Depending on your viewpoint, this is either terribly heartbreaking ("I read those books as a kid!") or the universe's way of taking down a crazed anti-feminist.
According to a Slate article, The Berenstain Bears are an insipid, saccharine family--the grizzly version of The Brady Bunch, minus Alice or, for that matter, Sam the butcher. Mama Bear, in particular, is often argued to be from central casting for a third rate, wannabe, Stepford Wife. Who knew?!
Then there's the other reason people hate the books. Charles Krauthammer--a grouchy old fart of a newspaper columnist your grandfather probably reads, so go ask him--despises The Berenstain Bears. According to him "these books are easily spotted by their minimalist art and their baroque story lines, pint-size versions of the nomadic anti-plot you find in a New Yorker short story."
Wait-wait-wait, I'm confused. That's how Krauthammer describes something he hates? If someone told me this blog was a stripped-down Jack Kerouac novella, minus Kerouac's anti-Semitism and blatant sexism, like something you'd read in The Atlantic if The Atlantic wasn't so full of itself...well, I'd be pretty damn proud of myself.
It's like people want to hate Jan Berenstain, but aren't sure how to hate her. It's like hating someone who brings you ice cream. Sure, you're on a diet, have diabetes, and your clogged arteries are going to stop pumping once you ingest the saturated fat from your freebie ice cream--but damned if that ice cream doesn't taste delicious.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is...well, uh, thanks, Jan, for the ice cream?
(Not going to lie--Jan is creeping me out in that photo above. Small, frail, elderly women shouldn't scare grown men. I think it's because her eyes are obscured. Otherwise, I've never been frightened by the prospect of a Berenstain Bears book more than right now.)
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