http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-medium-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
A New York Times writer wrote about the earlier episodes of Sesame Street. Basically, if you watch the first season of Sesame Street, it's not something people of 2007 would let their young children watch...
"Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole."
Yep. Psychotically paranoid parents of today would never let their children watch that episode! Go home with an older man! The milk could be poisonous! Think of what could happen to poor Sally!
Although, if I was a parent, I am sure I would be pretty paranoid what kind of message that episode of Sesame Street was sending to young children. Go home with older men, they'll give you cookies and milk! Oh jeebus.
But it's not only the message of going home with older men, cookie monster smoking pipes and eating them, Big Bird's mental delusions of Snuffleupagus, and Oscar's misanthropic behavior, but Sesame Street itself was the backdrop of the inner city.
"The Upper West Side, hardly a burned-out ghetto, was said to be the model."
The show was targeted to young African-American children and basically sending messages that learning might make the days more bearable, but your existence in the ghettos will remain as such. Sesame Street showed you the how to live in the inner city, not how to get out of it.
A New York Times writer wrote about the earlier episodes of Sesame Street. Basically, if you watch the first season of Sesame Street, it's not something people of 2007 would let their young children watch...
"Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole."
Yep. Psychotically paranoid parents of today would never let their children watch that episode! Go home with an older man! The milk could be poisonous! Think of what could happen to poor Sally!
Although, if I was a parent, I am sure I would be pretty paranoid what kind of message that episode of Sesame Street was sending to young children. Go home with older men, they'll give you cookies and milk! Oh jeebus.
But it's not only the message of going home with older men, cookie monster smoking pipes and eating them, Big Bird's mental delusions of Snuffleupagus, and Oscar's misanthropic behavior, but Sesame Street itself was the backdrop of the inner city.
"The Upper West Side, hardly a burned-out ghetto, was said to be the model."
The show was targeted to young African-American children and basically sending messages that learning might make the days more bearable, but your existence in the ghettos will remain as such. Sesame Street showed you the how to live in the inner city, not how to get out of it.
2 comments:
You know, I don't know if the world has really gotten more dangerous/threatening or whether we are now interpreting things that way. Big Bird as psyhotic and having hallucinations? I don't think kids really thought that way--I didn't--I was part of the early 1970s wave of kids who grew up watching a "grittier" version of Sesame Street. I do think that you have to be careful in a way that you didn't before--technology is part of that--but I also think that teaching kids to be afraid of everyone and everything doesn't seem very healthy either...
I completely agree. I think we are getting a little too paranoid about everything. I mean cookie monster eats carrots now? I am still healthy and I grew up watching cookie monster devour cookies every day... Although, my roommate told me she always shook her fist at cookie monster because he was always so wasteful. Most of the cookies never even ended up in his mouth.
If I have kids, I don't want them to grow up completely censored to everything. I mean they have to learn about things sooner or later...... My parents never censored anything I watched or read....... =)
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