the crime or prank, exposing a conspiracy or locating the lost item anyway.

Written by Elizabeth Kiy as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

As a kid, I had a boundless imagination.

I put on plays in my backyard (notably a bowdlerized Romeo and Juliet) and my friends and I spent our recesses pretending we were princesses, fairies, cowgirls, mermaids and Hogwarts students. I convinced my little sister we were always traveling the world- any clock tower was Big Ben, a local bridge was the Golden Gate and power line towers were always the Eiffel Tower.

In short, I was a lot like Mona the Vampire. Or at least, I see a lot of myself in her.

I’m unsure if the show is at all familiar outside Canada. Here, it ran for four seasons (1999-2003) on YTV (basically our equivalent to Nickelodeon) and I binge-watched it on weekends and as treat whenever I stayed home from school sick.

Though the show often pulls out of Mona’s fantasies to reveal the reality of the situation, Mona’s fights against the forces of darkness, usually end up somehow solving the crime or prank, exposing a conspiracy or locating the lost item anyway.

And Mona is never deterred by rationality, in her mind, everything out of the ordinary has a supernatural explanation and nothing can convince her otherwise.

A typical day in Mona’s world may involve fighting space invaders.

As a lead character on a children’s show, Mona is refreshingly atypical. When deciding on alter ego, she eschews the traditional superhero or princess dress and chooses to be a vampire. As a female character, Mona is also unique in her love of scary stories and late night horror movies, comic books and gruesome creepy crawlies. With her usual costume, which she chose herself and slips on at every opportunity, she tries to make herself as frightening as possible with a wig of wild, gravity-defying braids, plastic fangs and exaggerated purple circles drawn under her eyes.

However, the general effect is more adorable than intimidating and with her high pitched voice, it’s clear she’s still a child, unsure of her place in the world, underneath it all.

In fact, like Batman, she considers her true self to be her caped crusaded identity. Mona Parker, not Mona the Vampire, is the disguise. Though Mona sees herself as a vampire, she never troubled with questions of morality, in her view, she’s a good vampire and that’s that. She doesn’t need to bite people or drink blood, but instead has vampire senses that tell her when trouble is near.

While Mona is a good vampire, Von Kreepsula is a evil one, who must be contained within the pages of a comic book

Unlike the brooding vamps we’re used to, Mona also has a child’s sense of morality. She believes that she and her friends are good while the monsters they fight are all bad. For example, Von Kreepsula is Mona’s nemesis, an evil vampire to match her good.

But like the children watching the program, Mona learns that morality is not so black and white

In several episodes, Mona learns the monster she’s been fighting is merely misunderstood, lost it’s home or separated from it’s family. Even her sense of self is challenged when Mona meets a vampire hunter and has to convince her of her essential goodness.

Though Mona is neither binary extreme of masculinity or femininity, the two options usually available to children’s heroes and heroines, her friends and sidekicks Charley (AKA Zappman) and Lily (AKA Princess Giant) certainly are.

Princess Giant, Zappman and Mona the Vampire — Princess Giant, Zappman, and Mona the Vampire

Like Mona, Charley and Lily are imaginative kids who love to play her games, though it’s a little unclear to what extent they believe in actually believe in the monsters and vampires infesting their town. While both are timid and scared on their own, Mona’s bravery and self-confidence buoys them are draws them into her world.

What I found so refreshing was Mona’s personality as a leader, the Really Rosie type, the Queen of the neighborhood. As a leader, Mona also helps her less confident friends discover their skills and strengths by making them vital parts of her fantasy narrative. She can only defeat the monsters with the help for Charley’s Zapp-A-Rama Gun, his aptitude for science and Lily’s ability to grow.

She introduces them to the highly covetable idea of developing a superpower that makes your weaknesses into strength. Sure Charley is easily scared and often bullied, but with Mona’s encouragement to be the superhero she sees in him and encourages him to see for himself, he’s just like his hero, the Man with Nine Lives. Likewise, without Mona, shy Lily hides behind her hair and lets others push her around and feel her small. When they meet, Mona tells Lily she can have any type of alter ego she wants and chose her own powers. Lily chose to become the braver version of herself that she hopes to grow into, and takes on the power to make herself as big as she wants, so no one can intimidate her and make her feel unimportant.

In their daily lives, Mona and her friends are ordinary elementary school students

Closing out the pack is Mona’s trusty cat and confidant Fang is always there as back-up and a (silent) voice of reason anyway. Fang may have more sense than either kids or adults and his expressions often silently suggests the problems in Mona’s logic that no one else can see.

Mona’s parents are supportive but weary. They believe they are raising a highly intelligent, imaginative child, one who gets in her fair share of trouble but is loyal to her friends and always able to find a way out of a jam. They’re the kind of parents every wildly imaginative kid should have, people who always know there are many reasons to be proud of their daughter and nurture her creativity.

Moreover, Mona’s friends are also posed as underdogs throughout the series. Mona’s nemesis is Angela, the cruel and vain daughter of lottery winners who believes she can win friends by showing off her enormous wealth. George, often Angela’s henchmen, is a crude bully who mainly picks on Charley, but is the Principal’s nephew, so he rarely gets in trouble. In comparison, each episode, Mona shows she can save the day with just her wits and imagination, teaching young viewers their value above all.

As with many children’s shows, the kids on Mona the Vampire are smart and resourceful, solving crimes even the police can’t and speaking and working with adults like colleagues, the ultimate fantasy for most real-life kids. In many episodes, Mona deals with the local chief of police, Officer Halcroft who offers rational explanations to each incident. Each time, she dismisses them as ridiculous and unbelievable.

I also love how improvised the character’s costumes seem, like real things the kids could have gathered from around the house. Mona’s floral cape is an old curtain, while Princess Giant’s long blonde hair is a mop. This small aspect of the series adds realism to their imaginings and suggests that the show’s creators consider or remember the actual mechanics of children’s fantasy games.

The typical effect used to transition between “fantasy” and “reality”

In addition, the show refuses to underestimate children as an audience, the stories are never definitively attributed to natural or supernatural causes and the show never overtly indulges or refutes her world. The transition effect between “reality” and Mona’s fantasy gives viewers room to judge how much of the fantasy is real. Many episodes even end on an uncertain note, with even the adults unable to explain every detail rationally, suggesting there may be some truth to Mona’s imagination.

Mostly I liked the show because it clearly respected and celebrated the dreamworld so essential to childhood and creative, curious children. With imagination like Mona’s, even the ordinary world can be magical.

Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and freelance journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.