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Sesame Street DVD Deemed Adult-Only Entertainment
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Nov 18, 2007 01:28 PM
from the media-execs-need-to-grow-a-freaking-spine dept.
from the media-execs-need-to-grow-a-freaking-spine dept.
theodp writes "The earliest episodes of Sesame Street are being made available on DVD, but the NYT notes Volumes 1 and 2 carry a rather strange warning: 'These early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child.' So why are they unsuitable for toddlers in 2007? Well, in the parody 'Monsterpiece Theater,' Alistair Cookie — played by Cookie Monster — used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. 'That modeled the wrong behavior,' explained a Sesame Street executive producer, adding that 'we might not be able to create a character like Oscar [the Grouch] now.'"
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Madness (Score:5, Insightful)
I honestly do not even know where to begin. My God! This is absolute madness.... political correctness run amok and almost even worse than the religious right's labeling of Bert and Ernie as homosexuals. As one who leans left particularly after the last six years, this sort of thing is a shock back to more centrist practicality and honesty. Shame on the current producers for corrupting the original vision of Sesame Street and creating revisionist history. Oscar the Grouch was *grouchy*, as advertised. So what? Cookie Monster ate the pipe.... so what? It is as it was a vision of the time and a reflection on the changing times of a decade from the 60's to the 70's.
I don't have a problem with things changing, rather I revel in it. However, it makes me sad to see people label what made us who we are unacceptable to todays youth. Parents are far too restrictive with what their kids do, afraid to let them get dirty by playing outside, indoctrinating them with germaphobia from the earliest age, relabeling childrens characters as dangerous pedophiles or attempting to smear them with homosexual labels. The things we used to do as kids would likely get us arrested these days (12 year olds playing with homemade fireworks, carrying shotguns down the street and out to the field to go hunting, swinging from ropes into swimming holes infested with all manner of dangerous wildlife and more).
I don't know what that says of our society but kids watching Sesame Street was just part of the culture and are we now going to be afraid of who we are?
This castration (Score:5, Interesting)
In subtle ways, it began to condescend and pander. The muppets, in particular, suffered from the loss of Kermit and Henson.
Re:This castration (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This castration (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps. But this sort of thing has been going on for some time, at least in the US. In the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, the writers were forced to [povonline.com] alter the character of Eric to show how independence and rebellion led to suffering and social isolation. Read the linked article. It's distressing if you ever used to watch that series.
Who knows? Perhaps if Eric had gotten away with more, you wouldn't have the two party system you have in the States, today?
Re:This castration (Score:5, Insightful)
The kids were all heroic -- all but a semi-heroic member of their troupe named Eric. Eric was a whiner, a complainer, a guy who didn't like to go along with whatever the others wanted to do. Usually, he would grudgingly agree to participate, and it would always turn out well, and Eric would be glad he joined in. He was the one thing I really didn't like about the show.
So why, you may wonder, did I leave him in there? Answer: I had to.
As you may know, there are those out there who attempt to influence the content of childrens' television. We call them "parents groups," although many are not comprised of parents, or at least not of folks whose primary interest is as parents. Study them and you'll find a wide array of agendum at work...and I suspect that, in some cases, their stated goals are far from their real goals.
Nevertheless, they all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain "pro-social" morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant "pro-social" moral was as follows: The group is always right...the complainer is always wrong.
This was the message of way too many eighties' cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get-Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn't get along with the gang learned the error of his or her ways.
We were forced to insert this "lesson" in D & D, which is why Eric was always saying, "I don't want to do that" and paying for his social recalcitrance. I thought it was forced and repetitive, but I especially objected to the lesson. I don't believe you should always go along with the group. What about thinking for yourself? What about developing your own personality and viewpoint? What about doing things because you decide they're the right thing to do, not because the majority ruled and you got outvoted?
We weren't allowed to teach any of that. We had to teach kids to join gangs. And then to do whatever the rest of the gang wanted to do.
What a stupid thing to teach children.
Now, I won't make the leap to charge that gang activity, of the Crips and Bloods variety, increased on account of these programs. That influential, I don't believe a cartoon show could ever be. I just think that "pro-social" message was bogus and ill-conceived. End of confession.
Re:Madness (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be 42 in December. After having my mind polluted by Sesame Street as a youngster I started to gobble down cookies, hid in garbage cans and dreamt of living with a male life-partner when older.
Sadly, my life went to shit and I'm none of those things. I don't like cookies, dislike taking out the trash and live with a WOMAN and our child. Ick!
