Madagascar Escape to Africa and Parents’ Career Expectations for Children

Abstract

This essay is a thematic review of a computer animated comedy filmMadagascar Escape 2 Africa. It highlights the rich thematic embodiment of the film. Entertainment-Education has been adopted as a theoretical framework for analysis, owing to the fact that it emphasizes infusion of educational oriented content into the production of entertainment programmes/media content to achieve attitudinal change in society. Five themes have been identified from the film and discussed, namely: the usefulness/relevance of every talent/skill, the power of unity/friendship, innovation, adventure and love. The central thesis in the essay is that all talents are relevant and important to the growth and development of society as contained in the film under review, hence parents are advised to identify talents which their children have and guide them accordingly to exploit and utilize them to the fullest. This is against the career imposition trait of most parents, which often time leads to poor performance of children in careers they have no passion for. Conclusively, the study recommends the Entertainment-Education approach to producers of children films and media content to help reduce the cultivation effect that arises from the projection of violence, crime, nudity and profane scenes in cartoons and children programmes. This will go a long way to help achieve the desired attitudinal change in society.