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Sexism on Sesame Street

Mon, 08/07/2006 - 14:25
Submitted by Carlin Ross

This really got under my skin...you let me know if I'm off base.

So Sesame Street is introducing a "female" puppet lead for the first time ever (I always thought Snuffaluffacis was female but I guess I was wrong). It seems that this is some huge gain for women. Whatever.

And the worst part is the following: show's creators, who took more than nine months to come up with a likable character that would embrace femininity without being type-cast as the predictable "girly-girl," the newspaper said.

"If Cookie Monster was a female character," Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente said, "she'd be accused of being anorexic or bulimic. There are a lot of things that come attached to female characters."

The new character -- the daughter of a fairy godmother -- will help introduce storylines about differences, once she is introduced on the show's Aug. 14 season premiere.

WTF? Why does she have to be likable - why do women always have to be likable? Oscar the Grouch isn't likable. Grover is a pain in the ass. Why can't she just be? I can't stand it anymore.

‹ Why Do Think This Standing in piss ›

How about Ms. Piggy?

Wed, 10/27/2010 - 19:13
tinyclit

I always hated Ms. Piggy, so there's your unlikable character for you?

not sexist. pro equality since the mid 70s.

Sun, 10/10/2010 - 23:34
frusterated with misinformation and whining (not verified)

They have had female characters all along. prairie dawn, betty lou, alice, grover's mommy, abby, countless other female muppets, not to mention all the human females and little girls they show on every episode. critics conviently seem to forget those characters are female. also, it seems you are only talking about the north american version of sesame street, as there are countless female muppets on the various versions from around the globe. have you even watched the show, or do you just like blindly bashing things you decide are sexist without any research ?

Im just visiting caus i have

Sun, 09/26/2010 - 06:18
Hug4u (not verified)

Im just visiting caus i have issues with sexism in kids tv and cant help noticing its always a guy that has to start an argument. i think *untliker is a troll wannabe. I see too many guys on all the forums ive visited behaving the same way.

Mon, 08/07/2006 - 14:49
cuntlicker

Oh come on, this has nothing to do with sexism. All the characters on sesame street are likable, even Oscar and Grover. When I was a little kid, I liked them both, anyway. You gotta remember two things. First, this show is for kids, who are far more tolerant in their range of likes and dislikes. Second, this show is for goddamn kids. I realize this is technically one point, but I felt it was worth mentioning twice.
YES THE CHARACTER DOES HAVE TO BE LIKABLE! NOT BECAUSE IT'S FEMALE BUT BECAUSE THE SHOW IS FOR KIDS!
Get it now?

btw, Oscar was my favorite character as a kid, because I thought he was hilarious. Grover was amusing, Elmo was the annoying one. Of course, maybe that opinion is colored by all the girls bringing their tickle me elmo dolls to school and driving me absolutely insane with them.
(Seriously, sesame street should be a thing of the past when you hit high school. Why do girls in grade 10 or 11 need to bring a talking doll to school, and spend all day making it talk over and over and over?)

Tue, 08/08/2006 - 00:50
arevolution

if you ask me over half the characters on the show are intolerable. so yeah, it is a load of crap that the FIRST FEMALE LEAD EEEEEVER (2006... wtf.) has to be likable. lets have a lead whos pmsing. that would be more than amusing

Tue, 08/08/2006 - 06:12
cuntlicker

intolerable to adults, yes. intolerable to very small children, no.
And therein lies the difference.
So yes, they have to make the character likable.... TO SMALL CHILDREN!
It doesn't matter if the character (or its presence) pisses off people over 30, or 25, or even 20. As long as the kids like it, it's a win.
Oh, and they already have a character that's pmsing. Oscar.
I dunno, maybe that joke will only really make sense to other men.

lol speaking of jokes...

What!? After all this time they suddenly add a female character to sesame street? What the hell? This is that affirmative action stuff at work, I know it. Some bean counter somewhere decided that they needed more 'gender equality' on sesame street, or some man hating feminist made a complaint and now suddenly they're hiring a woman for the show. The question I wanna ask is: "Is she qualified?"

There, got that out of my system. It's been a hell of a day.

Tue, 08/08/2006 - 14:16
arevolution

cuntlicker wrote:
intolerable to adults, yes. intolerable to very small children, no.
And therein lies the difference.
So yes, they have to make the character likable.... TO SMALL CHILDREN!

Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me.

Tue, 08/08/2006 - 15:36
cuntlicker

huh?
It's just common sense... They're making a show for kids, to teach kids while entertaining them. If the character isn't at least somewhat likable, the kids wont pay attention. (Especially kids these days... attention spans comparable to amoebas.)

i have to agree with cuntlicker

Tue, 08/08/2006 - 16:55
houseslave2000

cuntlicker wrote:
Oh come on, this has nothing to do with sexism. All the characters on sesame street are likable, even Oscar and Grover. When I was a little kid, I liked them both, anyway. You gotta remember two things. First, this show is for kids, who are far more tolerant in their range of likes and dislikes. Second, this show is for goddamn kids. I realize this is technically one point, but I felt it was worth mentioning twice.
YES THE CHARACTER DOES HAVE TO BE LIKABLE! NOT BECAUSE IT'S FEMALE BUT BECAUSE THE SHOW IS FOR KIDS!
Get it now?

btw, Oscar was my favorite character as a kid, because I thought he was hilarious. Grover was amusing, Elmo was the annoying one. Of course, maybe that opinion is colored by all the girls bringing their tickle me elmo dolls to school and driving me absolutely insane with them.
(Seriously, sesame street should be a thing of the past when you hit high school. Why do girls in grade 10 or 11 need to bring a talking doll to school, and spend all day making it talk over and over and over?)

It's a CHILDREN'S show.....

