Typically, when a film is made for a specific group of people, actors from that community are cast in the roles to help them get into character and better express the idea and concept of the story being told. Even when an indigenous member of the community is unable to be used, the actor is provided with a consultant in that field to help solidify the character being played.
It’s like an actor being called up to play a police officer. It comes as no surprise if an actual police officer is summoned to provide guidance to the actor, and the representation of what police officers do is important, it matters, and perhaps that is what Sesame Street missed out on when it first began, but at least they got with the program.
According to one study, inner-city children were months behind middle-class children in kindergarten, and the gap widened and progressed as the children progressed through the grades. Because children are known to spend a lot of time watching television, the television served as a sort of babysitter. It was far worse for inner-city kids whose parents worked long hours and thus exposed their children to meaningless programming.
Lloyd Morrisett worked with Joan Ganz Cooney, an activist and producer at the time. They believed that television could teach young children. Cooney conducted a feasibility study that convinced the Department of Education, the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and individual donors to contribute $8 million to the Children’s Television Workshop (now the Sesame Workshop).
As a writer and TV producer, Cooney approached Jon Stone, a Yale University graduate with experience in children’s television. He shared her enthusiasm for social activism and agreed to participate in the show because of its emphasis on educating Black and brown youth and being so influenced by the African-American neighborhoods of Harlem and beyond. Everything about Sesame Street was Black, from the witty slang to the jazz and groove music to the set and performers, but the puppets were not.
The idea and thought and target audience of the series at the time was not reflected in what was shown. There were no black puppets even though some of the puppeteers were black and predominantly male. So on many fronts, representation was a problem. Representation entails viewing tales and performances in movies that portray and resonate with an audience, which was lacking in this case.
Over the years, this issue was resolved in the 1980s when Kevin Clash was cast, but while his puppet sounded black it did not look black. However, he did set the pace, and eventually, in 2021, a full-time black female puppeteer, Meghan Piphus Peace, was cast. This time, not only is the voice of the puppet black, but its physical appearance is black too. Gabrielle, the 6-year-old puppet not only has melanin skin, but she has kinky hair too.
Representation matters especially for children, who relate, grasp and understand better when what they say on screen is what they see in their immediate surroundings. For a program that was built on the life and gaps found among black and brown kids, it took Sesame Street way too long to get here, but the important thing is the representation is being factored in the casting of the show.
A lot of things kids learn at a tender age are picked up from what they see on TV. For young girls especially who have to deal with the issues of their kinky hair not being accepted even to this day, Meghan Piphus’ puppet is an amazing representation of black girls that can go a long way to letting young girls understand that they are okay just the way they are and there are people like them even on TV.
Today, it is not just black and brown children who watch Sesame Street, but children of different races worldwide watch the program and are duly represented although the representation is progressive. Like the viral photo of the young boy who while watching a cartoon saw a male character that looked just like him and was so connected, little black and brown girls who watch Sesame Street will be happy to see 6-year-old Gabrielle in all her melanin skin and kinky glory.