Sick and Wrong: the parental advisory in front of Sesame Street DVD
I’m glad that I’m not alone in hating the parental advisory in front of “Sesame Street Old School,” the new DVD set of the first two seasons. In the New York Times on 11/18, Virginia Heffernan rightly satirizes this move.
Speaking as a media guy and a father, I wonder why we are so interested in sticking our children into plastic bubbles? Why NOT show kids that there are bad behaviors and even bad people in the world… particularly when those behaviors and people are safely locked away behind the window of the television. Why should it be such a surprise on the school yard or at that first job after college?
3 Responses to “Sick and Wrong: the parental advisory in front of Sesame Street DVD”
1 Jeff Einstein 22 November 2007 @ 5:40 am
The warning isn’t for the child; it’s for the parents, not all of whom share your views about how or where their children should learn the hard lessons of life…
2 Brad Berens 22 November 2007 @ 8:26 am
Hi Jeff, Thanks for the comment. However, I have a question: Did you bother to read the New York Times piece about which I was commenting and to which I linked? Or did you merely comment on my post?
Curiously,
Brad
3 Brandi S. 14 January 2008 @ 12:27 am
I agree that slapping a parental advisory on Sesame Street is nuts. I remember watching these so-called mentally damaging episodes as a child.
So Oscar is a grouch. Gee. We must learn to live with grouchy people unless we plan to lock ourselves in a closet for our entire lives.
Oscar isn’t a bad guy, and neither is being a grouch. Everyone is a grouch sometimes.
So Bert and Ernie live together. Adults assume this is some strange thing. When I was a kid, I thought they were brothers. I didn’t know any different, and even if I would have, what is wrong with a couple of guys sharing a basement? As a child, I didn’t even know sexual orientations to even assume anything but innocence. Why should their assumed sexual orientation matter, anyway?
Big Bird was the only one who could see Snuffelupigus. (Maybe I spelled that wrong?) But so what? That doesn’t mean he has mental disorders or takes hallucinogens. He always related to me about the innocence of childhood invisible friends. What next? Assume children have mental problems because they have a friend only they can see?
Cookie Monster eats outrageous amounts of cookies. Uh, he is a COOKIE monster. I didn’t assume it was OK for me to go berserk on a bunch of cookies because I knew that wasn’t allowed in our home. If kids DO go nuts on cookies like that, it is because their PARENTS allow it, not because they want to be like a muppet.
His pipe eating didn’t effect me in any way other than being funny. I certainly wasn’t all hyped up to go out and find my own pipes to eat.
I think that these days, people go out of their way to read too much into things and turn them into something they aren’t. It’s pretty sad when innocence is turned into negativity.
I’ll go out and buy the Old School Sesame Street DVDs for my kids to watch. I know it is better than some of the weird shows that are out there now.
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