JaggedMonster 2 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 About every '90s kid knows the Nickelodeon series,"Hey Arnold". The show about a small boy with an odd shaped head. Arnold is a boy who lives in a 'fictional' city. The city actually is New York(Brooklyn). The poor area of New York at that time, it's clearly visible that Arnold lives in a ghetto. Arnold is an orphan, his parents mysteriously vanished when he was a kid. His grandmother is psychotic, potentially schizophrenic, and sometimes borders on child endangerment. It's heavily implied that Helga's mom is an alcoholic. She's even seen making a Bloody Mary for breakfast and looking for tabasco. Helga grows up completely negected by her parents, who fawn over her high-achieving sister, but completely ignore her. Arnold is the only person to ever show her kindness; consequently she falls in love with him. However, as a defense mechanism, she bullies Arnold out of the fear that he will reject her in the same way that her family rejected her. In one episode, Helga's family hires a nanny (Inga) who cares for her, but she frames Inga and gets her deported. Out of guilt, she apologizes, and Inga tells Helga that she only has herself to blame for her unhappiness. Helga realizes her actions have cost her a stable home and someone who cares for her. Olga, Helga's sister, deals with her family's problems through denial, which drives her perfectionism. There's tons of urban poverty shown throughout the show. They play stickball in vacant lots, there are rats in the subway system, at one point Arnold gets mugged, teachers go on strike due to lack of funding, the mayor fixes a pot hole by putting a board over it, there are homeless people everywhere... poverty is rampant. I can't really think of another children's show that directly shows that much poverty blatantly like that. Oskar is an Eastern European immigrant who is illiterate, lazy, and unemployed. He always tries to cheat people out of money to pay for his gambling problem. Curley is the class psychopath, who stops at nothing to get revenge when he has been wronged. Chocolate Boy is pretty much a blatant a--logy to a heroin addict. He humiliates himself in public for chocolate and goes dumpster diving for chocolate, and even goes through a chocolate "detox" period where he starts hallucinating and has to be tied down. Eventually they realize that Chocolate Boy uses chocolate as a coping mechanism to deal with the loss of his nanny growing up. Stoop Kid is an orphan who was abandoned on his stoop as a baby, grew up entirely on the stoop, even teaching himself to read out of the one book he owns. His stoop is the only family he has ever known, and consequently he is highly agoraphobic and refuses to leave. The neighborhood kids make fun of him because of this. Arnold seeks out the hermit Pigeon Man, who has decided to live among pigeons because, unlike humans, pigeons don't destroy, start wars, or hate others. Arnold takes Pigeon Man to try and convince him that humanity is good. While they're gone, the other kids destroy Pigeon Man's home. Pigeon Man decides that humanity is bad, and hopes that there are more people like Arnold, the one human he sees good in. And, the tearjerker, Mr. Hyunh lived in Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon. When American troops were evacuating South Vietnamise citizens, there was only room on the last helecopter for one more person, so Mr. Hyunh gave up his infant daughter so she could lead a better life in America. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mAvELU5Cvs Edit: I'll see if I can think of any more things and add them in. As subtlenauticaltheme pointed out below, when Lila is first introduced, the girls hate her because she's "little miss perfect": smart, beautiful, and popular. However, they soon learn that her father hasn't found a job yet, so they're destitute and live in the bad part of town, living off of beans and 'canned meat substitute'. It's also another instance of Hey Arnold addressing the issue of poverty head-on. Edit: Wow, thanks to whoever gifted me reddit gold! I've always thought that part of what made Hey Arnold a great show was the grittiness and rawness of it... most children's shows either portray the world idealistically, or when problems do arise, they're the focal point of the episode and everything gets resolved in 30 minutes and the world is perfect again. In Hey Arnold, problems serve as a backdrop for the main plot, they don't necessarily get resolved by the end of the episode, and things don't always turn out for the best. One of the great things about that approach is that it sends the message that no one has a perfect life, everyone has their own problems, but you can live with them and still have fun adventures and a good group of friends. It doesn't matter if you come from a traditional family like Gerald, an non-traditional family like Arnold, a broken home like Helga, or even if you don't have a family... there's hope for everyone. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hello Mr. Radio 45 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 tl;dr but the ghost subway train episode scared the **** out of me when I was a kid Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaggedMonster 2 Posted September 14, 2014 Author Share Posted September 14, 2014 tl;dr but the ghost subway train episode scared the **** out of me when I was a kid Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kermit the frog 1,761 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 Holy crap. I loved that show but never realised how real it was. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Memo 176 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 :emo: how did I never realise I like that this is not like most "X show was really about Y thing" theories where people reach for a metaphorical explanation. In Hey Arnold they do it all in your face, like, nothing is hidden yet we just realise now what they were showing us. Great a--lysis tbh Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SissyFromSpace 20,883 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 just another creepypasta Barbie elitist - Weaboo - Sissy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaggedMonster 2 Posted September 14, 2014 Author Share Posted September 14, 2014 Holy crap. I loved that show but never realised how real it was. When I was younger, I always knew there was something off about that show and see it again mad me realize what it was about Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altair 1,999 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 And the school didn't even have a name... That's how poor they were. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Princess Die 1,864 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 They don't make them like this anymore. :yes: Nod if you wanna make love with the enemy. ❤ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koala 3 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 90s cartoons were the best Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SissyFromSpace 20,883 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 If anyone is interested in watching The Haunted Train: http://www.funniermoments.com/watch.php?vid=6e1301f67 Barbie elitist - Weaboo - Sissy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blubrryxkisses 15 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 Wow, never paid as much attention to the themes of mental health issues when I was a kid. The poverty themes I was old enough to understand. Thanks for posting this! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaggedMonster 2 Posted September 14, 2014 Author Share Posted September 14, 2014 They don't make them like this anymore. They don't..someone will get offended to easy into days generation Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonsterJay 1,481 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 Mr. Hyunh reunited with his daughter in that episode tho Still makes me cry tbh Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cody Draco 2,531 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 Such an amazing show. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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