Re:Madness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Madness (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, you guys mean the other kind of cookies.
Re:Madness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Madness (Score:5, Funny)
Now I know where it all went wrong!
Re:Madness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Madness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Madness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Madness (Score:5, Interesting)
Parents on the right are just as restrictive as the parents on the left. My friend was raised conservative Christian, and his parents wouldn't let him read or see science fiction or fantasy. I don't see any kids playing in the streets, ever, republican or otherwise.
What are the causes behind this? Is it a sue-happy society? Is it that we're just all just perfectly content to use the Internet? Or, did we somehow just become afraid of other people, and don't know how to act around them? Is it some motion that happened in psychology, that led people to think a certain thing? Is it a media effect, where a problem in one place is broadcast everywhere, and then we go into lockdown everywhere? Is it risk-aversion, no matter how small (erroring "slightly" in favor of too much caution, as repeated policy)
What?
Re:Risk aversion? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Risk aversion? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Risk aversion? (Score:5, Informative)
35 pounds
Full combat gear in Iraq, 2007:
80 pounds
The soldiers have also gotten heavier. Unfortunately, ankles are still built about the same.
Re:Cause (Score:5, Funny)
Video games, every kid having their own computer, dvd, etc. Being "sent to your room" is no longer punishment - the real task is to get them to come out except for meals.
Re:Cause (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was 5, I walked to kindergarten. By myself. One year later, I started going to school, which was farther away -- one mile each way. I rode my bike, again by myself. And today, more than 30 years later, that's still how things work over there, but here, people freak out at the very idea. But then, hey, why am I surprised, this being a country that finds it necessary to build a monstrous nuclear-armed army, in a world that is almost entirely benevolent or at least neutral towards them, and then pick fights with third world countries left and right? Nobody is more afraid of bullying than the bully himself...
- Thomas
Re:You, sir, are sadly misinformed (Score:5, Informative)
I was raised Catholic, so here's my perspective: Homosexuality is not so bad according to Catholics and the Pope (well, John Paul II was very lenient, Benedict is more catious). Many don't believe this, so here's the Pope:
It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. - Pope Benedict XVI
Condemnation of male homosexuality (girls don't get much of a mention in the bible and are free to munch carpet) extends from rules proscribed in Leviticus, which also call for the stoning to death of those that work on the sabbath and many other antiquated and unobserved rituals. Catholics study the bible the way it was meant to be studied, not literally but interpretively. Also, the new testament tells us that the old ways need not be heeded, only that we should accept Christ and his message, though others interpret this differently. Either way, we have stopped condemning sabbath violators to death as well as homosexuals.
The priest wears a robe as a part of a ritual symbolizing his loss of individuality among other things, which is also why the Pope often changes his name upon ordination - he sacrifices his individuality to become a representative of Christ on earth.
The whole Jesus thing is simply that he cast off the old rules (ie. Leviticus) to say there is only one rule, love your neighbour as you love yourself. You should care because what the world needs now, is love, sweet love.
Religion matters in this day and age because it is still a great way to explore the metaphysical. God matters because humanity matters, and God is just a metaphor for humanity as a whole.
All this said I am strongly (devoutly?) atheist, as I believe there is no mythical creator deity but simply that we are all gods, whose individual and collective achievements create mythical gods as time goes on. I do believe there is more to this universe than matter and time alone, such that science, numbers and even language are powerless to describe. That said, I read the works of the prophets in the bible, the koran, as I do the acts of the gods in the epic of Gilgamesh simply to enhance my wisdom with that of ages past. There is no need to condemn the bible if you just look at it as a nice poetry book, just condemn the acts of those who use ambiguous poetry as justification of their actions.
But they'll live in garbage cans! (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing wrong with letting your kids see inappropriate behavior (eg. smoking or living in garbage cans), so long as they know not to do it themselves. They get to know what is right and wrong by internalizing a set of "values". They won't build up these values without some exposure. They also need to be able to talk about stuff too.
George Carlin was right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:George Carlin was right (Score:5, Funny)
Not parents, you've criminalized parenting (Score:5, Insightful)
Parents told that a small spanking is child abuse. Children with working single mothers going home to an empty house is an unfortunately economic reality, but if some accident happens, we arrest the parent for child endangerment.
Bad things can happen, but the modern small family size combined with an overzealous judiciary and Departments of Child Services has resulted where we want to criminalize anything going wrong.
