Sesame Street: The Hidden Lessons

I'm sure all of us grew up watching Sesame Street. Our parents would throw us in front of the TV to get us out of their hair for a half hour every morning. We would sit there and learn the alphabet and how to count. We learned how to cross the street and the difference between near and far. That was all stuff that we needed to know at the time. What we didn't know was the information the show was corrupting us with. We had no idea of the hidden agenda the show had....until now.

Homosexuality
Bert and Ernie. These two beloved American figures thought they were minding their own business, taking baths together, singing silly songs together (probably Broadway tunes), sleeping in the same twin beds a with a picture of them both together over the headboard. Best buds they were! Are two grown men sharing a house and a bedroom, clothes, eat and cook together and have blatantly effeminate characteristics not gay? In one show Bert teaches Ernie how to sew. In another, they tend plants together. If this isn't meant to represent a homosexual union, I can't imagine what it's supposed to represent.

Racism
Remember that song "one of these things"? Telling you the thing that is different doesn't belong. So you should do away with it. Do you realize they don't even do the Spanish bits on the show anymore?! Those are all gone now. Everything has changed, and this brings me to the only conclusion one could possibly have: Sesame Street = Racist. I think this picture should prove my point.

Obesity
They have faced arguments that 'cookie monster,' a sesame street character who loves (or loved, until the producers snatched them away and replaced them with fresh greens,) cookies, was promoting childhood obesity. These arguments, no doubt, came from the same parents who gained 250 pounds on Mcdonalds food, sued it for making them fat, and failed, much to the pleasure of the rest of us. The world isn't perfect, people. We're fat. But changing words, or adding people in wheelchairs to kid's cartoons isn't going to solve anything. No, it's just going to make my life, and the life of others worse. Now, I would never discriminate against anyone, or laugh at a kid without legs in a wheelchair (or would I) . But they have turned the cookie monster into 'veggie monster?' The damn monster has been eating cookies for 35 years and kids are just now getting fat? This is one step too far.

Poverty
Here's an example from one episode: "Cookie-Hood" announced, is to take the surplus cookies away from the wealthy few and give them away to the poor, cookie-less many. Imagine! "Hooray!" the other puppet animals shouted. The two adults were not pleased. "That," the father figure sternly intoned, "is stealing." And "stealing is wrong," he elaborated, "because it means taking something that doesn't belong to you." No room, of course, in the script for why the cookie-less exist in the first place. No sense of justice in the demand of equal cookies for all. "Cookie-Hood" felt sad and ashamed. He thought he'd been doing something good and just, but really he'd been doing something wrong. He'd been stealing cookies that didn't belong to him! The other puppet animals were confused. What to do now? And what about the cookie-less? Not to worry! Sesame Street's wise and benevolent adults had a solution. The solution is...Currency. Puppets and people don't have to steal cookies from the rich because, the father figure explained, "we can all go to the store and buy cookies."

Because everybody's got money, right?

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