Breast Feeding Has Been Gone From Sesame Street Too Long - 5000 Sign Petition To Bring It Back

[Brendon Connelly]

Do you remember seeing breast feeding on Sesame Street? Let me jog your memory with a few videos.





So there you go, two fairly rare sightings of the human breast being put to its intended use.

A campaign to get breastfeeding reinstated as a Sesame Street topic has been underway, and Gothamist today pointed me to an online petition that has so far garnered over 5,500 signatures.

The pro-breast bloggers make a compelling case undermined only by relentless exclamation mark abuse:

I wish they would redo this scene for the current series! Maybe with a Celeb. It would help normalize breastfeeding to a culture that has completely sexualized breastfeeding. It look's like we need 1999 version, and a 2010 version. Well maybe we will get lucky and by 2020 it will be the norm and they will redo it then!!! These scenes are beautiful!

The point about sexualisation cuts to the core, I think. Boobs are now treated as they're inherently, 100%, all-the-time sexual. This ludicrous assumption is just one step away from the Victorians covering up piano legs, and fired up with the same dirty repression. Surely breasts are no more inherently sexual than lips or legs or whatever else I could care to point out on a man or woman's body? Surely context is everything?

Here are comments attached to the petition itself:

Back in the 70's and 80's nursing was tastefully shown on the show but now they have replaced their nursing videos with bottles. Please note... We are not asking Sesame Street to remove bottle feeding. We are asking that both ways of feeding babies be shown as normal. If we normalize breastfeeding in our community, especially with our children, we can help raise a generation of breastfeeders which will support our economy, make for healthier children and lessen the risk of breast cancer for many nursing mamas!

That's not perfect by any means. There's still one exclamation mark, and a truly spurious reference to the economy; do bottle fed kids not spend or earn?

I guess the modern day equivalent of Buffy Sainte-Marie, the singer songwriter featured in the second clip above, would be somebody like Laura Marling or PJ Harvey. The difficulty in imaging one of those on PBS today, kid clamped to nipple, only underlines the social change, and how Sesame Street, born as a progressive, ambitious show that would teach kids the values of tolerance and open mindedness, reason and humanity, now finds itself in a world where so many of the parents, guardians and other grown ups in the audience have gone a little bit Beavis, a little bit Butthead.

[MurrayC]

You just KNOW the O'reilly factor will be all over this in a negative way

[thekeith82]

[/INDENT]The point about sexualisation cuts to the core, I think. Boobs are now treated as they're inherently, 100%, all-the-time sexual. This ludicrous assumption is just one step away from the Victorians covering up piano legs, and fired up with the same dirty repression. Surely breasts are no more inherently sexual than lips or legs or whatever else I could care to point out on a man or woman's body? Surely context is everything?

That's actually a myth, but I otherwise agree wholeheartedly.

[Brendon Connelly]

That's actually a myth, but I otherwise agree wholeheartedly.

Yeah, I believed it to be a myth but it sort of worked. That's kind of naughty of me, probably.

[Joe B. Pangrazio]

NSFW?

[_OM_]

...Golly gee whiz jeepers and gosh! Since Sesame Street is located in a NYC ghetto, can we also see pimps, hos, pushers, bums, junkies and drive-bys represented as well?

[remembers a local film student's class project, where he redid the ending of Fail-Safe with all the "countdown" images of NYC's sacrificial demise replaced with decolorized scenes from Sesame Street.]

[Joe B. Pangrazio]

...Golly gee whiz jeepers and gosh! Since Sesame Street is located in a NYC ghetto, can we also see pimps, hos, pushers, bums, junkies and drive-bys represented as well?

[remembers a local film student's class project, where he redid the ending of Fail-Safe with all the "countdown" images of NYC's sacrificial demise replaced with decolorized scenes from Sesame Street.]

Breast feeding is the same as those above listed?

If not, why list them?

If so, well best to get it out of the way...

(By the by, I like the sound of that project)

[mikekeener]

...Golly gee whiz jeepers and gosh! Since Sesame Street is located in a NYC ghetto, can we also see pimps, hos, pushers, bums, junkies and drive-bys represented as well?

[remembers a local film student's class project, where he redid the ending of Fail-Safe with all the "countdown" images of NYC's sacrificial demise replaced with decolorized scenes from Sesame Street.]

Sure - but only if they show in lovable Muppet form.

Don't know about you, but I think a Swedish Pimp Muppet could catch on fast.

[ampersand]

I am not against breast feeding in public. I am for any movement that gets more boob out there. But I'm not sure how I feel about Sesame Street being the place to fight this battle. Just feels kinda creepy. I'm not calling the breast feeding creepy. I just think the using this kids show as a weapon in the pro-breastfeeding battle might diminish the argument a little. I can't think of any real reason kids that age would really need to know this stuff. I always felt Sesame Street should stick to the numbers and letter and stay away from divorce, AIDS, and lactation. I think anyone trying to ban breastfeeding is an idiot. But I think anyone trying to promote it, especially to anyone but expecting parents, is kinda silly. Some people like to pick fights and this one just seems like an odd battle to instigate.

But whatever. I have no kids and I'm far from Sesame Street age. Sadly, with all the tv shows options for kids these days I wouldn't be surprised if my nieces and nephews haven't even heard of Sesame Street. It was such a big part of my life because I was pre-cable and PBS was really the only option my parents had when they wanted the TV to babysit me.