Has anyone else noticed that all of the original Sesame Street muppets are male? I’ve been watching a bit more Sesame Street in the past year than I have in, say, the past 30 years, and the addition of two relatively new female muppets, Abbie Cadabie and Zoe, since my own Sesame Street heyday, made me notice their conspicuous absence in years past. I totally didn’t even pay attention to this when I was a kid, but what is this communicating about gender? Can you imagine a show with all female characters, and no one taking notice? Sesame has been so progressive in the inclusion of diverse types of people in their neighborhood, so what’s up with the all-dude muppets?
Ok, so I’m not there first person to notice this. Here’s a study that found that male characters appeared twice as often as female characters in randomly selected episodes of Sesame Street (though this study predates the two new female muppets), and “the total number of characters portrayed in stereotypical roles was 10 times greater than characters portrayed in non-stereotypical roles.” Why is this important? As we all know, children learn the norms of society from, at least in some small part, television. And though women are 51% of the population, they are usually portrayed as a minority or “other” group. Just think about the use of male-normative language (this is a nice post too), like “mankind” to refer to both women and men, and what this implies about our cultural values. I really expected better from you, Sesame Street.
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
It’s funny…I never really thought of the monsters as male or female until they added the female ones (the two you mentioned, plus Rosita). And then there are other “characters” that are not monsters, but are muppets (like Ernie, Bert, and Prairie Dawn).
Now that I do notice it, I do expect better from Sesame Street. Not only in terms of introducing female characters, but also it not making them overly stereotypically female. Give our girls a chance to be whoever they want to be.
November 26th, 2009
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