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A review by spacestationtrustfund
Curious George by Margret Rey, H.A. Rey
1.0
One of the kids I work with really loves Curious George, and, with that typical little-kid curiosity, never gets tired of being read the same books a million times or watching the same films a million times. So I've watched a lot of Curious George, and I've read a lot of Curious George, and the inside of my brain is yellow and sad, or something; well, it's a cute story, if you turn off your awareness of the actual world, and pretend that poaching isn't a thing and the exotic pet trade is totally chill and anthropomorphism is fun instead of dangerous. I've been charmed a few times myself, but at this point I'm so goddamn sick of Curious George.
I'm a professional killer of joy and ruiner of fun, so I think applying a critical eye to children's books is a diverting activity instead of weird and pretentious. The Wind in the Willows is about a deeply racist, misogynistic, nationalist nostalgia for pre-civil rights days; The Jungle Book is pro-imperialist coloniser nonsense. And Curious George is many things: portraying abusive relationships as cute and heartwarming, victim-blaming children, reinforcing racist stereotypes, smoothing down things like illegal poaching and the exotic pet trade which result in hundreds if not thousands of animals abused and killed each year. The plot is fairly straightforward: a man wearing a yellow hat visits the jungle, captures a young monkey, brings the monkey back with him to a major city, keeps the monkey in his apartment without proper housing and food and enrichment, neglects the monkey to the point that the monkey escapes onto the streets of the city. Finally, he is "rescued": brought back to captivity, but a captivity he knows.
"If enough things happen to you," reads one of my favourite dark parodies of Curious George, "you can learn to love something just for being familiar." Apart from being a story of a kidnapping, Curious George is also a deeply troubling story of the dangers of anthropomorphism. Although the narrative portrays George as having human emotions, an understanding of English, comprehension of things like human morals and rules—this is anthropomorphism, and it easily becomes harmful both to human and non-human animal. A monkey is not a human being, no matter how much someone thinks it is or wants it to be; similarly, a human is not a monkey, and never will be able to be. Forcing a wild animal into human society is not only dangerous, it's also cruel. And the narrative punishes George for something beyond his control: he is curious. He is a monkey, who does not know intimately what humans can and will do to wild animals they want to keep, and he is punished for it. If it weren't for his innate curiosity, after all, he never would have been caught in the first place.
I'm a professional killer of joy and ruiner of fun, so I think applying a critical eye to children's books is a diverting activity instead of weird and pretentious. The Wind in the Willows is about a deeply racist, misogynistic, nationalist nostalgia for pre-civil rights days; The Jungle Book is pro-imperialist coloniser nonsense. And Curious George is many things: portraying abusive relationships as cute and heartwarming, victim-blaming children, reinforcing racist stereotypes, smoothing down things like illegal poaching and the exotic pet trade which result in hundreds if not thousands of animals abused and killed each year. The plot is fairly straightforward: a man wearing a yellow hat visits the jungle, captures a young monkey, brings the monkey back with him to a major city, keeps the monkey in his apartment without proper housing and food and enrichment, neglects the monkey to the point that the monkey escapes onto the streets of the city. Finally, he is "rescued": brought back to captivity, but a captivity he knows.
"If enough things happen to you," reads one of my favourite dark parodies of Curious George, "you can learn to love something just for being familiar." Apart from being a story of a kidnapping, Curious George is also a deeply troubling story of the dangers of anthropomorphism. Although the narrative portrays George as having human emotions, an understanding of English, comprehension of things like human morals and rules—this is anthropomorphism, and it easily becomes harmful both to human and non-human animal. A monkey is not a human being, no matter how much someone thinks it is or wants it to be; similarly, a human is not a monkey, and never will be able to be. Forcing a wild animal into human society is not only dangerous, it's also cruel. And the narrative punishes George for something beyond his control: he is curious. He is a monkey, who does not know intimately what humans can and will do to wild animals they want to keep, and he is punished for it. If it weren't for his innate curiosity, after all, he never would have been caught in the first place.