Sesame Street Has Liberal Bias, New Ben Shapiro Book, Primetime Propaganda, Asserts

Big Bird? More like big government. And don't even start trying to list all the hidden innuendo jam packed in Tickle Me Elmo.

And that's not Oscar the Grouch speaking; it's the very expert opinion of lawyer and author Ben Shapiro, whose new book "Primetime Propaganda," takes on what he alleges is Hollywood's liberal bias.

Shapiro, a syndicated columnist whose books include "Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future," asserts in his new tome that there is an inherent and very intentional effort by entertainment industry leaders to "shape America in their own leftist image," as he told the UK's Independent.

Chief amongst Shapiro's alleged liberal offenders is Sesame Street, the Jim Henson-created educational show carried on PBS, the public network with few conservative fans or defenders.

Citing interviews with one of the show's creators, early episodes of the show featuring hippies and racial reconciliation and, more recently, incidents such as 2009's "Pox News" controversy, Shapiro writes that "Sesame Street tried to tackle divorce, tackled 'peaceful conflict resolution' in the aftermath of 9/11 and had Neil Patrick Harris on the show playing the subtly-named 'fairy shoeperson.'"

Patrick Harris, to Shapiro's chagrin, is gay. And, even scarier, Cookie Monster says cookies are only a sometimes food now; the venerable sweets machine has added fruits and vegetables to his diet, indicating a major liberal plot.

Interestingly, the book comes seven years after then-President Bush appointed two big political donors, Cheryl Halpern and Gay Hart Gaines, to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which began creating a slew of programming with a more conservative tone intended for PBS.

Shapiro also attacks venerable 80's institutional "Macgyver" (who escaped the criticism on a paperclip and floss zipline) and "Happy Days," among other shows. For more, click over to The Independent.

Comments

[Mikeystyle]

06:32 PM on 06/21/2011

The producers of Sesame Street pulled the plug on a planned weeklong series dealing with the Tea Party, citing potential criticism for wading into a political issue. The first episode, dubbed “Oscar the Tea Party grouch” was to air Monday.

Gary E. Knell, President and CEO of Sesame Workshop, which produces the series, said news of the upcoming episode leaked ahead of time and the company decided it would be better if the episode didn’t air.

He denied getting pressure from Tea Party funders the Koch brothers, who have extensive energy interests and donate to the PBS show Nova.

“In hindsight this probably wasn’t the best way to educate kids about the Tea Party or current events, but even PBS gets a small portion of its budget from the government. We feared the Tea Party might force Congress to put Big Bird on the chopping block. In fact, that episode was set for Thursday,” Knell said. “The Tea Partiers were already mad at us for teaching kids about sharing and being nice to each other.”

(continued)

http://www.thechicagodope.com/2011/06/07/sesame-street-cancels-tea-party-episodes/

[MichaelRCooke]

12:02 AM on 06/21/2011

It's kind of interesting to reverse the analysis. How are Conservatives threatened by what they perceive as 'liberal bias'?

Let's realize that media in general does have a real bias, a commercial bias to not offend while attracting as many viewers as possible, to sell as much advertising as possible, for as much money as possible. This is pretty black and white. And it does leave a lot of people out. Feminine beauty becomes generalized as a very narrow and rare body type, and a lot of stereotyping of minorities occurs, including gay people.

Are conservatives 'left out' too? Perhaps. A major requisite of television is to not offend the average viewer. So it happens that its evaluated that gay people on TV are less offensive and more popular when treated with dignity than when used as villains or the butt of jokes. It happens that the many single Moms like seeing characters mirror their lives on television. It happens that expressing values of sharing, compassion and kindness are simply more popular than greed, Christian supremacy and cursing the poor.

Conservatives don't see in popular television programming, themselves. Not unless they are villains or the butt of jokes. A reason for that too. People of privilege, it's simply never offensive to poke fun at or demonize such people. Do the same to a group the least bit marginalized, it's bigotry!

And Sesame Street - extolling virtues such as sharing! It's Socialist!

The poor marginalized Conservative! A true minority!

[phoenixbc]

08:36 PM on 06/13/2011

" . . . the very expert opinion of lawyer and author Ben Shapiro"???? Who wrote this?

Shapiro is a lawyer. That's it. He's a lawyer whose B.A. is in ( . . . wait for it . . . ) Political Science. That means his agenda is a political one, rather than a social analysis of media. There's no expert there.

As for a "liberal bias" evidenced by "racial reconciliation", it appears that Shapiro and the Far Right truly believe what common knowledge is attributing to them: intolerance of differences between races and cultures.

