Political correctness--by the numbers

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.

That's a word, too: CENSORED!

Most Sesame Street fans know that CTW has edited several classic clips in the past, because parents objected to violence or rude language in the original version. Still, this has got to be the most ridiculous example of editing-for-language I've ever heard...







What two words inspired CTW to cut this clip off so abruptly? Look and listen for yourselves:







You heard her right: "Darn it!" It frightens me to think that somewhere in 1980s America, a child was forbidden to watch Sesame Street...because of an expletive that most adults would NOT consider rude or obscene. And it frightens me even more that the producers would give in to parental protests like that; Sesame Street used to allow some rude-but-clean language when the characters had good reasons to use it.

If today's Ernie talked to Cookie Monster the way he talked in 1969, I bet that thousands of disgruntled parents would write to Sesame Workshop and demand that Ernie be taken off the show for setting a bad example. But Sesame Street also teaches about emotional honestly, including the right to show grouchy and angry feelings: when a frustrated fairy can't even say "darn it" any more, the show has compromised part of its message.

Good clean fun?

In honor of Mother's Day (in the US at least), I thought I'd post this classic clip. Many thanks to Mike Statz, an old friend on YouTube, for allowing me to use it: Sesame Street would never show a film like this today, because too many parents equate "nudity on TV" with "not suitable for kids". Never mind that the producers meant to teach preschoolers how mothers take care of babies--a perfectly reasonable lesson for someone who might wonder what Mommy's doing to their younger brother or sister. Never mind that the baby here is getting a bath from its mother, and that the camera never reveals anything too explicit. Parents and other "experts" today no longer trust a kindergarten-age child to figure out whether a TV film is supposed to be innocent and wholesome; at least the old CTW researchers had enough faith in their viewers!