Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Write Every Day Challenge, Day #17

I missed another day of my Write Every Day Challenge.  Darn, this is becoming a pattern.  So today is now Day #17 and I will write double today to make up for the missed day.


So today I think I'll voice my opinion on a recent hot-button subject:  Katy Perry's (lack of) clothing on Sesame Street.  (This photo is from the website www.thestir.cafemom.com)


So the story goes that Katy Perry did a remix of her song "Hot N Cold" with Elmo for an episode of Sesame Street.   As I understand it (and I might be wrong), they released a preview of the segment and lots of people thought that her clothing was too revealing for the show, so Sesame Street producers pulled the segment.  


I watched a clip of it online, and I have mixed feelings on the subject.  I'm not a fan of censorship, but I do have a son, and that changes my views a bit.  However, my son, who loves Elmo, is only one, and he would probably just be paying attention to Elmo and dancing to the music if he saw this segment.


But then I thought about my best friend.  She has two children:  a 4 1/2-year-old girl and a 2 1/2-year old boy.  While her daughter may be "beyond" Sesame Street, her son probably isn't.  And while her son might not do much but what my son would do, her daughter, upon seeing this, might have a different reaction.  She might begin to want to dress like that.  Yes, Katy Perry is an adult and she can do what she wants, dress how she wants.  But when it comes to performing on a children's program, she has to think of the example she sets for little girls.  I personally would never dress like she does.  And I definitely don't think it's appropriate clothing for children under the age of 18.

3 comments:

  1. I had to google for the image to really see what she wore after I read your post. And what I viewed wasn't the full performance but the segment that cbs did on it, so I saw clips of it and then the journalists talking about it. One of them said simply that it wasn't so much that the outfit was that provocative it was; why was it needed. I mean Katie Perry has done a lot of television segments and proactive commercials and she does have the ability to dress more conservatively. Was it really necessary to wear something even slightly revealing when preforming on a children show. But then again the producers knew what they were getting when they asked her.

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  2. What I don't understand is that when she arrived on set she had to go through hair and makeup and wardrobe. Surely at that point someone connected to the show could have spoken up about her excessive amount of cleavage (and last time I checked Sesame Street was a daytime show, and Katy Perry's shirt is really showing night time cleavage). I just don't know why it got to the point where they'd film it all and then yank it from the air. If they didn't think anything was wrong on the day they shot it, then they need to stand by there decisions. And if I had a little girl who wanted to dress like Katy Perry, that would make a wonderful conversation opener about appropriate dress for different ages. Last time I checked, the under middle school set were still having their clothes picked out by Mom and Dad...

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  3. You guys are both right. I had forgotten about those ProActiv commercials. Obviously she doesn't have to show the cleavage all the time. And yes, it doesn't add up that they filmed the whole segment and then decided that it might not be suitable for the show. And definitely this would be a prime example of a "what not to wear" talk to young children. Just a weird situation, all around.

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