Somehow, encouraging children to pursue healthy eating no longer is an appropriate thing for us to do. Shapiro believes that the airwaves belong to advertisers, where they have sole jurisdiction to turn our children into potential diabetic casualties.

The Far Right wants to interfere with our rights as parents, with our rights as individuals. Sesame Street, the model for all children's shows which came after it (even Captain Kangaroo remodeled his show to adopt new approaches to teaching good behavior) now is enemy.

The GOP complained about PBS years ago and got a foothold in it. Its appointee resigned in disgrace and controversy. Very little, if anything, was changed during his tenure, even though he had authority.

This is a tempest in a teapot, and Shapiro is the Mad Hatter.

[BlackPanda]

04:40 PM on 06/07/2011

If you don't know that Hollywood is liberal then you think that this website isn't either. If a Conservative wants to make it in that business, he better keep his opinions to himself.

[madbonger618]

02:53 PM on 06/07/2011

This is from Duke University a much better authority of anything than Ben Shapiro and other right wing goons.

http://ondemand.duke.edu/video/28130/sesame-street-teaches-financia?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Post&utm_campaign=Duke%2Bon%2BDemand

[TheKurgan9]

07:19 PM on 06/02/2011

The guy interviewd many people in Hollywood. What you guys are ignoring here are the statements made by many liberals who are in positions of power in Hollywood and they admit that they discriminate against conservatives. That is wrong! Someone's belief system should have nothing to do with whether someone gets a job or not. Can you imagine if a conservative said that an Obama supporter would never get a job on Wall St.? You all would be screaming mad wouldn't you? Bruce Paltrow stated that he wouldn't hire Dwight Schultz on St. Elsewhere, because he supported Ronald Reagan....he said and I quote "There's not going to be a Reagan [expletive] on this show!" The part then went to Howie Mandel. Can you believe this? So a man's career goes south due to his politics?

COPS creator actually said to Ben Shapiro that he's partial to segments where white people are the criminals! Can you imagine if a conservative said the opposite - that he preferred segments where black people were the criminals? Unreal!

[Misterioso Adversario]

04:40 PM on 06/02/2011

Is this what conservatives have come to spending their time on? Trying to determine what TV shows are liberal and what shows are conservative? What whit of difference does it make one way or another?

Conservatives, if you are going to spend the time and energy to write a book about something, and try to blame it on the "liberal socialist media", at least attempt to make it somehow relevant.

[daffey]

06:17 PM on 06/01/2011

Well yeah. Duh. I mean, who watching many of the shows in his book ever thought 'Wow, there's right wing agendas for you." MASH, Family Ties, Friends, Murphy Brown, Rosanne, All in the Family, why the list goes on. And naturally our educational programming would have a left leaning bent. It's influenced by our rather left leaning national education, and put on PBS, not exactly hard right TV. Geesh. Talk about a book that declares water to be wet.

[Lauren Kottwitz]

03:25 PM on 06/01/2011

Grasping at nanohairs.

[Red45]

02:58 PM on 06/01/2011

If Hollywood has a liberal bias, it's because it's populated with very intelligent, highly-educated people who actually care about children and other people. If only more Americans had that liberal bias, we wouldn't be in the staggering mess we're in now.

[Just My Thoughts 2011]

07:40 PM on 06/01/2011

Yet another Lefty pretending to have a degree from Harvard.
I certainly agree with the staggering mess part. Thanks Obama!

[Red45]

07:54 PM on 06/01/2011

:o)

[LMPE]

02:13 PM on 06/01/2011

Let me guess:

"Bewitched" promotes witchcraft more than Harry Potter does

"I Dream of Jeannie" encourages people to become secret Muslims

Sister Bertrille (of "The Flying Nun") isn't just flying. SHE'S ON DRUGS!!!!!!!!!!

[madbonger618]

02:55 PM on 06/07/2011

We do now all the residents of Hooterville were busy getting stoned while they weren't in the scene.

[cre8ive]

12:26 PM on 06/01/2011

Hmm. So what does Shapiro say about that fact that Bert, Elmo, and Grover (that's the blue guy, right?) all look a lot like republican Michael Steele? I'm just sayin...

[Ktbu Lfu]

11:03 AM on 06/01/2011

Yeah, and the purple teletubbie was gay...GEESH

[Red45]

03:00 PM on 06/01/2011

I always wanted to know if there were any witnesses. If not, where was the evidence? Was he caught with his pants down or what?

[bigmovieman]

03:05 PM on 06/01/2011

teletubbies have pants???

[cminca]

10:56 AM on 06/01/2011

Countdown to Ben being discovered in a public bathroom.


3.......2.......1........

[jishosan]

09:39 AM on 06/01/2011

As soon as conservative values are no longer worthy of scorn, get back to me so I can care.