Sesame Street- For Adults Only?

[collwen]

[caught from squirrelmunk1]


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-medium-t.html

God gods.

This is the problem with trying to impress today's insanity on yesterday's memories.

Comments

[curlyeric.livejournal.com]

The warning on the DVD is as follows “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Sesame street premiered in 1969 to a very different set of social mores; 1969 was before Roe vs Wade, unleaded gas, the unix epoch, the apollo moon mission, the EPA, cigarette ads still ran on tv, and the Beatles were still together. All they are trying to do is make sure that stupid buyers do not believe that these early works are 100% suitable for the current generation of preschoolers. This is not unlike the warnings on many of the Disney and WB's DVD releases of older cartoons.

[marnen.livejournal.com]

Well said. Our culture is very different from what it was in 1969, and of course we don't want to give our kids all the same messages today as we did 40 years ago.

[auntiero.livejournal.com]

What the...??? I really hope that was meant as a satire.

[collwen.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it isn't. The social mores of the past and current standards of acceptability for children as much different things.

[marnen.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think there was some satyrical intent in there. But the point she makes -- that Sesame Street 1969 contains lots of stuff that wouldn't fly today -- is a good one.