SESAME STREET INTRODUCES POOR MUPPET TO TEACH ABOUT POVERTY

By Noor

October 11, 2011

There's a new kid on the block on "Sesame Street."

The long-running children's show debuted Lily, a hot pink, 7-year-old-girl Muppet in a primetime special that highlights childhood poverty and hunger, Entertainment Weekly reported.  Lily will then join the regular cast of Sesame Street characters.

Lily’s family background reflects the bitter economic reality of the 17 million American children who live without regular access to affordable and nutritious food, the magazine reported. In the creation of Lily it was decided to fashion her so that, to depict her uncertainty in life, her eyes would be placed to seem cast down most of the time.

“We thought long and hard about how do we really represent this from a child’s point of view?” Jeanette Betancourt, Sesame Workshop’s senior vice president for outreach and educational practices, said on Monday morning in a telephone interview. “We felt it was best to have this new Muppet take this on in a positive way and a healthy way.”

Ms. Betancourt said that she and her colleagues spent time considering all the elements of Lily’s character that would make her realistic but empathetic to young viewers: her style of dress, her voice performance and even mannerisms, like her tendency to look down at her feet rather than make eye contact when she is speaking to other characters.

“She wants to talk about this topic,” she said, “because she knows it will help many other families and children, but it isn’t an easy topic to talk about in the first place.”

The news that Sesame Street plans to debut a poverty-stricken Muppet seems to be immensely sad, but also incredibly important.

Most parents try to keep their kids from the harsher realities of life, especially when they’re young enough to watch Big Bird on television. But with so many children going hungry, perhaps this is an opportunity to teach empathy.

Lily, will appear on a special about hunger, portraying a child whose family has difficulty getting enough food. Many children in Sesame Street’s preschooler audience are likely familiar with the idea of donating food, because their families have contributed to canned-food or sandwich-making drives at school, church, or elsewhere.

Country music singer Brad Paisley and his wife, actress Kimberly Williams Paisley, will host the hour-long show, titled "Growing Hope against Hunger."

“We are honored that Sesame Street, with its long history of tackling difficult issues with sensitivity, caring and warmth, asked us to be a part of this important project,” the couple said in a statement. The show will aired Sunday, Oct. 9. 

The special episode is sponsored by Wal-Mart.

Ain’t THAT a kicker?

Don’t get me started on WalMart and this great hypocrisy!