The Evil One... REVEALED

"Barney & Friends" vs. "Sesame Street": A Comparison
By Aimee Yermish
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I knew something was odd when I heard two little children behind me in
the supermarket singing the "I love you" song, together, in unison, in
this dreamy little tempo, no life, without being prompted by an adult.
I also knew something was wrong when one of my friends, who has two
Barney-aged children (3 and 5 -- Hi, Lin!) started complaining about
the show.  Gee, I always liked children's television, and I'd never
seen those kind of reactions.  That's strange.  But hey, I didn't want
to pass judgement on something I had never seen.

Well, I've got the flu, and there are two public TV stations near me,
which means I have been able to watch two episodes of Barney a day.  I
watched Sesame Street also, for comparison, and also to help get the
bad taste out of my mouth.  Mister Rogers didn't seem to be on (which
is a real pity), so comments on that are based on somewhat more
distant memory (but I have watched it plenty of times since I was
six).

I'm not a psychologist, but I'm also not stupid.  Barney is *not*
innocent, wholesome, good-for-rug-rats fun.  It models "good"
behavior, but only if you define "good" in a certain way.  The main
subtext of the show appears to be that all negative emotions should
simply be denied so that we can all be happy, and that we should all
conform to the group and accept the leadership of other people instead
of using our own ideas.  If I had children, I would forbid them to
watch it, just like I would forbid them to watch pornography.  The
values it teaches are *not* the ones I would want my children to
learn.

The children in Barney never admit to a single bit of jealousy,
rivalry, anger, tension, fear, or any other bad feeling.  Well, that's
not true, precisely.  On *extremely* rare occasions, they do say
things like, "I want to go next," "No, I want to go next," "Let's go
together!"  All with a stupid grin on their faces that shows that
there was never any real argument.  The situations can *always* be
solved immediately, care-bear style, so there is never any real
tension.

The problem is that even stupid childless people like me know that
children's real lives, even at age three (*especially* at age three!)
aren't like that.  Learning to share and take turns and such is not so
easy, and there are usually plenty of tantrums and fights on the
outside, and plenty of upset feelings on the inside.  For instance,
one of the Sesame Street episodes I watched recently had a situation
where Cookie Monster was playing with a friend, and they went to get a
snack, and there was only one cookie left.  Of course, Cookie Monster
wanted to eat it, but then he saw that he would hurt his friend's
feelings.  So he went through a song (which, by the way, is much more
musically interesting and educational than the ones on Barney) where
he weighed all the fun he had with his friend against the momentary
pleasure of a cookie, and decided that he would rather give the cookie
to his friend.  On Barney, even if the situation came up (which it
clearly wouldn't, because there are *always* enough treats to go
around), they would have just smiled and immediately broken the cookie
in half.  Well, from Cookie Monster, they learn that those feelings of
selfishness are perfectly normal (why do you think so many of the
muppets are "monsters"?  Children are very afraid of their "bad"
emotions), that even if there isn't a simple solution, that by
weighing the various sides of an issues, they can decide what is truly
important to them.  From Barney, they learn that good children don't
have bad feelings and that all problems have easy solutions which
don't involve giving up anything important.  Mister Rogers doesn't
show kids interacting with each other that much, but his make-believe
and his songs send the message that you are a good person even when
you have bad emotions, and that intelligence can be applied to
difficult problems to find good solutions.  Barney says that you are
only a good person when you have good emotions, and that problems
don't exist -- a very bad message to send.

