I finally dug out some Netflix last night. I’ve had these discs just sitting somewhere in my apartment. I had been on a documentary kick lately. And I have “March of the Penguins” (which I’m halfway through) and “The World According To Sesame Street“.
The Sesame Street doc is amazing. It covers the process behind bringing a Sesame Street show to three new countries–Bangladesh, Kosovo, and South Africa. It’s pretty cool how they don’t just pump out dubbed versions of the Street to foreign countries. They try and develop a whole new show based on the culture and identity of that country. So the characters are often different. For instance, in Bangladesh–they have a tiger because that is their national animal(the Bengali Tiger). (Also, I am completely ignorant and didn’t realize that Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan[they are on separate sides of India])
The Kosovo and South Africa segments were particuarly interesting. In Kosovo, they were trying to teach kids not to hate each other. And you have some very tense meetings between the Serbs and Albanians involved in the creation of the show. That was heart breaking. Because they would ask the creatives if they should have one name for the show for Serbs and Albanians or two different ones. And everyone was agreed it should be different. To have one that was the same wouldn’t seem right apparently. The producers also asked about doing something on empathy. They asked for any thoughts on the subject. Complete silence. So they moved on.
Then they asked a bunch of kids if they would want to know what Serb kids did for fun and vice versa. Some kids were curious but some kids were defiant and angry at the mention of the other ethnic group. This one kid screams, “Albanians burned our house down!”
In South Africa, they decided to create a character who was HIV positive. And that was pretty heart warming. But then you saw all the backlash that was in the U.S. about it. Kathrine is in Lesotho right now for Habitat for Humanity. So I was thinking about her while watching this. Apparently, South Africa has one of the highest infection rates of HIV in Africa(and the world), and Lesotho has an even higher one. As a result, you have a lot of orphans.
And perhaps not uncoincidentally, Kathrine was building a orphanage this weekend.
They showed a clip of the HIV Muppet, Kami, and she is holding a memory box that her mom made her so that she can remember her after she died. It’s pretty poignant.
Anyway… if you are a Sesame Street or Muppet fan, or just like interesting documentaries, check it out!
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