Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Disturbing Social Commentary

I am watching Sesame Street with my 1 1/2 year old son. Today's episode involves Goldilocks and the four bears. The formerly youngest of the bears, Baby Bear, has a baby sister named Curly Bear. Anyways, they are all sitting down to eat at Hooper's store, when who should show up but Goldilocks, who proceeds to turn down her own bowl of porridge, and takes for herself food from Baby Bear's bowl. Well, Baby Bear says, "That's enough! I'm writing a new story, one in which you don't get to eat my porridge!" So off he goes, and starts reworking the story. Everytime his family sits down to eat, they find the porridge is too hot, and so they leave for a while to let it cool, and while they're gone, Goldilocks sneeks in and takes advantage of their absence, helping herself to the unattended food. Baby Bear tries a variety of options until he finds his solution; he will take food from the family's pot and make Goldilocks her own special bowl so that when she breaks into their home and comes to steal their food, she has her own waiting for her. The family returns to find this plan working perfectly, and Goldilocks sits on one of their chairs as the story ends, which promptly shatters underneath her. But Baby Bear just laughs and says, "That's alright--this time it was her chair! Ha ha ha!"

Needless to say...I am a little disturbed by the social message of this story. What are we telling our children? Because you have porridge, when somebody comes to steal your food, you should avoid making that a problem by making sure you have designated some just for the thief. And should the thief break something of yours, that's alright too, so long as you decided that that possession would be designated for use by the thief. I'm beginning to really like the Simpson's Halloween Special's take on Goldilocks' story--where she gets locked inside with three ravenous bears...

I wonder how we got the illegal immigration problem we're presently enjoying? All they want is some of our food, and to sit on our chairs, without an invite to do so. If only we'd decide to designate some of our vast resources for their personal use, we could avoid this whole conflict...

Sigh.

2 comments:

slowlane said...

Okay... big problem. The problem with the illegal immigrants is not Goldilocks coming in and stealing food. The issue of illegal immigrants is closer to this: Baby bear doesn't want to clean his room, so he let's Goldilocks sneak in to clean it. Momma bear doesn't like standing over the stove stirring the porridge, so she lets Goldilocks work in her kitchen. Papa bear really hates fixing broken chairs and mowing the lawn so he pays Goldilocks pitiful wages to do that stuff for him. And then they get upset when she sits on the chair she fixed, eats some of the porridge she prepared, and sleeps in the bed she made.

THAT is how the story would go.

Linds said...

Listen to Becka. She's smart.