The Jetsons

Lately, Peanut has been obsessed with the idea of flying cars. He sees this as the prime solution to traffic jams and the interminable fifteen minutes through which he must suffer to get from school to home to television. I decided he might like The Jetsons (because, really, what else is worth noting about the show other than the flying cars?) but I was wrong. He hated it. I hated it. My husband hated it.

To be sure, we watched the 1990 movie which was undoubtedly worse than the show ever was. No schtick that plays well in a 22 minute format translates well into a 1 hour 22 minute format - especially when the main gags of the material include doggie treadmills, pills for food, and machines that brush one's teeth. Putting all that aside, The Jetsons has not aged well. And it's not the technology: it's the outrageously marginalized gender roles.

The Main Characters

Judy
She's your typical boy crazy teenage girl, swooning at the faintest hint of attention from an attractive male and simply dying of grief when he goes away. Presumably she attends school, but there's no mention of activities or friendships - unless, of course, said friends are part of a gossip chain that feeds her the latest on her boy crush.

Elroy
For the life of me, I can't figure out how old this kid is supposed to be. He's in footie pajamas, but plays a sport that involves riding a small, surfboard-like object over a gaping space pit to certain death. He's a whiz kid, too, and is seemingly the brains of the family. Which isn't actually saying much: that bar is set way low. There is ample evidence that the one who really has all it figured out is the dog.

Jane
She likes shopping, gossiping on the videophone, and shopping. She's mortified to be caught without wearing her face - a cute, idiot phrase for wearing makeup, but perfectly at ease with swiping her husband's wallet. The movie makes a half-assed attempt to cast her as a volunteer organizer for a recycling program, but beyond that she's all housewife. Assuming, of course, that housewives do nothing but watch soaps and give themselves spa treatments.

George
It's a wonder George doesn't have an aneurysm from financial worry. In addition to his wife daily running off to the mall, he's constantly at risk of being unemployed because, being a man, he's stupid and lazy. It takes the combined efforts of Jane, a computer and the maid to so much as wake him in the morning. He's supposed to be the lovable, central character to the family - but he seems to waiver between laziness at work and antisocial behavior at home. As most men do.

Everyone Else

Granted, many shows on tv today are still working off these stereotypes - and are popular, to boot. What strikes me as especially offensive about The Jetsons, however, is the lengths to which it goes to preserve gender bias. In the world of The Jetsons, even female robots are relegated to the roles of housewives, maids and secretaries, while their male counterparts are simple jocks, paper pushers and blue collar workers.

Rosie the tubby old maid of a maid	Gertrude the hot (in a robotic way) secretary	A neighboring housewife of the Jetsons
Robot football player, complete with "dumb jock" facial expression	George's co-worker - this guy is, literally, a filing cainet	Sprocket factory foreman

The plot of The Jetsons revolves around one of two things: gags about futuristic machinery and highly gendered hijinks. The only character who shows any frustration with her role is Rosie the maid. She's irascible in the way that tv maids are supposed to be irascible, but no more. This is a kid's show, after all, so it's only right that she's brought into the show with just a touch of sexual harassment: "She's eager, isn't she?" But h-o-m-e-l-y.



I suppose it should be ironic that a show about the future is so drastically void of the social progress we've achieved since Betty Boop first booped her boops. But Hanna-Barbera isn't known for groundbreaking social commentary (unless a caveman channeling the spirit of The Honeymooners because his wife overcooked his t-rex t-bone is commentary). Maybe this is why one of their own action heroes later pursued a career in civil litigation.

It's a good day when I can reference Harvey Birdman.

Monsters!

A few years ago I bought a reissue of my favorite Sesame Street album on CD. I was so excited, having lost the LP long before, to listen once again to Grover glorify his meager, yet narcissistic independence in the hit single, “I, Grover;” and to follow Harry Monster into the depths of despair as he laments how his physical clumsiness has branded him a sociopath in “I Just Can’t Help It.” And then there’s the vaudeville-esque “Fur,” a tribute to hirsuitism - always gets the toes a’ tappin’. But I was dismayed to discover that my very favorite song was missing.

“I Want a Monster to Be My Friend” is a vocal masterpiece belted out by the usually timid Prairie Dawn. Backed by an alto sax and male vocals, Prairie Dawn lets it out - she wants a monster for a playmate, someone who won’t be afraid to play rough - who won’t treat her like a little girl. It’s an awesome song, and, in the album’s original release, so popular that it was the noted single on subsequent album covers. But then, for some reason, it was pulled from the album’s re-release and replaced with a sweet, but unimpressive, ballad to mommies sung by Harry Monster.

I have not been able to confirm why “I Want a Monster to Be My Friend” was pulled, but a reliable source (unknown YouTube user) claims the song and it’s video were banned, due to the song’s racy implications. I could go into detail, but this straightforward, if inelegant, explanation will do just fine:
  “No see you just say penis whenever she says monster and then you’ll see why it’s dirty because she wants a penis.”
By that logic, ‘Rubber Ducky’ is the lewdest song ever written (cause, see, you just say penis whenever he says duckie and you’ll see... oh, nevermind).

I don't have concrete proof that the song was banned, but I find it’s exclusion from the album’s reissue troubling for other reasons. It was the only song on the album sung by a female (or a human, for that matter. You see that little boy on the cover? I’ve been wondering who that is for years). It was the only song on the album that in any way referred to a non-mommy female. This makes it’s replacement, “That Furry Blue Mommy of Mine,” even more annoying.

I’m perpetually irritated by the assumption that casting females exclusively as mothers is not sexualizing them, especially when contrasted with what is a great example of a young girl's challenge to gender stereotypes . The only way to get sexual implications from Prairie Dawn’s performance is to deliberately put them there, as in the Rubber Duckie example (though, truth be told, I may never be able to sing about my little fella who’s cute and yellow and chubby without sniggering ever again). The song is soulful, Prairie Dawn’s performance is empowered, and in the end it’s about a girl who doesn’t want to settle for the usual girl stuff. Every little girl should express herself this boldly.



As if shunning Prairie Dawn in the reissue of Monsters! isn’t bad enough, I’ve since learned that the song was not totally scrapped by Sesame Street. Long before I started having kids, and I didn’t know the difference between Elmo and Emo, En Vogue covered the song for Elmopalooza! While I disagree that there should be objections to the original, I can only hope the new version got some people fired.



Clearly, in this instance, the execs at Sesame Street got over whatever concern they may have had about over-sexualizing little girls. En Vogue takes what was a wonderful, jazzy song about wanting a playmate and turns it into something more akin to a strip club act. Note that two out of the three vocalist are wearing pigtails. Note the batting eyelashes, the coy glances, the overexposure of the tongue while singing. While sexual overtones in the original version could be derived only by an idiot, En Vogue’s version simply hands it to us in pink, fluffy handcuffs. What was strong and empowered is now weak and inferior; the implication that this is somehow more acceptable - more wholesome - makes me despair on the influence of Sesame Street altogether. I wish I’d caught this when it was relevant - it would have gone straight to the top of my ‘letters I’m going to say I’ll write and then probably not ever get around to’ list. For now this posting will have to do.

Now see if you go back and read this again and put ‘penis’ wherever I write ‘the’ you’ll see it’s dirty because you’ll be thinking penis a lot.