The Politically Incorrect Puppet

Bulldog Pundit has a terrific post up on a new squabble among PC and reactionary denizens concerning a newly created Sesame Street character:

Apparently, there’s a new female character named “Abby”, whose character traits are as follows:

She’s 3, talkative, but shy around strangers. Sometimes she gets so nervous that she disappears. She’s capable of turning things into pumpkins, but not so good at turning them back.

Above all, she is modeling how to make friends and how to fit into a new environment such as kindergarten.

And while Abby is comfortable in the world of fairies and magic (her mom works full time as a fairy godmother), she is astounded by the “magic” in regular things such as the alphabet, numbers, spelling and reading.

The gang at Sesame thought it would be a sunny day, and everything would be A-OK when they introduced Abby this month, complete with her poofy, sparkly pigtails, fluttery lavender wings, a magic wand, and a pretty chiffon frock.

OK, simple enough right. At this point you’ve got to be wondering, “What the hell could possible be the controversy about Abby Cadabby?”.

Well, as usual, grown-ups, not content to let kids just enjoy this seemingly harmless little puppet (IT’S A FREAKING PUPPET PEOPLE!!!), just have to throw in their two cents to advance their social agendas.

First this:

“Cute, pink, fuzzy and toxic to little girls,” groused a headline in the New York Daily News. Columnist Lenore Skenazy called Abby Cadabby “the Gisele Bündchen of the preschool set – exactly the kind of sugar and spice stereotype you’d hope Sesame Street wouldn’t stoop to.”

Anchoress, here. To my way of thinking, the most obnoxious objector award goes to this woman: Susan Linn, cofounder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, calls Abby’s introduction a blatant attempt to compete with the gigantic Disney princess market.

“The last thing little girls need is one more pink fairy,” she says. “My understanding is that she’s a little incompetent with her magic, too. I’m concerned that now even the Sesame Workshop has bought into the girly, girly commercialized image of what it is to be feminine. They could have had an Asian girl, they could have had a girl who’s really good at math. They could have had someone who’s just more complex.”

Oh, geez, you’re not allowed to show a female character who is “a little incompetent.” Commercial television is crammed with images of stupid and stupider men being corrected, lectured to and dismissed by women and children, but God forbid you show an incompetent female. And why isn’t she “Asian” or “good at math.”

Hmmmm…I wonder if Ms. Linn thought “Asian” and immediately “good at math” jumped into her head. She couldn’t possibly be a little stereotyper, herself, could she?

Read the whole thing.