Sesame Street introduces Lily, the first muppet to experience homelessness

9 Likes

These days he can actually pop up in different spots on the street, including a compost bin.
Oscar_the_Grouch_compost_bin

10 Likes

4 Likes

Which means you know what is in the corner of his trash can right???

3 Likes

The FOX response to Lily is fascinating and also mystifying. Were they claiming that child hunger doesn’t exist? That child hunger is a liberal myth? Do they not know about homelessness, poverty, and food shelves? Wow.

5 Likes

The free market ensures that all things are efficiently distributed. If real life observation contradicts that, clearly the fault is with real life, not with the theory.

5 Likes

As I recall, Fox was also weirdly angry about their introduction of a Muppet with autism, because I guess Fox’s job these days is to hate good things, or at least things that are on PBS.

They’ve been doing a great job with Julia. She even had a noise-cancelling headset on during the Macy’s Parade, since autistic kids get overstimulated with noise. A little touch that shows how much they think about inclusion.

9 Likes

I’m pretty sure they are actively against empathy itself. Empathy is probably politically damaging to the Republicans.

8 Likes

2 Likes

The show has made a point of including human characters (adults and children) with various physical and mental disabilities since day one, so I wonder what gets people so worked up when they see diversity represented in puppet form.

4 Likes

giphy|nullxnull

10 Likes

For Oscar, I thought that it was a cultural thing as grouches (at least in the Sesame Street world) all live in some sort of trash-rich environment.

I give you: The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland…

5 Likes

what kind of country do we live in where children’s television has to explain child homelessness to other children (there’s also a HIV muppet if I remember correctly) and at the same time three companies are spending millions of dollars to make plane flights to take sightseers into “fake” space because apparently people have enough money to throw away on that

something is very very wrong with the balance of society when safety-nets are gone and yet so much money to be thrown away

2 Likes

This just in.

WTAF?!?

tl;dr version:

FFS I really do not recognize this country–my country–any more.

4 Likes

That’s probably “true,” but as they say it’s not evenly distributed.

The hardest to reach are going to be the kids with parents who can barely cover the rent on their wages and who have always tried not to think of themselves as people who should need “welfare.”

3 Likes

Well, we’re living in the kind of country where homeless kids watch television (or YouTube) and can now see a character like themselves on Sesame Street, and we’re living in the kind of country where private companies like Virgin are making amazing developments in space travel and are using its profits to help feed the homeless and stop global climate change. Sometimes things aren’t as cynical as you may want to see them.

4 Likes

isn’t sesame street on HBO? I imagine not many homeless families subscribe.

1 Like

The show airs on PBS after a nine-month delay. Except for the blood-soaked and shocking “Game of Cookies” segments, I doubt the show will need to issue spoiler alerts.

In any case, they seem to releasing these kinds of segments as standalones on YouTube, which is probably a more effective distribution channel to reach all kids these days.

4 Likes

One day in the not too distant future, “liberals”* will be the subject of McCarthyist witch hunts, as communists were in the 1950s.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.