At the arcade this afternoon, our girls were ready to take that stroll to the ticket redemption desk with fistfulls of folded tickets. After so excellently hiding his sheer passion for his job, the employee behind the desk showed us from where, on the multitude of shelves, my kids could select their booty from. We all had learned, then & there, that 273 hard earned tickets would only allow us our choice of ONE prize from the items on the lowest shelf. But not the entire shelf. More accurately 1/4 of the items displayed on that shelf..so we’re talking somewhere between rainbow pencils and 2″ inflated spiky balls.
Life is not always fair.
This got me thinking about the past week. Not since Lucy Ricardo’s dual twin beds appeared on tv in 1955, has there been so much cohabitation controversy in the media. We owe this to our felt, downtown friends Bert & Ernie. Mature adults are up in arms about the lackluster disclosure of the sexual orientation of pieces of colored felt with sewn on buttons & hot glue gunned acrylic hair! While some undoubtedly see the humor here, the flip side of the argument is respected and crystal clear as well.
What gets us so impassioned is that we simply love confirmation or validation of our own beliefs. The fact is that people (or puppets) are much more than left/right, straight/gay, etc., but once the labels are affixed, many feel the need to remove their velcroed ears.
Life is not always fair. But once we move beyond narrowly defined labels, we can learn so much more and not lose sight of the really important stuff!
And, another man’s view (from a children’s media production POV):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kleeman/bert-and-ernie-gay-marriage_b_924429.html
Agreed, that when creating content for kids, make decisions based upon THEIR needs/concerns/questions! Thanks for passing this along David.