Instead of blaming parents, look at a legal culture that expects nothing bad to happen to a child and determines a person's entire worth on the success of their children. When families with children had 4-5 children, you expected most to come out alright but occasionally something bad happens. In families of 1-2 children, anything bad is a catastrophe.
Far more harm is being done to children by overprotection than the risks of life. But its hard to blame parents when if they get hit with the 1 in a million accident (that affects dozens of children a year), they can go to jail and have their other children taken away from them.
Let's see, woman that don't breastfeed are told that they endanger their children. Women that do may be criminally charged [skeptictank.org] if they don't follow the social standard in the US... A poor woman was jailed because she couldn't see a Doctor and didn't realize that the child was malnourished from breast-feeding (mathematically rare, but real and if you criminalize 2% of all women)... The breast-feeding ones make the headlines, but the push towards criminalizing parents if kids do anything wrong, including pranks and petty vandalism add up. It's hard to be a parent, because your child is a natural explorer and risk taker, and you normally just have to make sure no unreasonable danger is present. However, if a child falls and hurts himself, you can be sure that child services will show up and decide that anything you failed to do to "child-proof" your home (as if children aren't a natural part of the home) is criminal neglect, it's hard to put the fault entirely on parents.
Being a parent in today's age is really tough, because in the back of your mind IS busybodies that will decide that you are a negligent parent for letting your child see something that is a natural part of life. Parents have been condemned/charged if the child sees them engage in sexual acts, while co-sleeping is a natural if unpopular approach to parenting. These choices are all reasonable, whether I would make them for my child or not, but the criminalization of anything outside the norm for parenting takes some of the fun out of it.
It's not the parents... it's the system of do-gooders that make life hell on parents.
Confusing "parents" with parents (Score:5, Interesting)
Parenting a toddler is physically exhausting, but generally involved very few decision if the system wasn't involved.
To suggest that the current President and First lady, or the former President and first lady, with 2 adult children or one high school aged child (when they entered office) are indicative of parents of small children (which is what the article was discussing) is absurd. The same is true of most of Congress, state legislatures, and governor's mansions.
People with power, whether they are parents or not, and most are, are generally 40-50, with their youngest child, often a single child or the younger of two, in their late teens to mid-twenties are NOT indicative of people with small children up to age 5, meaning people from the ages of 18 to 35.
The fact is, the baby boomers have pulled every ladder up behind them as they have gotten older. They have made parenting impossible... modern car seats are total disasters because they have to deal with the dangerous cars we've created... Air bags are nice tools for adults, but a disaster for small children. When I was a child I rode in the front seat next to my mother, because car seats could go in the front seat. If I dropped something, my mom could pick it up. My son can't ride in the front seat, so if he drops something, he screams because my wife can't grab something off the floor and hand it to him because he's in the back seat.
However, the baby boomers, when they had small children, had cars built around their needs. As they got older, not only did the market accommodate their new needs (no small children, teenage drivers), but the government changed regulations that made cars safer for older "parents" at the expense of younger parents. People decry the explosion of SUVs, but when you can't fit more than two car seats in the back, because they are no longer safe in the middle seat, and cars with side impact air bags require children up to age five to be in booster seats, what does a young family do? Once you have two kids, if you drive a sedan, you can't transport a friend's child (common things when I was a kid), so you need a mini-van or an SUV to have sufficient seating. If you have a third kid, you can't transport them without a mini-van. My wife carpools to work with a friend, and they pop the two kids into car seats in the back seats. Now both expecting child two, they either have to stop carpooling, or get mini-vans, because cars can't support three children, let alone four.
If you think that the powers that be with one or two children in private school HAVE ANY UNDERSTANDING what a typical family with 2-4 young children go through is absurd, but to say that they are the same because they are parents suggests that President Bush and I have a lot in common because we are both white males, it's silly.
Everyone is a parent or a biological dead-end, roping them all together as those a family with 3 small children HAS ANYTHING IN COMMON with a family with two teenage children (and 15 more years of raises and wealth accumulation behind them) is absurd. The system is run by people with teenage children terrified that anything will happen to them because they only have one or two kids and can't have more. The system is run on top of people with small children that hope nothing goes wrong but lack the resources to do anything about it.
To illustrate the point, consider the following question: If you could guarantee your children would survive to 30, but they would drop 20 IQ points and be financially dependent on your forever, if you are in your 40s and have two teenage children, you'd agree and say that it's because you'd love your children. If you ask a 25 year old couple struggling with the bills with two children and deciding on a third if they'd make that change to avoid a 5% chance of losing a child by 18, you might get a different answer. I love my son to death, and would do anything for him. However, sacrificing his future because I'm scared that something could go wrong is not a decision that I would make for him, but I see similarly dumb decisions made by parents of older children.
