Infant Industry: St. Elmo's Fire
Under the fuzzy red suit beats a heart of gold.
by Jennifer Baumgardner
May 28, 2007
The actors on Sesame Street are ethnically diverse. Are
the
puppeteers?
Oh, yeah. Carmen Osbahr who plays Rosita is from Mexico. I'm African-American.
Hmmm. Actually, there aren't that many in the U.S. production. It's Carmen
and me, I guess, and Nora McNeil, who is mixed African-American
and white.
Do you feel like Elmo has an African-American cultural sensibility?
Everybody says his dancing seems black. What's really funny is that
I am not that good of a dancer when using my body, but I can do it with my arm.
People tend to be very, very surprised when they see that I am an African-American.
They think that I am a little short white guy, with glasses, bald headed. I'm
totally different. But you know what? When you meet all of us, you
can't tell which puppet we do.
Are there issues you want to address with Elmo that you feel you can't?
The thing that frustrates me is not even having the opportunity to address an
issue. Like when 9/11 happened, the network put on this show where
they had celebrities read letters from parents, but they didn't have the
child represented. They didn't ask Sesame Street. We are People tend to be very, very surprised when they see that I am an African-American.
the children's
entity and you need to have that presence.
Let's talk about your daughter. Does Shannon come hang out with you?
Shannon comes here all the time. Her mom and I are like sister and brother, so
it works really, really well.
Meaning, despite being divorced you can all stay in the same apartment and it's
not WWIII?
Yes. Genia and I, we grew up together and just because we couldn't work
out being married doesn't mean that we can't be really close — and
that shows Shannon the importance of that decision. Instead of the whole Alec
Baldwin situation — which is so sad. I have no idea what it going on there,
but I just know that it is sad for the child. I'm not passing judgment
on either one of them, because I don't know them, but I think it's
wrong, just wrong, to go to the extremes of letting that stuff come out like
that.
Meaning the public release [of Baldwin's irate voicemail to his daughter]
is wrong?
Yes, wrong, wrong, wrong. Because what does that do for anybody? It's something
that the public doesn't need to know at all. It doesn't help those
parents help that child.
©2007 Jennifer Baumgardner and Nerve Media
About the Author |
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Jennifer Baumgardner is a Brooklyn-based magazine writer and author. She is the co-author of Manifesta and Grassroots, and the author of Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics.
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