Understanding the Enigma Behind Sesame Street Essay Example
Understanding the Enigma Behind Sesame Street Essay Example

Understanding the Enigma Behind Sesame Street Essay Example

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  • Pages: 2 (305 words)
  • Published: April 28, 2017
  • Type: Essay
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Sesame Street has always been one of the famous educational shows for children.

However, it has also generated a lot of controversies in the public eye. The author of the article “Sesame Street: Brought to You by the Letters M-A-L-E” stated in one of the arguments that the stars of the show such as Bert and Ernie were all males. Alongside with this fact, it was also mentioned that almost all of the babies in the show were all females. Babies are indeed very fragile, that’s why they depend on adults to take care of them.

I do agree with the author that the context of the show Sesame Street has little sexual stereotypes in it.The character representations in it can somehow give rise to historically patriarchal society. In a particular thesis done by Dhune, it was stated that “Females [in Sesame St

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reet] were underrepresented and depicted passively in comparison to males” Although the author’s points are quite interesting, I also do not agree with some of it. The casting of the show alone isn’t sufficient enough to justify that Sesame Street is indeed a sexist for there could be other factors of sexism. It could be that males were simply dominant because they were endowed with hormones called testosterones.Thus, they acquired a certain image that they were always the “strong” and “heroic” ones.

Apparently, I really believe that it wasn’t Jim Henson’s goal to segregate the roles of men and women. He probably must have picked a variety of characters without the intention of provoking gender stereotypes. As for the comparison of the author’s view and mine, I agree with some of the arguments

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raised but not with everything. To further prove that Sesame Street is a sexist, a detailed and comprehensive research must be conducted.

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