My grandparents had four children. At different times, life was a struggle, and their relationships with one or two of the kids suffered, but they focused on their other children and things worked out in time. Watch a couple with one or two older children, and they have no independent life beyond those kids.
The disproportionate family sizes and wealth distribution mean that the "parents" with power have more money and smaller family sizes. The disproportionate amount of children are in families with younger "parents" with fewer resources and larger families. The former is making the rules for the latter, and that isn't fair.
Re:Madness (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Madness (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember the faerie tales that I listened to when I was a child, with witches plotting to eat children, wolves being cut open to let grandmas out and gingerbread being devoured by clever canids. Underlying it all was a central message to children that the world is a dangerous place, that one has to use his or her wits to survive. These stories were always spoken in language that children could understand, but the underlying message was clear.
WE live in a society that is addicted to fear, tries to hide it from children while simultaneously trying to live it vicariously through the others. We are an oversexualized culture that while trying to protect children from sexual predators (which the media would have you believe live on every street), feeds them a diet of sexual images on TV.
If we're going to start questioning a Cookie Monster parody of Masterpiece Theatre and look cock-eyed at the existence of someone like Oscar the Grouch, how much longer before we begin censoring Dr. Suess, Peanuts cartoons and the Wizard of Oz?
sychology institutes.
Re:Madness (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that we would have similar problems with the 35-45 year old set if we did the same thing to them.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
I turned 30 this year, and was mostly just ahead of the feminization of America in the schools. I didn't have to wear a helmet when riding my bike, played outside all the time, and had parents who figured that there was little I could do to myself that some peroxide and a bandaid wouldn't fix.
I don't have kids yet, but am worried about how I can give them my experience growing up and not the current dumbed down one. I don't want my kid to be a part of everyone wins a trophy day. I want him or her to experience the rush of winning and the down of losing and then learning to get back up and fight another day. I want them to know that the world isn't all rainbows and butterflies and that it's okay to be strong, assertive, and to share your opinions.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
We took him to a chess club, so that he could get some practice playing against people other than me, my wife, and Chess Master. When he lost, he told the other kid that he would get him next game, and suddenly there was a room full of disapproving eyes on us.
To me, the "Good Game" line has always been a PC way to be an ass. If you are the looser, telling the winner that they played a good game seems kind of stupid. If you are the winner, it always comes across as condescending.
Re:G (Score:5, Insightful)
Not if the game involves any degree of luck. Sure this does not apply to chess, but it surely would apply to backgammon -- nobody wins them all, no matter how good they are, and it happens quite frequently that someone makes the best possible decision at every point in the game, and still loses. This deserves a "Good Game" -- it acknowledges that there were some things that were out of the player's control that ultimately determined the outcome. Poker of course is particularly prone to this -- all those who play it know exactly what you mean if you say "I was good until the river." Telling someone "Good Game" after he just lost his entire chip stack to a 200:1 runner-runner suckout is hardly condescending.
Most games, including athletic competitions, involve some degree of luck. Environmental variables cannot be controlled, and some of them are not even visible to the players. You throw or kick the ball trusting that the wind will be blowing with the same speed and direction throughout that ball's flight -- what else can you do? When a sudden gust of wind pushes a kick two feet to the right of the upright and you miss the game-winning field goal, that's luck coming into play (unless you're indoors of course). This is why there is a "good" end of the field and a "bad" end to be kicking toward at any point in the game. The difference may not always be large, but it is there, and this is why teams switch sides at various points in the game.
Tennis is likewise prone to the vagaries of shifting and swirling wind, and also to patterns of light and shadow if played by natural light. Baseball has the same issues. Golf is not so prone to tricks of the light, but is very vulnerable to wind and rain -- and yesterday's weather often impacts the condition of the course even though it has changed since. There are no grounds crews to roll out tarps when the rain comes.
"Good Game" is a simple acknowledgment that, had a few variables been changed, the outcome of the contest may well have been different.
Mal-2
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
"To me, the "Good Game" line has always been a PC way to be an ass."
Actually, it's just another way to be a good sport. In fact, I'd say worrying so much about the details of what is said and how is exactly the problem. What's the big deal? I mean, assuming the opponent played well and you enjoyed the game, win or lose, what's wrong with saying "good game"?
Everyone is so damn touchy one way or the other these days.
Of course here I am posting about a tiny little point of your post. Guess I'm too touchy, too
Cheers.
