TV Dishes Up Cultural Propaganda

During the brouhaha over funding for public broadcasting, a caller to Rush Limbaugh’s show challenged the notion that much of the programming on the Public Broadcasting Service carries political bias. “After all,” pronounced the caller, “most of the shows aired during the day are aimed at children. You’re not saying there’s political propaganda in ‘Barney,’ are you?”

Well, maybe not political propaganda exactly, but cultural propaganda?

Absolutely.

I will admit my children adore “Barney.” When the logo for Connecticut Public Television fills the screen, their faces light up with delight. I will subject myself to a great deal of mortification for something that gives them that much innocent pleasure.

And it does involve mortification because there is no question that the earnest, sensitive folks who write the scripts for “Barney” cannot resist the temptation to push an agenda at impressionable little minds.

There is, for example, the “Barney” episode that deals with families (there are only about 10 “Barney” episodes total, which is part of the trial for parents forced to endure these things day in and day out). Kathy, who is being raised by her mother and grandmother, feels she doesn’t have a “real” family. But Barney sets her straight. Then the kids break into song: “I know a boy named Tim who lives with his mom; his dad lives far away; and though he sees his parents just one at a time, they both love him every day.”

The song’s refrain goes: “A family is people and a family is love; that’s a family. They come in all different sizes and different kinds, but mine’s just right for me.”

You don’t need a degree in psychology to guess what the producers are thinking. Many American kids are growing up in single-parent homes these days, so television, the reasoning goes, owes it to them to make them feel “normal” and loved and accepted; they should know that all families are created equal, and even if they “see their parents just one at a time,” they shouldn’t feel any less loved or (Barney’s favorite word) “special.”

Now, here’s my guess: This does nothing to ease the pain for children of divorce, but it probably does a lot to assuage the guilt of parents.

“Sesame Street” does the same thing. Its song “We All Sing With the Same Voice” is one of those feel-good universalist themes that pockmark the program; children the world over are just the same (which isn’t true - if it were, there would be no such thing as cultural or national differences). A memorable verse with two little girls has one singing, “I’ve got one daddy,” and the other responding, “I’ve got two.” Isn’t that wonderful?

“Sesame Street” does more than suggest that there are all kinds of families in the world - it actively promotes the idea of single parenting. A song that is replayed a lot features a boy describing his family: “There’s my mom and me, and baby makes three, and it works perfectly, don’t you see, we’re a family.”

But such families almost never work perfectly. However, the makers of children’s TV programs are nothing if not resolute in their errors.

And why can they not refrain from propagandizing the preschool set about the environment? Barney has told America’s children thousands of times that we are running out of landfill space (false), that we should recycle all our bottles and cans (debatable) and that we should “never let the water run” when we are brushing our teeth (please). “Sesame Street” is even worse, implying that development is the enemy of clean air and clean water (false: Poor countries are much less environment-friendly than wealthy ones).

It’s a shame that these programs peddle so much political correctness because they otherwise are quite creative and clever. The original music alone on “Sesame Street” is better than 90 percent of the stuff you find on Broadway. And while lots of yuppie parents complain about Barney’s saccharin sweetness, it certainly is preferable to the violence and mayhem of most cartoons. As the mother of boys, I appreciate any relief from violence and mayhem.

But please, hold the politics - and serve the saccharin straight up.

Correction: In a recent column, I mistakenly reported that the adoption tax credit would be available only for special-needs adoptions. My usually reliable source misled me, and I apologize to my readers.

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