What Is He Watching?

Every night before bed time, we watch TV as a family.  Which translates to me having to endure some children's programming that makes me bang my head on the wall and attempt count the minutes until it's over.  His favorite of the moment, Dora the Explorer.

So since I was stuck watching this crap, with my son happily tucked between my wife and I, my mind started to wander.  And I came to the conclusion that I believe Dora the Explorer can be construed as racist.  You wouldn't think that could be possible. Not with the content, and all of the PHDs listed in the credits.  But if you break it down, I believe we can see a subliminal commentary on minorities...

First we have Dora, an unsupervised brown girl who wanders about where ever and whenever she pleases.  Her parents don't ever seem to care where she is, or even when she comes (Which I personally think is bullshit since I couldn't leave the block and had to be home before the street lamps came on).   So there she in, always meandering about with her best friend Boots.  A "monkey" who takes way to much pride in his footwear.  Let's face it, if they slap the Timberland logo on those shoes we know exactly what kind of metaphor Boots is supposed to be.

So we have a brown girl, and a "monkey" wandering about the "jungle", all the while trying to not get jacked by some slick motha fucka in a bandana, named Swiper.  Sometimes they get help from their friends:

• Tico - their buck toothed friend that doesn't speak English,
• Izza - who is constantly growing flowers (i.e. weed) in her garden, or
• Benny - whose main source of transportation (a hot air balloon) is constantly breaking down and leaving him helpless.  In one episodes the actually fix his ride with tape.

Put this all together, seems to me Dora the Explorer is a just a giant metaphor for living in the ghetto.  I wonder why no one else ever saw this.