'That modeled the wrong behavior' (Score:5, Interesting)
What about the guy in 101 Dalmations? He's smoking his pipe in almost every scene. I don't really pay much attention to Disney cartoons, maybe they have released a "special edition" that removes the pipe?
Also not suited for today's preschoolers: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Also not suited for today's preschoolers: (Score:5, Funny)
At which time he is ready to inherit the basemet he post from.
WTF?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, most monsters were naked, if I remember it correctly. And even if you can forgive that in a furry monster, what about a frog?
I guess we have to look again to Sesame Street, seeing the videos backwards if needed. Probably we'll find much evil lurking there, that probably could go a long way to explain why we are so fucked up as grown-ups. Hmmm... perhaps there is material there for a good lawsuit.
That's a straight lie (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they aren't. The early episodes, as with the middle episodes and the late episodes and indeed with every episode ever filmed, were intended for children. Yes there were some nods here and there to the adults, but the episodes are intended for children.
I despise smoking - really can't stand it. That said, I've made absolutely no attempt to show non-smoking only films to my kids. I seem to remember Ghostbusters for example, has Ray dropping a cigarette out of his mouth at the sight of a ghost and our kids love Ghostbusters.
I love the standards at work - apparently lying is fine. Just not smoking a comedy pipe.
Cheers,
Ian
... so (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that shows like Power Rangers are acceptable for slightly older kids, then? They clearly demonstrate an approach to the world seems destined to create a legion of Stormtroopers for Darth Vader's next galactic conquest, where head-to-toe uniforms obscure all trace of personality and violence succeeds above all else. A (very) weak argument could be made that violent kids' shows are aimed at a more mature audience, but many six and seven year olds have pre-school brothers and sisters who are exposed to this stuff "accidentally."
tobacco is a sometimes food (Score:5, Funny)
I'm gonna start my own kid's show, Darwin Street. It will feature lots of colorful characters doing dangerous, emulatable things. If your kid kills himself doing something he saw on the show, we didn't need him in the gene pool anyway. Better yet, video tape whatever your kid did to off himself and you might win something in our sister show, America's Funniest Home Fatalities.
No big surprise here. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only a matter of time before the Cookie Monster becomes the Carrot Stick and Broccoli Floret Monster, Big Bird becomes Avian American of Special Stature, and Oscar the Grouch becomes Differently Tempered Oscar with Alternate Housing Preferences. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Writing the history books (Score:5, Insightful)
place blame where it belongs (Score:5, Insightful)
"PC nanny staters" is usually a codeword used by the American right to complain about the American left.
But this isn't a left-vs-right issue. The right wing in the US has its very own "political correctness" (namely, conformance with Christian ideals) and its very own "nanny state" policies (ranging from school prayer to extrajudicial renditions).
So, if you want to contribute to this debate, why don't you start by avoiding slogans created by one party to smear the other one? Both the Democrats and the Republicans are to blame for this bullshit.
Sesame Street? Peewee! (Score:5, Funny)
Problem is that people forget that kids are actually pretty damned intelligent. Give them credit for smarts.
I wonder if they are editing parts too (Score:4, Interesting)
Parenting by Proxy (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, truth is truth. The lessons taught by Sesame Street almost four decades ago still ring true today. Counting from one to ten, the alphabet, and Grover's spatial relations (near, far) aren't dated, they're classic. This is yet another example of individuals not wanting to take responsibility for their own actions and leaving it up to the government or similar-level authorities to decide how we should live life. And they have. So what if Cookie Monster had a pipe? Didn't look like he was actually smoking it. Kids knew better in my day anyway. Smoking is bad. Our parents only had to say it once and we listened--mostly because if they caught you smoking you got the crap beaten out of you and you didn't do it. It wasn't fucking abuse...it was discipline! That's not a dirty word! I should also point out that we were smart enough back then to know you couldn't eat a pipe, drop an anvil on someone's head and have them...you know...not die, or paint a picture of a tunnel on a rock and drive through it. Children are smarter than you think...and those very few who would perform these actions are merely subject to Darwin's Law.
If I (or anyone) had been told fifteen or more years ago what society was going to be like today, I do believe it would be scarier than anything the Cold War threw at us as we've gradually slid down the slippery slope of political correctness into an abysmal darkness where no longer can anyone do anything without worrying how it affects just one (or few) individual(s) thoughts, feelings, or condition.
I hate what our society has become. Take some damned responsibility (you lazy-ass fucktards) before 1984 really does arrive!