Most people who've watched Sesame Street know that it teaches racial tolerance and diversity (among more academic lessons). For instance, this cartoon teaches children not to see Native Americans in terms of the Western-movie stereotypes:
Way back in 1969, though, this classic film taught about the number ten:
Did you catch the wooden figures that the boy counts on that foosball-like toy, about 1:04 seconds into the clip? I grew up hearing the song "Ten Little Indians" as a girl and never developed a bias against Native Americans; the lyrics never gave me a visual image, stereotyped or not. Most parents in the early 70s wouldn't have considered "ten little Indians" a racist reference either, if it weren't for that picture.
A few seasons later, the film replaced the "Indians" count with "ten bells". Not only does the film show a split second of the original at that point, but the audio is missing a sound effect when the digits of "10" zoom out:
Did CTW go too far banning the Indians from that clip? I'd say it was a gray area, considering the other series of counting cartoons that was popular in Sesame Street's early days. "Jazz #3" includes an image of "three blind mice" that some parents with disabled children might consider a stereotype (about 21 seconds into the clip), but no one ever edited those mice out!
Sesame Workshop has included a lot of disability-friendly material on their flagship show since the early years, but...when you see the way those two clips were handled, I can't help wondering if someone on the staff had a double standard.
12/21/2008
12/18/2008
12/04/2008
One fan's public-service announcement
Many thanks to Boober Gorg (owner of the tape-trading page in our links section) for this bit of creative Photoshopping.
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