It’s time for Big Bird to leave the government nest
Unlike Mitt, I loathe Sesame Street. It bears primary responsibility for what the Canadian blogger Binky calls the de-monsterization of childhood — the idea that there are no evil monsters out there at the edges of the map, just shaggy creatures who look a little funny and can sometimes be a bit grouchy about it because people prejudge them until they learn to celebrate diversity and help Cranky the Friendly Monster go recycling. That is not unrelated to the infantilization of our society. Marinate three generations of Americans in that pabulum and it’s no surprise you wind up with unprotected diplomats dragged to their deaths from their “safe house” in Benghazi. Or as J. Scott Gration, the president’s special envoy to Sudan, said in 2009, in the most explicit Sesamization of American foreign policy: “We’ve got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries — they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes . . . ” The butchers of Darfur aren’t blood-drenched machete-wielding genocidal killers but just Cookie Monsters whom we haven’t given enough cookies. I’m not saying there’s a direct line between Bert & Ernie and Barack & Hillary . . . well, actually I am…
Mitt’s decision to strap Big Bird to the roof of his station wagon and drive him to Canada has prompted two counterarguments from Democrats: (1) Half a billion dollars is a mere rounding error in the great sucking maw of the federal budget, so why bother? (2) Everybody loves Sesame Street, so Mitt is making a catastrophic strategic error. On the latter point, whether or not everybody loves Sesame Street, everybody has seen it, and every American under 50 has been weaned on it. So far this century it’s sold nigh on a billion bucks’ worth of merchandising sales (that’s popular toys such as the Subsidize-Me-Elmo doll). If Sesame Street is not commercially viable, then nothing is, and we should just cut to the chase and bail out everything.
Blowback
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Big Bird is a 1 %er and does not need to be on welfare
faraway on October 6, 2012 at 9:04 PM
Mitt is confusing the Left by embracing all the Third Rails – Big Bird and Social Security.
faraway on October 6, 2012 at 9:05 PM
Steyn once again gets it. The hordes of adults walking around these days wearing those oversized Sesame Street shirts perfectly encapsulates the infantilization of our culture. It’s no wonder that so many want Big Government to step in and play the role of mommy and daddy (but mostly mommy) for their entire life.
KGB on October 6, 2012 at 9:10 PM
Money right there.
BallisticBob on October 6, 2012 at 9:11 PM
Yes! Can you imagine the impact of Sesame Street teaching the values of individualism, free markets, limited government to our children (instead of the Marxist rot that now prevails)?
It would set
publicgubmint school indoctrination back for generations.petefrt on October 6, 2012 at 9:12 PM
Mark going over the top. Good or bad, we don’t have the money to spend.
MeatHeadinCA on October 6, 2012 at 9:28 PM
It will never happen Mark, Bill Moyers needs that paycheck. He and his family starve without the government cash flow.
Thomas More on October 6, 2012 at 9:48 PM
I love reading and listening to Mark Steyn. Subsidize me Elmo lol
kathleen on October 6, 2012 at 9:52 PM
On Halloween I am going to drape an empty suit over my empty chair with the NOBama campaign sign, if I could just get an Elmo to shove its arm up the empty suits back
ConcealedKerry on October 6, 2012 at 10:02 PM
Much as I enjoy British mystery shows, I never understood how they were “educational” on “Educational” TV.
Wander on October 6, 2012 at 10:44 PM
Steyn is hilarious.
And I hate Sesame Street. I was raised on a diet of The Rifleman, Speed Racer, Prudential College Football Scoreboard Show with Dave Diles, and ABC Wide World of Sports.
Parents need to let their sons grow a pair.
BuckeyeSam on October 6, 2012 at 10:49 PM
I Died So Big Bird & Co Could Live
http://predicthistunpredictpast.blogspot.com/2012/10/propaganda-revisited-we-wuz-robbed-way_6.html
Resist We Much on October 6, 2012 at 10:49 PM
I knew I wasn’t the only one who noticed that kid’s shows are not only being dumbed down & artistically mangled, but also ‘candified’.
Unique terms are being replaced with generic ones. Rarely if ever is someone seriously offended or angry for longer than the length of one half-hour episode. The worst consequences for rule breaking are things like missing a party or getting a time-out. There is rarely any danger portrayed minus a few syrupy PC stranger-danger segments. That creepy shadow is just a pile of something that LOOKS like a monster and it was just your little imagination, blah blah blah.
My 2 cents: Show some real-life situations to the little darlings where they will get serious real-life consequences. Show Jane getting yanked into an unmarked white van because she thought mommy was just trying to scare her into obeying. Show Johnny going into the old mine like he was told not to a million times, falling down a winze and NOT getting a dramatic rescue by his faithful dog.
MelonCollie on October 6, 2012 at 11:46 PM
I wonder if any kid ever asked his parents why Big Bird hasn’t grown flight feathers and been shoved out of the nest, the way they show on Nature.
