Jimmy Kimmel (trigger warning for serious public embarrassment) asked parents to give their kids a “terrible present,” film their reactions, and post it on YouTube.
Maybe I’m oversensitive, but I didn’t find this video funny at all: I actually thought it was horrifying. Imagine your parents tricking you into opening a present you didn’t want, filming it, and showing it for the entertainment of national television audiences, all of whom are laughing at you. This is the sort of thing people with social anxiety have nightmares about.
But going beyond my… personal discomfort… with the video, I found something sociologically interesting about it. Namely, the terrible presents fell into two categories:
1) Food. (Half-eaten sandwiches were a recurring theme.)
2) Gender-inappropriate toys.
And most of the gender-inappropriate toys were given to boys. There was one girl who received a Star Wars activity book and said she wasn’t a boy, which I think is clearly a sign of shoddy parenting. Star Wars is for everyone! Star Wars is awesome! Hmph.
The gender-inappropriate toys given to boys included a Hello Kitty sweatshirt, a girl’s activity book with stickers, and ponies. “Ponies are for girls”? Seriously? I know a few people who’d disagree with that. In general, there is no logical reason why ponies, Hello Kitty, or stickers are “naturally” feminine; they just are, because we have to divide everything up into either dude-things or girl-things.
I really think this video shows the strength of gender-conditioning at an early age, particularly for boys. The boy who recieved a Hello Kitty sweatshirt told his parents he hated them! For receiving a sweatshirt that had pink and an adorable little kitten on it! I’m sure everyone has experienced getting terrible presents (I, for one, endured about five years of getting makeup kits for Christmas). However, when I received my makeup kits, I had to smile and say thank you and write a thank you note; only gender-inappropriate gifts are allowed to have the dramatic “I hate you” reactions.
It’s suggestive that most of the people who received gender-inappropriate presents were male (even the girl had brothers). That suggests that we might find boys receiving girl presents to be far more transgressive, and hence hilarious, than the other way around.
If I received a Hello Kitty sweatshirt when I was a little kid, I would think to myself “Oh no, I have to wear this in public. My classmates are going to point and laugh at me!” If I received a half eaten sandwich when I was a little kid, I would think to myself “My parents just gave me trash for Christmas” In each scenario, I cannot see myself showing gratitude. I may try to show gratitude, but the feeling of being insulted would be too much and I would start crying. It’s possible I wasn’t “raised right” (I… Read more »
@Schala: I enjoy dressing up now, as an adult, but as a kid, the concept baffled me. Why go to the trouble of finding and putting on a princess dress in just the right color when you could just pretend you were wearing a princess dress? After all, your castle and subjects were already make-believe anyway. The exception was Halloween, when everyone was expected to wear a costume, and the adults wouldn’t know who you were pretending to be unless you dressed up.
IDiom – I think getting the lump of coal would actually be preferable to the rotten sandwich because at least the coal is recognized by everyone to be a crappy present you’re not supposed to like. That’s the whole point of the coal – you were bad and therefor you get a shitty gift. These kids are intentionally being given shitty gifts by people who are acting like that’s not what’s happening.
Barbies didn’t seem to be used for anything except dressing up pretty and hanging out at the mall, neither of which I enjoyed, so I didn’t like them so much. Matchbox cars? I loved those, especially the ones with doors or hoods that really opened. You could imagine tiny people getting into and out of them more easily. Same here, played with the cars and Lego blocks, but wouldn’t even have known what to do with Barbie. I didn’t have the reference frame to dress up, plus being raised as a boy, dressing up amounts to being a clone of… Read more »
@Improbable Joe: As a tomboy with a brother and no sisters, I didn’t particularly care whether a toy was “for girls” or not. Superhero action figures and My Little Ponies had adventures, so I liked them. Barbies didn’t seem to be used for anything except dressing up pretty and hanging out at the mall, neither of which I enjoyed, so I didn’t like them so much. Matchbox cars? I loved those, especially the ones with doors or hoods that really opened. You could imagine tiny people getting into and out of them more easily. 🙂 And I was always disappointed… Read more »
… on the other hand, “girl” toys are sort of lame, according to my magically infallible memory. I’m trying to think of a toy marketed to girls that was actually cool, and I’m completely drawing a blank. To be fair, there were a pretty large number of “boy” toys that were also kind of sad: no one wanted to ask for Transformers and get GoBots instead. Some of the He-Man toys were cool, but if all you could get was Beast Man and Man-E-Faces it wasn’t exactly worth bragging about. I don’t know what the deal was… maybe it was… Read more »
I think screwing around with kids as a joke OR to make some sort of sociopolitical statement is in bad taste. Plus, the whole thing sticks in my craw on account of I come from humble origins. I’ve had “bad” gifts that were all my parents could afford that year, so this whole thing is deeply offensive to me in a way that I find hard to put into words.
