Radical Red: Positively
Sesame Street
by Laura Jones
When the news broke about
the HIV-positive muppet being developed for South Africa Broadcasting
Corporation’s Takalani Sesame, I was excited. A ground-breaker
from its inception back in the early 1970s, Sesame Street
was the first children’s show to feature developmentally disabled
characters, physically disabled characters, and a happily
inter-racial cast.
Over the past 30 years, Sesame
Street has tackled sensitive subjects such as death, divorce,
pregnancy and childbirth, lying, stealing, racism, and gender
stereotyping. In some countries, difficult and painful political
situations are depicted in an age-appropriate manner, including
the bloody conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Surely, I thought, Sesame
Street would do a great job with HIV.
Granted, it would’ve been
great to see HIV-positive muppets or cast members on SS a
long time ago, but better late than never. Even if it’s not
a regularly-featured character, the HIV-positive South African
little-girl muppet could at least break the ice... hopefully
one of the American muppets would then feel comfortable sharing
their HIV status, after they saw how everyone accepted the
South African muppet. Once everyone realized it was safe (and
fun!) to play with fuzzy animated HIV-positive beings, surely
other SS cast members would feel the great weight of stigma
lifted and disclose as well. Maybe Maria or Gordon could explain
how it’s okay to eat or drink after someone with HIV, but
that no one should touch anyone else’s blood or pick syringes
out of the dumpster... but generally there’d just be lots
of hugging and dancing with flailing arms, the way there always
is on Sesame Street.
But almost immediately, some
knobs from the GOP got all upset about whether U.S. tax dollars
were funding the development of that Godless South African
HIV-positive muppet, and demanded that there be no mention
of HIV/AIDS in the American Sesame Street because—you know—they
didn’t feel “that subject” was “appropriate” for Sesame Street’s
target audience of children aged 2 to 5. And instead of breaking
new ground once more time for our nation’s children, Public
Broadcasting Services President Pat Mitchell shot off a hasty
letter to the concerned parties, assuring them that no U.S.
public funding is being spent on the little girl-muppet in
Takalani Sesame—and, even more importantly, that there are
no plans underway for HIV-positive characters to appear on
the American version of Sesame Street at all. While the HIV-positive
South African muppet will be visiting other countries’ Sesame
Streets in the future, the USA has apparently refused her
a visa or permission for a stopover.
So, help me with this: Do
these GOPers actually believe there are no HIV-positive children
watching Sesame Street these days? Does PBS and Sesame Workshop
not feel that an HIV-positive muppet might be incredibly validating
to children living with HIV/AIDS, or who have loved ones living
with HIV/AIDS, in the U.S. or anywhere else? I mean, correct
me if I’m wrong, but isn’t children’s programming supposed
to be relevant to children’s lives?
Where exactly do HIV-positive
or HIV/AIDS-impacted children see any images of themselves,
outside of maybe some terrific camp programs and community
support groups?
Apparently these GOPers and
all the other folk who immediately went into high-battle gear
when the HIV-positive muppet announcement was made were too
stricken with the pornographic Sesame Street imagery that
immediately leapt to mind: Bert topping Ernie over the bottlecap
collection... Elmo and Prairie Dawn sharing syringes behind
Oscar’s trash can... Grover tooting a little Tina before heading
over to the pansexual orgy at Maria and Luis’s place... Kermit
doing a condom demo on a banana after Cookie Monster confided
that “Me no use condoms because them not feel natural to me—besides,
all Cookie’s monster-lovers clean! Me just know it!”
Did these images (colorful
and exciting as they may be) so cloud the collective judgment
that the potential good of an HIV-positive Sesame Street character
was immediately discarded out of fear over the “transmission
issue”?
It’s as though introducing
discussion of the global HIV/AIDS crisis would somehow lead
to a Stonewall-esque Muppet Riot over the right of Bert and
Ernie to finally come out of the closet and live openly as
God made them. Or does their reaction simply stem from the
realization that people who interact with children (parents,
teachers, etc.) might actually have to talk with them about
HIV/AIDS if they hear about it on Sesame Street?
Like this would be a bad
thing? Like we shouldn’t be doing this already?
Obviously PBS and Sesame
Workshop wouldn’t even have to spend time on blowjobs or vaginal/anal
sex or smack-shooting if they developed an HIV-positive character—to
be honest, they wouldn’t even really need to go into transmission
at all, given their target age group. An HIV-positive muppet
would simply afford children living with or impacted by HIV/AIDS
a validation of their own experiences, and would show the
rest of its viewers the same lessons Sesame Street has always
taught: that it’s okay to hang out with people who are a little
different from you.
For those interested in writing
letters concerning the introduction of HIV-positive muppets
on American Sesame Street:
Sesame Workshop
One Lincoln Plaza
New York, NY 10023
www.pbs.org/kids/sesame/
PBS Headquarters
Public Broadcasting Service
1320 Braddock Place
Alexandria, VA 22314
(note: due to the anthrax
scare post-9/11, PBS will only handle correspondence on postcards)
e-mail
viewer@pbs.org
Editors Note: At press
time, PBS officials switched gears and said they won’t rule
out the appearence of an HIV-positive muppet on Sesame Street.
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