I’ve seen a few episodes of a show called Inside Nature’s Giants in which creatures such as a whale, a giraffe or a camel are dissected. Quite fascinating. I’m looking forward to the one they do of Big Bird. Now that’d be educational!
flataffect on October 6, 2012 at 11:52 PM
Another thought, considering that so many PBS programs are hostile to religion which many if not most parents believe in and want to instill in their children, and promote Progressive issues such as Environmentalism, and near-myths like free green energy, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be limited to the same subsidies as other tax exempt enterprises.
flataffect on October 7, 2012 at 12:06 AM
The thing this man does with words and cultural inferences, just awesome. “That’s Gold Jerry, Gold!”
cep on October 7, 2012 at 12:40 AM
some may think it’s a stretch- the defanging of the monsters- that grown ups grow up and out of this magical child-like thinking. but it’s simply sadly not so.
even after that barbarous raid- the murders at the embassy i got into blow outs with people under 30 who still think its simply all because america is stingy with foreign aid. if we were ‘ nicer’ and not ‘war mongerers’ than poor little islamists wouldn’t get all upset and have to sodomize and kill humans. one can provide proof of the intentions of these murderous genocidal freaks to no avail- these were harmless adorable kittens until america didn’t fork over enough money and tongue baths.
it’s generations of brainwashed automatons.it’s impossible to reason with them. history is a class struggle scripted by marx and baby boomer pop stars. facts are not facts to them.it’s all emotions and feelings. if they feel something is so- it is so.
mittens on October 7, 2012 at 1:22 AM
Sesame Street is secretly responsible for the recent plague of auditory infantile doggeral: rap music.
For that it deserves defunding forever.
(To the sampled opening looped beat of Motown’s “My Girl“)
Got my hot Mac 9 and my hoes wit’ me
Struttin’ down the street called Sesame.
Yeah we bling that thing to kingdom come
Cause Biggie Bird left us def and dumb.
profitsbeard on October 7, 2012 at 1:29 AM
The PBS funding is just another arm of the leftistproglibturd propaganda machine to keep pushing their brainwashing agenda–get ‘em when they’re young and keep reinforcing it until the death panels can have them.
stukinIL4now on October 7, 2012 at 1:32 AM
So that would be an advisable expenditure for public funds?
You don’t care one bit about government spending or else you would NEVER condone fed$$ for BigBird etc.
Capitalist Hog on October 7, 2012 at 5:12 AM
Ha, ha. Too funny. Love Stein.
Odysseus on October 7, 2012 at 7:47 AM
I took German in High School. The instructor mentioned one day that most German fairy tales were cautionary tales for children not to play with matches, trust strangers, etc. Now you know why Hansel and Gretel ended up being eaten by the witch instead of reforming her into a model citizen or exposing her as a greedy land developer hoping to keep people out of those woods a la Scooby Doo.
Odysseus on October 7, 2012 at 7:51 AM
Let PBS go… they’ve had commercials for decades and they still, somehow, get viewers.
Let everyone in the next Administration fly coach, and make sure that all the Congresscritters do that, as well. They ALL need to go through TSA – every last one of them. You want to see TSA go away? Let the Congresscritters go through screening with no special pass, no exemption, no special lines and it will be gone in MONTHS if not WEEKS. Expose them to digital Janet Napalitano speeches at check-out lines and DHS will be history, too. Kill all the perks for Congress and things will start to change, and veto any bill that allows for paid personal staff or any perk for any member of Congress: they get a salary. Anything else that they want, not need but want, can be paid out of their own pockets.
Obama isn’t the only insulated politician Upon The Hill.
Time to strip the insulation off as it costs too much to isolate them from the people they supposedly represent.
ajacksonian on October 7, 2012 at 7:58 AM
Steyn should have a show formatted after late night but scheduled at prime time.
He would blow away the competition and pop culture would experience an rattling of 9.0 on the Richter scale.
Saltysam on October 7, 2012 at 8:54 AM
That show should’ve been canned years ago for originality reasons alone. I have a similar problem when the Far Side makes light of hell or evil spirits. Once a year at Halloween, fine.
But there is a REASON people once lived in mortal fear of the dark – which modern man has forgotten due to electric lights. The whole “we don’t go into the woods” theme you keep seeing in horror flicks was once very real.
Most fairy tales have been so Disneyfied that the original messages of them is forgotten. Read the original version of Pinnochio and tell me it doesn’t have some dire warnings for young readers. I’d like to see Disney put out a remake with Chapter 17 included uncensored in the story.
MelonCollie on October 7, 2012 at 9:11 AM
No media should be state funded. NPR, PBS, or anything else.
There is simply no argument for it that does not appeal to socialism or communism.
CorporatePiggy on October 7, 2012 at 9:18 AM