How could any parent feel okay about pulling a prank like this ?
“That suggests that we might find boys receiving girl presents to be far more transgressive, and hence hilarious, than the other way around.”
File that under Dept. of We-Already-Knew-That
Jimmy Kimmel is a horrible person for even suggesting this.
Yes, kids should learn to be more grateful for practical-yet-unwanted gifts, but you don’t deliberately give them crappy gifts. The whole point of “you should be grateful” is that Grandma was thinking of you and trying to get you something nice. A rotten banana isn’t what anyone would consider “something nice.”
I just really dislike “humor” that relies heavily on making someone else uncomfortable, putting them in an awkward position, embarrassing them, etc. (which is why I can’t stand reality TV). I’m a rather empathetic person and I just feel bad for whoever is the butt of the joke 🙁 Having an in joke with your family, like a prank or a joke gift that randomly circulates is funny but deliberately setting it up–on a kid, no less–so that you can post the video is just mean. And I really hate the gendering of the toys and using that to shame… Read more »
I think a lump of coal would have been really clever and amusing.
I also strongly disagree that one should be grateful for being given rotten food.
I’m not suggesting that parents should give their children half-eaten food or rotten bananas, i’m just saying that when it comes to gifts of any kind that one should be grateful for whatever one gets, rather than having a conniption. Again I say, what if the parent had just given the child a lump of coal.
Would that be more apt for you @superglucose, or would that also be ‘despicable’?
No real comment, I just thought this is a much nicer take on this subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMWTs0YT928
Oops. Less youtube, more national TV. o.O Even worse.
I am also not really into the whole filming your kids getting a gag gift for youtube… thing. On the flip side, I’m about 90% sure my kids would know exactly which buttheads pulled the switch on them. 😀 My wife and I are not above pranking our kids (although I’m more of a huge box of tissues with a small present in it sort) and they figured that out a long time ago All three of my kids love Hello Kitty stuff (really, the whole household does), but my daughter does try to pull the ‘it’s for girls’ thing.… Read more »
As a parent, I think everyone who participated in this — inflicting a cruel joke on your child and then posting their reaction for the world to see — deserves a swift boot in the ass.
There are a few things I honed in on this video, and none of them (well ok one of them) had to do with gender roles: 1) It was genuinely funny when the dog ate the hotdog. Just the dog’s utter obliviousness to the situation was juxtaposed with the kid going “… a hot dog.” 2) It was genuinely funny when the girl who opened the half-a-pb&j said, “What’s… this…” with a look of “that’s a good joke” on her face. It was genuinely abhorrent when her mother tried to guilt-trip her. I’d love to rescue that little girl and… Read more »
AHahah. Kimmel really tapping into the schadenfreude circuit in our brain, very Avenue Q. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9B-ZoS0wvU Whilst i’m not suggesting a reversion to ‘ye olde days’, but there was a time when the threat of receiving a lump of coal would scare children into behaving, moreso, there was gratitude that you got anything at all. My take away from that skit was that (American) children are spoiled, entitled little shits. Though i’ll grant that having a camera shoved in your face whilst you open a prank gift does take away some of the ‘real’ reaction of these children because most, if… Read more »
I was bothered by this video but I hadn’t really thought on the gendering of the toys (although you make excellent points).. it was the kids’ reactions to them. The only one I found amusing was the little girl who was trying to be diplomatic over a half-eaten sandwich. I thought that was adorable.