Another disturbing facet to the show is the leadership role Barney
takes.  The children ask him what they should do to have fun, and he
tells them.  They ask him what they should do when they're not sure
what to do, and he tells them.  They paint the pictures, and instead
of asking them to use their picture to add to the growing story, he
takes over and tells them what their pictures mean, decides on the
title and cover and doesn't even put their names on it.  They can't
have fun until he's there, and they can't have fun until he tells them
how to do it.  They don't make believe without his telling them what
to imagine.  Their own ideas are subjugated to those of the leader,
who doesn't even ask for input.  This is not a good model of creative
play, nor is it a good model of teamwork or of leadership.  In Sesame
Street, by contrast, the adults are viewed as resources, but the
children drive the action.  Every episode has a running plot where a
few monsters have a problem to solve (Zoe's aunt tickles her, the fish
called Wanda doesn't want Wolfgang the seal to eat her, Big Bird and
Rosita want to learn enough about babies to play family with Elmo,
etc), and they come up with and try a variety of solutions to each
problem, with varying degrees of success (Zoe tries wearing a tiger
suit to scare her aunt, but the aunt isn't scared.  She thinks about
staying away from her aunt, but realizes that she would have to give
up spending time with her, which she very much enjoys.  She carries a
pineapple around so that the spiny leaves protect her chin, which
works, but she gets tired after carrying it all day).  The adults
don't muscle in to the action, but offer advice or other help (at one
point, Gina is practically wrestling with Wolfgang to give Wanda and
Big Bird time to implement the successful idea they came up with on
their own) if asked.  The adults' ideas are generally good, but they
don't force them on the monsters.  Instead, the monsters model good
information-gathering and decision-making skills.

Another thing which is disturbing about Barney is the choreography.
These kids always do everything in unison.  They dance to exactly the
same steps, and do not a half bad job at it.  They mimic what they are
shown exactly.  In the episode on individuality, they did a song and
dance about how boring it would be if they were all identical robots,
and the sick thing was that it was basically the same as when they
were kids.  In Sesame Street, kids get the same body awareness
practice through dance, but the instructions are much vaguer and the
kids are each doing their own thing.  The subtext in Barney is that
it's good to do everything identically with everyone else; the subtext
in Sesame Street is that you can have fun with other people while each
doing things differently, that in the world of fun, there are very few
"wrong" answers.

In the Barney episode about individuality, each child named something
that they liked doing, on the grounds that liking something different
from other people was why you were special.  But then, Barney made
them all do those things together.  That's counterproductive -- it
shows children that something gains its definition of good if everyone
else likes doing it too, not if *you* like doing it.  On Sesame
Street, Ernie and Bert demonstrate very well how you can like other
people without having to like all the same things (one of the shows I
watched had an episode where they treated exactly that issue, we like
different things and we love each other).

In line with the idea that the children are taught to deny their basic
differences, somehow all these kids on Barney, whose ages I estimate
at 8 - 16 (or maybe older, Lucy is pretty big), not to mention the
grownups who show up on some episodes, pretend that they are all the
same ages as the kids watching the show (2 - 5?).  All people,
regardless of age, react to Barney and the proposed activities in the
same way -- that is, at the developmental level of a toddler.  But the
viewing kids aren't stupid.  They know those kids are older than they
are.  And the real older kids (and grownups) they deal with don't
react to things at toddler level.  Real adults may get annoyed at
noisy or messy play or constant singing of the same song.  A toddler
seeing the modeled behavior of older kids and adults on Barney would
be very disturbed to find that his parents and siblings don't act like
Barney says they're supposed to.  Are my parents bad parents because
they don't play the way Barney says they do?  Am I a bad person
because my parents get angry at me sometimes?  On Sesame Street, by
contrast, the characters react realistically to each other, while
still maintaining the safety net that just because you do something
that annoys someone doesn't mean that you or they are bad people.
Tully and Rosita wander around one episode playing with a pair of
cymbals, and Luis (a grownup human) makes no secret of the fact that
he finds it too loud and wishes they would make all that noise
somewhere else.

There were lots of other things I found disturbing on Barney, but
these are the major points so far.  Remember, nothing is a no-option 
when a kid is watching -- they learn from everything they see.  And I'd
rather not have any kids I've got responsibility for learn from that
show.  It's false in a very dangerous way.

Okay, so I do have a soft spot for Sesame Street, I was born in 1968
and grew up with it.  But I really did my best to try to give Barney a
chance, to view it in the most positive light I could, and I couldn't
find anything worth keeping.

--Aimee

Take a look at this picture: