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The economics and politics of Thomas the Tank Engine (2015)
- vmilner 3y agoI’d really love to have a Proper Uk ordnance survey map of Sodor - I’d thought about doing it myself but unsure if the required “toolkits” are available for imaginary locations.
- JacobAldridge 3y agoI reckon you could get there by ferry from Pontypandy.
- Animats 3y ago... They seek meaning and joy in a Stakhanovite desire to be “really useful engines”. The great trick of Sir Topham is to employ engines who essentially evoke the image of the New Soviet man in the service of a proto-capitalist, semi-feudal enterprise. Like startups who want their employees to be "passionate" about the business. Even if it's a banal business.
- aaronbrethorst 3y agoThe ur-example of this is a 2011 article from Slate: https://slate.com/culture/2011/07/thomas-the-tank-engine-the-popular-children-s-show-is-sadly-nostalgic-for-british-imperialism.html https://slate.com/culture/2011/07/thomas-the-tank-engine-the...
- kagevf 3y agoThank you for providing a non-medium alternative!
- thanatos519 3y agoNo article about TtTE is complete without a mention of https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sad_Story_of_Henry https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sad_Story_of_Henry
- no_wizard 3y agoWhats the significance of this episode?
- actionfromafar 3y agoCruel and unusual punishment, public shaming, steeling oneself against the suffering of another, mocking of the obsolete, the (feigned) pretense that you yourself could not be the one locked up next time, etc etc.
- FridayoLeary 3y agoOne must take that in context. Despite the engines possesing powers of reasoning and critical thinking, it's important to recognise that those aren't as advanced as a human. It is likely that they also don't feel emotions like shame as strongly. The engines appear to have the intellectual and emotional capacity of an 8 year old human.
- aidenn0 3y ago8 year old humans can feel shame incredibly strongly.
- Moissanite 3y agoListen, if I had to pull the Flying Kipper up a hill with inferior non-Welsh coal, I'd be sad too.
- actionfromafar 3y agoOh, I forgot. In the US, the pretense wouldn't be, feigned or otherwise. It'd be a deep conviction that Bad Stuff happens to Bad People. In the UK, everyone knows deep down the Fat Controller could come for them too and you couldn't do anything about it.
- ffhhj 3y agoSodor is a play on the words south and "sudor", which means sweat in Spanish. A tropical island with a colony that extracts its resources using the available power source: charcoal from trees.
- DonaldFisk 3y agoEr, no. There's a diocese of Sodor and Man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocese_of_Sodor_and_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocese_of_Sodor_and_Man), and that's where Awdry got the name from. The Isle of Man you'll be familiar with. IRL, Sodor is the the Hebrides, Suðreyjar in Norse, Southern Isles in English. The Northern Isles are Orkney and Shetland.
- analog31 3y agoI just thought it was halfway between Sodom and Gomorrah.
- thefourthchime 3y agoNot really related, but if you haven't seen Thomas the "Dank" Engine, a B.I.G. remix of the theme song, I highly recommend it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzmWzXLPa6I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzmWzXLPa6I
- toast0 3y agoThere's also this not for kids mix of George Carlin's Thomas narration and some of his other work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a_gW1KvuFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a_gW1KvuFk
- gwilkes 3y agoI think this may have been inspired by “Thomas Gon’ Give It To Ya” which came out two years earlier: https://youtu.be/xFSwIw-_-as https://youtu.be/xFSwIw-_-as Pretty sure this one inspired a whole bunch of rap songs mixed with the Thomas theme song. They all sound pretty good but still think this one is the best
- cafard 3y agoAt this point, I think I need to mention Frederick Crews's book The Pooh Perplex, with Freudian, Marxian, Anglo-Catholic, Leavisite, etc. readings of A.A. Milne. He updated this with Post-Modern Pooh a few years back, which undoubtedly deconstructs it, but I haven't caught up with that one.
- FridayoLeary 3y agoA point overlooked in the article is the Fat Controllers' complete disregard of environmental concerns. The fact that he continues to operate polluting steam trains with impunity suggests that any environmental lobby groups that may exist on the island have very little power. This also suggests that he has a lot of power over whatever form of government exists on the island. Likewise he has the support of the locals, possibly due to his being a major source of employment on the island. No doubt his sentient engines are also a major draw for tourists.
- User23 3y agoBut it’s not overlooked. The article notes the difficulty presented by the “polluting steam trains” being sentient beings.
- mr_toad 3y agoEven as a child the apparently irrational nostalgia for the old ways and the denigration of anything new (steam vs diesel) bothered me. I’m not sure if this was intentional and self-aware commentary, or if the series was really trying to espouse the idea that the old ways are better.
- FridayoLeary 3y agoThere is a strong antipathy towards industrialism in the series despite the facts that it is the main profit source for the rail company and steam engines being the symbol of the industrial revolution. Take for example the dreaded Trucks who are universally despised and the crane in the dockyard who is nasty to everyone. An example of nostalgia trumping rational considerations is the story of Toby. An obsolete tram is finally retired from service only to be recomissioned by the Fat Controller to operate on the railway. Clearly a tram on a railway is impractical and inefficient.
- hakfoo 3y agoI think it originally came from the fact the book series dates to the 1940s. The earliest ones actually predate the 1946 nationalization of British railways. Diesel locomotives were strange and disruptive to the steam-based world that was the baseline. What gets me is that a tiny island with only trivial industry has acquired an incredibly random fleet of locomotives. In practice, you'd expect to see either a small number of engines built as a fleet, or still relatively similar engines built over time with incremental enhancements. I could sort of rationalize it if it were being ran as a "hobby business"-- not necessarily based on economic needs, but because the operators are just pathological locomotive collectors, perhaps collecting what British Rail shed at scrap prices as it dieselized.
- billyjobob 3y agoThis episode was always my favourite https://youtu.be/462KBuAhncU https://youtu.be/462KBuAhncU It’s a somewhat darker, modern take on the story.
- petermcneeley 3y agoThank you for sharing this!
- adeimantus2001 3y agoI stopped reading at "the Thomas I am considering is the modern, CGI edition"... Sorry, but I'm a Thomas purist. for more deep dives into the world of Thomas, see https://www.youtube.com/@TheUnluckyTug_official https://www.youtube.com/@TheUnluckyTug_official