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The producers of Sesame Street have decided that Cookie Monster is gay. Hold the phone. I’m kidding. But try to hold onto your reaction for a moment because what they’ve really done to Cookie Monster is worse, they’ve taken away his reason for being.
Since my copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is in storage, let me explain by paraphrasing Hannibal Lecter’s famous dialogue with Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs. Imagine Lecter isn’t a superhuman cannibalistic serial killer and that, instead of being a doe-eyed feminist naif in the FBI, Ms. Starling is a doe-eyed feminist naif at the Children’s Television Workshop.
Lecter: “First principles, Clarice. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this creature you seek?
Starling: He entertains children….
Lecter: “No! That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does? What need does he serve by entertaining children?
Starling: Social acceptance? Personal frustration?
Lecter: No: He craves. That’s his nature. And what does he crave? Make an effort to answer.
Starling: Food?
Lecter: No! He is not a “food monster!” He is a cookie monster!
But not according to the well-meaning social engineers of PBS. After three decades, they’ve announced he’s not a Cookie Monster at all. In the interests of teaching kids not to be gluttons, CTW has transformed Cookie Monster into just another monster who happens to like cookies. His trademark song, “C is for Cookie” has been changed to “A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food.” And this is a complete and total reversal of Cookie Monster’s ontology, his telos, his raison d’etre, his essential Cookie-Monster-ness.
If the Cookie Monster is no longer a cookie monster, what is he? Why didn’t they just name him “Phil: The Monster Who Sometimes Likes to Eat a Cookie”? Conceptually, this is no different than the idiot animal rights types who want their dogs and cats to be vegans, too. Cookie Monster cannot help being a Cookie Monster any more than your tabby can stop liking fish. It is their nature to do so. Why not just declare that Big Bird is now an elm tree? If the ineffable, inexorable, immutable nature of Cookie Monster’s cookie-eating can be erased for some good cause, why should Big Bird’s birdness be safe?
Sesame Street and its defenders say they are just trying to do their bit in the war against child obesity. That’s nice. But at what price? The whole point of the Cookie Monster character was to have a character who was silly because he ate so much. If Cookie Monster were a Greek god, he’d be the god of gluttony. Wouldn’t it have been more honest and simply better to implore kids not to be too much like the Cookie Monster rather than make the Cookie Monster like everyone else? We all understand we shouldn’t be like Oscar the Grouch.
Who says that making Cookie Monster into moderate eater will improve kids' behavior anyway? Indeed, for years, Cookie Monster has devoured not only cookies, but things which merely look like cookies, including plates, Frisbees, and the moon. If Cookie Monster is so influential, why haven’t I heard more about kids going to the hospital after trying to eat plates?
(Thanks Bryce :)!)
2 years ago
2 comments:
I completely agree. Though it is admirable for PBS to do their part in fighting childhood obesity (because it is a huge problem), I do not think changing cookie monster is going to help. Did you know the average scheduled physical exercise for children (i.e. gym class, sports, anything as such) is 20 minutes per WEEK! Not day, week! 20 minutes! I suggest the best way to prevent and combat childhood obesity is through parents. Children can not buy food for themselves, the parent has to provide it. If we can teach ourselves and the parents how to eat healthy and how to help their children eat healthy along with exercise WITH them, it will go a lot farther than taking cookies away from our favorite lovable blue friend.
That's totally funny Mar!!!! Thanks for posting it, it reveals some sad and oh so true things about our society. Perhaps, if anything, the show should have made the Cookie Monster obese. That way you could subject children to lots of different types of people, but also so the consequences of being that type. :)
As per this comment, it makes the entire article suspect. They should have left it out. "Conceptually, this is no different than the idiot animal rights types who want their dogs and cats to be vegans, too." Idiotically him/herself than says that a Cookie Monster not eating cookies can be paralleled by a cat not eating fish. Um, hello! A "Cookie Monster" is defined by his love of cookies, a cat however, is in no way defined by it's supposed love of fish. Is a cat not a cat if it doesn't eat fish? Absolutely not! That is the most absurd argument I've ever heard. Without that paragraph the article would have been top notch.
And I like his use of the all-too-creepy conversation between Lecter and Starling. Brilliant move!
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