OK. The video isn’t totally like porn or anything but holy cow Katy Perry, did you have to go with the revealing top to dance around with Elmo? It could be that Perry shows off her assets so often that she was worried nobody would recognize her all covered up.
Sesame Street, I think rightly, is now refusing to air the piece with Perry. We should probably just be grateful she didn’t perform her hit single “I Kissed a Girl” with Elmo’s bff Zooey.
Here’s the vid if you’re interested. You can judge for yourself but it seems pretty inappropriate to me for kids.
September 24, 2010 at 3:12 pm
We turned off Sesame Street permanently after seeing the following: in a segment of Elmo's World, the announcer says "Tune in next week for an exciting episode of 'Socks in the City' (a play on 'Sex in the City'); and a video of families playing in a park with a song that has the words "it takes all kinds of families to raise a child" or something like that. The video showed same-sex couples…This is educational television? What do you think they're trying to teach our children?
September 24, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Were they same socks couples?
September 24, 2010 at 9:09 pm
None of this is new. Sesame Street has always tried to be relevant. I watched Sesame Street in the 80s and there were a lot of adult references even then. Here are a few I pulled off of YouTube that I specifically remember to this day.
First, check out Maria's assets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuJtBOdZ25c
I had no idea who Carol Channing was, but I bet my parents did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-UMlJhgQbY
Miami Vice parody, and that certainly wasn't a kid show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxptHMvVuiY
Monsterpiece Theatre with Alistair Cookie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vftf8TTve4s
IMO, Katie Perry's outfit wasn't that bad. But why didn't they nix the outfit before filming the segment if they didn't think it was kid friendly? Honestly I don't think it's any worse than a bathing suit.
September 24, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Sorry, my links aren't working. You'll have to cut and paste.
September 24, 2010 at 10:23 pm
They didn't nix the outfit before filming the segment because they didn't have a problem with it. The segment wasn't pulled until parents saw a preview of it on youtube and Katy Perry's website, and complained. Although the exec producer of the show says the parent feedback was "huge, but remarkably equal" as to what they thought of it.
Also, they claim that the educational benefit of the show is enhanced when parents "co-view" the show with their kids, so they include celebrities and parodies of more adult interest in order to lure them in to watch along.
September 24, 2010 at 10:37 pm
I dunno, they let Michelle Obama on Sesame Street:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=druQ6olIfm4
September 25, 2010 at 12:29 am
We watch very little of what is shown on PBS. Most of the programs are slanted toward either earth worship or secular humanism. I am not surprised by this at all. To be honest, though, after all the hullabaloo about the video I expected it to be even worse. About the time "Elmo" was added to Sesame Street we turned it off. The content has been going downhill for years and they try every new fad that comes along in "early childhood education" on the children that view Sesame Street.
September 25, 2010 at 2:33 am
Even besides the outfit, which has a skin colored attachment from the shoulders to her breasts, the whole video is just sooo idiotic compared to the kind of material I remember sesame street showing when I was a kid, which was the early 90's
September 25, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Katy Perry Says She Sold Her Soul to the Devil….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2xUaTv0jm8
September 25, 2010 at 4:49 pm
I agree with Christine. ^^
September 26, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Katy Perry aside, whom I don't want to have a "kid-friendly" image that gets kids into her usually problematic songs, the only real problem with this video is the costume. Elmo running around legs that bare? Her bosom is definitely not covered. Who came up with that costume? Did her people do it, in which case it's not surprising, or, was it someone from Sesame Street? That would be the real issue.
I did my degree in costume design, and honestly, for a kiddie show to have someone saying they wanted to play dress up, it should have been actually a costume, not just a dress with a headband. Why not make her a princess or a pirate or something? It's waaay too subtle for this market, in my opinion.
As an English teacher (private language school in a non-English-speaking country), I don't actually have a problem with the choice of this version of the song (the original is bad, though and there is a case for not using it because of its connection). The problem for me as an educator is that they didn't really exploit the material – there's a lot that could be done with that song for teaching opposites. It'd be handy in my 8-9 year old classes, actually – hot/cold, in/out, up/down, etc. Overall, it's just poorly done, and the dress is a real issue (and not even good costuming).
~Nzie
September 28, 2010 at 4:13 pm
She is dressed as modest as alot of the young women are in our Churches.
This is shocking?
Clean up the Church first.
September 28, 2010 at 5:22 pm
My two cents worth.