Actually, no one knows what happened to the Tiananmen square "Tank Man":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man(Minor point, but I was not meaning to hold up suicide as an act of courage. I never believed him to have been killed.)
In my opinion too many children are fed a steady intellectual diet of low-quality fare dealing with fairies, princesses, Care Bears, My Little Pony, Barney, etc. when they could just as easily be exposed in easy small doses to the way life really is, along with much higher quality stories.
I notice you use primarily girl-oriented media examples here. What about superheroes, etc? Plenty of bash, kill, die media models for boys. I don't really think kids' culture is cloyingly sweet as a whole. I would argue that none of it is very realistic, however. I don't know if I care THAT much. Childhood stories are not supposed to about realism. Fantasy is extremely important.
I will note again that I don't advocate lying to children. I have always answered my children's questions honestly. I have no patience for anyone who lies about death or where babies come from. But I don't think my 4yo needs to see step by step explicit photos of adults having sex to know how reproduction works and I don't think my 7o needs to see bodies falling out the sky to understand 9/11.
I appreciate the civil conversation.
