ayn rand failing to understand that sesame street is for young children
god this is missing the best part JIM HENSON I think Ms. Rand and my character Oscar the Grouch would have a lot to talk about actually. I am laughing out loud at this idea.
AYN RAND Why would I want to talk to him. What has he achieved or trying to achieve.
JIM HENSON He has achieved what I think is the ultimate goal of your way of thinking.
lmao
Savage
I can’t believe I never knew that Jim Henson straight up murdered Ayn Rand.
it’s sad that puppets are more accepting than people…
LET 👏 ERNIE 👏 AND 👏 BERT 👏 TIE 👏 THE 👏 KNOT 👏 THEY 👏 HAVE 👏 A 👏 MORE 👏 ONGOING 👏 STABLE 👏 RELATIONSHIP 👏 THAN 👏 MOST 👏 OF 👏 US 👏
Y’all joke about it, but let me tell you a story: See, back in ‘94 (yeah, you youngins), our sociology teacher mentioned that today was the 25th anniversary of Sesame Street. And he proceeded to tell a story.
See, he was in kindergarten when Sesame Street first aired, and he saw the first episode, live, with his classmates. He described the experience of seeing this for the first time as incredible. The entire class loved it.
The next day, however, the teacher announced that they could no longer show it, due to some people upset that it showed interracial friendships, of kids of different ethnicities playing together. Keep in mind that this show was only two years after laws banning interracial marriages were overturned.
So yeah. They’ve been doing the right thing before many of us here were even alive.
They also handled death better than pretty much any show ever. I remember when Mr Hooper died. Well, really the actor playing him died. They could have written around it or ignored it, but they didn’t. They did a whole show about death and grief, and it was moving and completely perfect. And it pissed people off because it was a kids show and I guess some people think kid shows should be happy all the time. Sesame street is the best show. I would have said so at 5, and I still say so as a childfree 35 year old.
Children’s media should respect the intelligence of their audience and Sesame Street won’t flinch from that.
This is all so true, which makes it even worse that new episodes of Sesame Street are effectively behind a 6 month paywall.
My brother works for Sesame Street with their touring shows. The day after the election, the company he works for decided they would not be able to keep the tours going because they were going to lose a significant amount of funding due to Trump’s presidency.
It’s happening now. Disney bought out all of the venues they usually go to and they couldn’t compete with the cost so he and his fiancee aren’t going to have jobs after they get married. This is officially the last set of tours by Sesame Street, indefinitely.
He and his fiancee don’t really know what they are going to do. They think they might move to Atlanta but, honestly, they’re going to have to go where they can find work. That’s part of being a freelancer and one of the reasons I had to get out of theatre (constantly being on the lookout for a job is mentally taxing).
It sucks that they’ll be starting their marriage like this.
The reason I posted this is because a while ago there was a lot of upset about Sesame Street airing shows on HBO a week earlier for kids whose family can afford HBO. And people were so disappointed with Sesame Street for agreeing to that.
But, like, honestly, Sesame Street is struggling and has been for a while. Their agreement deal with HBO was a good thing. Sesame Street’s funding is dying and I will be really shocked if it survives the next four years or remains publicly available. The people in power don’t want Sesame Street to exist. It teaches kids empathy and kindness and thoughtfulness. It exposes kids to diversity and teaches them openness and caring about others, which is exactly what fascists DON’T want. It’s exactly what CONSERVATIVES don’t want.
Sesame Street is dying and it will be a goddamn miracle if lasts through the next four years.
In case anyone is curious, PBS has always taken donations. The federal government has always shortchanged them horrifically, and various shows have had to be saved in the past. Here’s a lineup of press releases from them that display the diversity of their underfunded original programming (because it’s basically all underfunded). There have been threats to Sesame Street before; we can overcome this. Part of that is making sure local partner stations remain in the black.
Financial statements for 2016 for PBS are not yet available, but several previous years’ financial statements are. It would take an accountant to read those statements properly, but the for-profit subsidiaries of PBS were paying 200+K and 300+K in corporate taxes respectively. That indicates they were probably turning a small profit in those years. However, I’m not sure such profits could cover Sesame Workshop’s potential losses.
Want to make a difference? Make a donation to your local PBS station or send a postcard to your Reps/Senators in Washington telling them you want funding for PBS left untouched. Or both! Both is good.
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