Wed, 08/09/2006 - 00:03
arevolution

cuntlicker wrote:
huh?
It's just common sense... They're making a show for kids, to teach kids while entertaining them. If the character isn't at least somewhat likable, the kids wont pay attention. (Especially kids these days... attention spans comparable to amoebas.)

lol... heres a link for you

Wed, 08/09/2006 - 02:11
cuntlicker

Yes, I know you intended sarcasm. It doesn't translate very well as text, and the best 'defense' against it online is to ignore it. I could have returned with a scathing remark, but decided not to. The "huh?" was because I didn't understand why you felt it was called for.
Besides which, I don't think you should be commenting on other people's observational skills when you can't even grasp the simple concept that they are trying to make a character that will appeal to small children.
It's shit like this that makes people not give a damn when feminists start bitching about sexism this and sexism that.
Tell me, do you check under your bed and in the closet every night, just in case "The Man" and his sexist ways come to get you in your sleep?

Tell me, what is wrong with trying to make a new "likable character that would embrace femininity without being type-cast as the predictable 'girly-girl'"? Would you be bitching half as much if the 'new character' was male? or had no declared gender? No, of course not. You take a simple, innocent sentence and twist it so that you can play victim and moan about how girls are expected to be this or that and have to be whatever.
Get a goddamn life.

Wed, 08/09/2006 - 02:34
eleni223

am i missing something? it's not a secret that i can get very defensive when it comes to womens rights, but i don't see anything wrong with sesame street wanting to take their time to find the right type charecter that will appeal to kids. if they had made her to "girly girly" we would complain, too butch, we'd complain. besides, don't we really have more serious battles to fight?

and to stick my nose where it doesn't belong, we really need to be a bit kinder here on the board with each other.....

Wed, 08/09/2006 - 13:58
arevolution

cuntlicker wrote:
Yes, I know you intended sarcasm. It doesn't translate very well as text, and the best 'defense' against it online is to ignore it. I could have returned with a scathing remark, but decided not to. The "huh?" was because I didn't understand why you felt it was called for.
Besides which, I don't think you should be commenting on other people's observational skills when you can't even grasp the simple concept that they are trying to make a character that will appeal to small children.
It's shit like this that makes people not give a damn when feminists start bitching about sexism this and sexism that.
Tell me, do you check under your bed and in the closet every night, just in case "The Man" and his sexist ways come to get you in your sleep?

Tell me, what is wrong with trying to make a new "likable character that would embrace femininity without being type-cast as the predictable 'girly-girl'"? Would you be bitching half as much if the 'new character' was male? or had no declared gender? No, of course not. You take a simple, innocent sentence and twist it so that you can play victim and moan about how girls are expected to be this or that and have to be whatever.
Get a goddamn life.

I could say the same to you with your 800 posts.. Anyway, looks like somones feelings were hurt! My apologies. But if you dont think Im very aware that its a childrens show, maybe youve been hiding in your mothers basement for a little too long Cuntlicker ;)

Really what im wondering is why havent they had a female lead before this? Like i said, it is 2006 and the shows been on for HOW long?

ps: what happened to ignoring it

my final point

Wed, 08/09/2006 - 14:07
Carlin Ross

ok...I'm not going to go too crazy but here's the point:

"Sesame street is going to debut it's first female-friendly male character who will be metrosexual but not too "effeminate" that he will be likable."

You'd never read that in any form of printed media. My final point.

C

Wed, 08/09/2006 - 15:56
cuntlicker

arevolution wrote:
I could say the same to you with your 800 posts.. Anyway, looks like somones feelings were hurt! My apologies. But if you dont think Im very aware that its a childrens show, maybe youve been hiding in your mothers basement for a little too long Cuntlicker ;)

Really what im wondering is why havent they had a female lead before this? Like i said, it is 2006 and the shows been on for HOW long?

ps: what happened to ignoring it


Yeah, so I'm a bit of a computer geek. I need what, 10 minutes to check the forums whenever I check my email? (It's also taken a couple years to reach this number of posts, I think.)
The reason they haven't had a female lead before this is that the show is at least 20 years old, and far as I know they haven't added any new main characters in that time. I could be wrong, I don't actually have a tv so it's not like I can check. They probably didnt feel the need.
It just really tweaked me the wrong way to see people get offended over the idea that the makers of a children's show want to make sure their audience likes their new character, just because the word 'female' is in there.
Like Eleni said, there's more important battles to fight. It's n
ps: 'what happened' to ignoring it, is that you decided to go out of your way to bring attention to it.

@C-Bitch:
Never heard of Bert and Ernie? :P

I agree, but.

Fri, 10/15/2010 - 21:13
Anonymous

There are plenty of female characters on the show. Internationally, there are even more women featured on Sesame street. This goes beyond puppets: actresses are frequently featured as well. However, what I do take issue with is the fact that women--not only in Sesame Street, but also with Barbie, various movies and TV shows, etc.--are more often than not portrayed in the stereotypical, girly way. They're pretty. They're friendly. And they help set up gender stereotypes in the minds of children. I was in my doctor's office a while ago, and a childhood development poster was on the wall; one of the stepping stones to "healthy" development was that boys should play with "boy" toys, and girls should play with "girl" toys. Kids, perhaps because of this, become incredibly judgemental in time. Most of the people that have made fun of my for my androgyny (I am female, but I have short hair and oftentimes choose to forgo makeup and wear androgynous clothing) are children. It doesn't hurt me; I just find it sad that this judgemental mentality is so prevalent amongst children. For the record, it's not just in regards to gender. How many people have heard of how cruel kids are to those that are different from them? The kid with glasses? The person with some extra weight on them? It seems like these attitudes are only perpetuated by entertainment.