What do the Muppets mean to you?

[Flaky Pudding]

When I was a little kid, I was about as defiant as you could possibly imagine. I was rude, mean, sarcastic, bossy, quarrelsome, dishonest, stubborn, lazy, selfish, ungrateful, negative, and easily irritated.

But because my television heroes were the very loving and peaceful characters of Sesame Street (sans Oscar obviously), their positivity started to rub off on me.

Big Bird's friendliness and positive outlook on life, Elmo's sweetness and compassion towards his friends, The Count's love of numbers (math being a subject I absolutely hated with a passion), Super Grover's passion for helping other people, and Ernie's strong enjoyment for life were all traits that I ended up emulating after seeing how such attitudes affected other characters on Sesame Street. For example, seeing how happy Zoe would get whenever Elmo did a nice friendly gesture for her helped showed me the proper way to treat my friends in real life.

On the flip side, seeing how hurt others would get whenever Oscar said rude things to them helped me realize that negativity only leads to problems. I was kind of like Oscar during my younger years and observing the consequences of such actions firsthand was an important way to reexamine the direction I was taking my life.

Every child has fictional TV heroes they look up to. Whether it be Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc. but my heroes were the sweetest, kindest, and most compassionate group of characters on television. Who unlike a lot of other children's TV characters, are always encouraged to work out their differences in a civil manner without fighting each other.​

 

[Blue Frackle]

I thought I had replied to this thread (I probably had a post prepared but decided against it); sometimes I forget how much the Muppets meant to me, but then I'll watch something like the Rainbow Connection or Couldn't We Ride and remember that they meant the world to me. I still love them (as evident by being a member on this site), but around the time I was in elementary school I lived and breathed them.

 

[Flaky Pudding]

A thought recently popped into my head that I never had before but actually makes a lot of sense. The way Sesame Street celebrates diversity helped positively shape me into the person I am today.

Growing up, I was raised in a small country town in Indiana where the population was almost predominantly made up of white people. I was friends with one Hispanic girl in my class but that was unfortunately the ridiculously small extent of local diversity. So Sesame Street would've been my primary exposure to other races and cultures. In nearly all of the film segments that depict real children playing together, they have always made an effort to show black kids, white kids, Asian kids, Hispanic kids, etc. all playing and having fun with each other. Because I watched the show all the time and would regularly see those kinds of positive representations on a daily basis, people of other races and culture have always been just a normal part of life for as long as I can remember. My first exposure to the topic of racism was when my mom read a kid's book about Martin Luther King Jr. to me. Hearing that black people were ever treated in such a degrading manner absolutely broke my heart. I didn't view them as "black people", but simply people just like you and I. It broke my heart to hear that there are evil people out there who choose to demean others because of the color of their skin. Growing up as a white person surrounded by a sea of other white people, I can't help but think that Sesame Street may have been at least one contributing factor into why I feel that way.

Also, I feel like the show's positive representation of women affected as well. Two of my first heroes from earliest childhood were Zoe and Rosita. I remember loving them just as much as I loved Elmo, Cookie Monster, Telly, and all the other guys. Despite the fact that those two characters had some more girly interests, I was able to relate to them in other ways. I remember my parents reading me this Sesame Street book about Zoe feeling nervous to go to school for the first time on a day where I felt the exact same way. In my mind Zoe wasn't "a girl", she was another kid just like me. While most very young boys go through that "girls have cooties stage", that never happened with me. Recently, my mom told me about this experience that happened when I was three years old. She showed me the '90s Little Rascals movie and I was confused as to why the He-Man Woman Hater's Club existed. I was shocked that all those boys didn't like girls and was quick to question why they feel such a way.

The way that Sesame Street demonstrates to children that people are people and we should embrace our differences rather than hate each other over them is another very meaningful thing about the Muppets to me. That's just one of the many reasons I consider Sesame Street to be the most important and beneficial television show for young children.