Should a toy boat be allowed to just be a toy boat?

When I first walked into the Bateaux Jouets exhibition at the National Maritime Museum last week I was enchanted. However, my enchantment quickly turned sour. The narrative in which the toys were situated seemed to be overly positive. The majority of the boats were military models. Given that most of these models were created leading up to the First and Second World Wars, surely an interesting line of enquiry would have been to ask if these toys had socialized children to become unquestioning participants in these events? When I mentioned this to my boyfriend he was annoyed. “Can’t you just let a toy boat be a toy boat?”

I was somewhat appeased by the French film that played continuously during the exhibition which dealt with some of these themes, albeit in a subtle way. But was this film enough to deal with these issues in the exhibit? Considering the amount of space given to explaining the different companies who created these toys, surely there was room for some more difficult questions? I realise that an exhibition needs to be enjoyable, but surely there is a balance that can be negotiated between challenging and amusing visitors.