When my daughters were younger we used to watch Sesame Street together. One of the segments that I clearly remember is the one which three or four items would be grouped together, and the characters would ask the children to pick the item that did not belong. "One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong" went the song.
If they grouped an apple, a lemon, and a toy car then most everyone would understand what item was not like the others. Naturally, they would make the odd item an obvious choice for the children, even though sometimes the obvious choice would be challanging for dear old Dad. I still maintain that a cow has more in common with fork than it does with a farmer, but I digress. Grouping together an apple, a lemon, and a banana would create some room for debate. Color, shape, edibility and a host of other factors could support any argument that one of the items is different than the others.
The real source of argument here is not the characteristics or intrinsic value of any of the pieces of fruit. The debate comes from the premise that "one of these things just doesn't belong" and that we have to choose which item is the outcast.
As a young man, I remember watching movies and television shows where you could always tell the good guy from the bad guy. The good cowboy was clean shaven and wore a white hat, while the bad cowboy was scruffy and dressed in black. The good guys on Hogan's Hero's were, of course the Allies imprisoned at Stalag 13 and always were able to outwit the bad guys, the German Nazi's, and prevail in any situation. In movies, problems and conflicts were resolved in less than two hours, and on TV, things were fixed in an astonishingly fast half hour. Somehow though, the movies and TV were programming and entire generation that situations should be resolved in these short time spans.
Today,in the post 9-11 world where there are very real and very complex problems. The kids that watched movies and television are getting frustrated because these problems do not seem to be going away in a "timely" manner. Also, we don't know who is wearing the black hat, because they are not all unshaven and German. We want so badly for Fonzie to tap the jukebox with his fist and for the happy music to start playing. If only Clint Eastwood would ride in, look the enemy in the eye, and shoot the son-of- a-bitch dead, then all of our problems would go away.
Whether you agreed with his politics or not, in 1980 we hired a President to fix the worlds problems then, such as the Iran hostatge crisis, and by golly, Ronald Reagan, an actual veteran white hatted cowboy from the big screen delighted all of us TV-lovin' baby boomers and fixed things lickety split. Hell, the Berlin wall came down, the Cold War ended, and the economy rebounded. This cowboy even got shot on the job, and survived quickly enough to tuck us all in after he fed us our milk and cookies.
Today, we don't have the hero of the big screen to save us. A whole new generation of people, who do not know that Commander Quintin McHale will outsmart Captain Binghampton, and win a battle against the Japanese Navy all in about 25 minutes. This generation has their own hero's, but are the Super Mario brothers going to be able to outwit Al Qaeda?
Without a hero to lead us, we look inward, and start over analyzing what is wrong with us. Which of these things just doesn't belong. Listen to the news, or worse yet listen to talk radio. Bert and Ernie think that because they are round, like their heads, that the apple and lemon are okay, but that banana, and it's funny shape is the problem. Big Bird however thinks that since the banana and lemon are yellow like him, it must be the apple's that is errant. As in the Sesame St. scenario, the problem is not any of the pieces in the group, it is the premise that one of these items is at the heart of all the fault. Is there really a problem with any of the pieces of fruit? Of course not, but because we have the premise that something is off, we have to choose and argue the point. The problem with us, the American people is the division amoungst us that all this arguing is causing. Specifially, the two party political system has a major fault. My party is wearing the white hat, and if you are in the other party, then your hat is black. Everything, repeat, everything you say is wrong and everything I say is right. I could go on and on about this but you get the point.
What is worse for our generation is that we are way beyond the time limit to fix the problem that the movies and TV allow. Our attention span to the complex problems that we are facing both globally and domestically is long past. We keep waiting for the magic fix to happen, so all will be well and we can get to bed, but it is not happening. Where is Mr. Brady to explain things to us? Where is our modern day Ronald Reagan?
On Sesame Street, Oscar the Grouch had a very important role. His transparent persona was argumentative and gruff, but his inner self was insightful and kind. He protected himself from the world through his demeanor, but somehow the good things going on around him penetrated not only his hard exterior, but the very garbage can he used to armor himself from others. What Oscar taught us is that positive things can penetrate the hardest exteriors, and the solution for problems come from within. The sunny day we all seek comes from chasing the clouds away ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment