- by Anton Le Brun and Owen Morton
Some would argue that Thomas the Tank Engine is merely a set of children's books and an endearing television programme. However, in discussion this evening, we realised - quite spontaneously - that Thomas the Tank Engine is in fact a figurehead for prejudiced repression.
How? you all cry. (Well, probably, you cry, anyway. We're not too sure, but suspect you probably do.) Well, if you think about it - carefully - you will notice that Thomas the Tank Engine contains many ideas that would today be considered unacceptable. We will now detail these at length.
First, let us consider the Fat Controller. First off, we would submit that he isn't actually all that fat anyway. It is believed that the average waist size of a male today is 34 to 36 inches, and we think that he looks to be about 36 inches, thus not making him the fat controller but the average controller. In fact, to take this further, we could suggest that all the other persons (such as Thomas' driver, for example) seen in the programme are actually thin, even to the point of anorexia. But even were he to be of a sufficient girth and stature to be referred to as 'fat', it is in modern day society completely intolerable to speak of individuals in this derogatory manner. The usually acceptable phrase now used is - or should be - 'horizontally challenged'. So, first, we must campaign for the renaming as 'horizontally challenged controller' and respect that he deserves in his capacity as controller.
Secondly, it escapes most peoples' attention that all the engines in Thomas the Tank Engine are male. Indeed, every single character in this programme is male, with the exception of the horizontally challenged controller's wife. Just think about it: Thomas, Edward, Henry, Gordon, James, Percy, Toby … they are all male names. The only engine that we could possibly suggest was female is Duck, because if he were male, he would more appropriately be called 'Drake'. But the TV programme shatters this illusion by Duck being voiced by Ringo Starr, along with the other characters. So Thomas the Tank Engine is in fact rather sexist, just by its exclusion of women. To correct this fault, we should rename a number of the engines with female names. Henry could become Henrietta, James Jane, Gordon Gordonina. Once this is done, Thomas the Tank Engine would be a perfectly respectable, politically correct, non-sexist programme in several respects. But there are still some radical alterations that must be made.
Throughout the programme, diesel engines are always portrayed as the villains of the piece. For example, the eponymous Diesel, who makes it his business to turn all the other engines against Edward, even though he has no real motivation. It is only when he begins this trick on Henry after successfully driving out Edward that the other engines realise what he's really about. (And on this point, it is interesting to note that Diesel is painted black, who is, as I'm sure we'll all agree, a racist assumption that black is bad, an assumption which persists even in such modern classics as Lord of the Rings.) So Thomas the Tank Engine makes unflattering comments about diesels, who are almost certainly a metaphor for minority groups in society. (We are choosing to ignore the friendly diesel Boco, who completely derails our theory.)
And last, but by no means least - in fact, perhaps most - there is a strong case for the Isle of Sodor on which all the engines lived being an island of repression and terror. The engines were in total control (some would suggest that the horizontally challenged controller was in charge - but it is painfully obvious for those who have made more than a cursory study of the literature involved that he was no more than a puppet - observe, for example, the number of times the engines disobeyed him and got away with it, where if he had been a real leader, he would have banished them) of the island, and used humans on it for their own nefarious purposes. In fact, had the Reverend W. Audry not died before finishing his books, it is almost certain that they would have developed into an epic struggle between the fascistic engines and the liberal humans for control of the island. *
It is a model for the author to create an idealistic society, but the author, instead of expressing his true views, chooses to use children's fantasy to portray society as dominated by Protestant white males. Okay, we haven't talked about religion here, but we could have done if we'd wanted to. We're getting bored with writing this now so we won't bother with the religious aspect. Just take it from us: we're right.
* There was a dispute between the authors at this point: Owen thought for 'liberal' we should read 'communist' but we eventually settled for 'liberal', because in Owen's view communists are rather liberal anyway.