Toddler See ... Toddler Do

Children's television makes up a large portion of the total programming hours on public television. Channel 9, the local PBS station, comes on the air at 6:00 AM sharp every weekday with Sesame Street and continues to play a non-stop diet of cartoons and children's shows until 5:30 PM, when working adults get home and turn on the Nightly Business Report. But if mommy and daddy only knew what the electronic babysitter was spoon-feeding their toddlers, they might unplug the TV and get rid of it altogether.

Take the Teletubbies, for example. A new program from the British Broadcasting Corporation, it's drawn a lot of flack from parents and educators alike, mostly for its demographic targeting of children under the age of three, and its depiction of four fat ("tubby"), television-addicted, alien babies with antenna permanently fixed atop their heads and television screens implanted in their stomachs. Without a doubt, the Teletubbies' main message is that "you are what you watch."

The program opens on a sterilized, "idealistic" environment: a grassy, virtually treeless park of flower-covered, rolling hills populated by fat, domestic bunnies multiplying underfoot. "Teletubby Land" resembles nothing more than a suburban heavily-pesticided golf course that needs regular mowing by gas-guzzling tractors--a place where no wild rabbit would be caught dead, much less trying to find something (anything!) to eat. The tubbies themselves live inside a large mound in the center of the park (meant to resemble a hobbit's burrow?) completely fitted out with space-age appliances and weird, vintage '70s furniture. The tubbies' every need is taken care of by an animated vacuum cleaner with a flashing red light on his butt, named Noo-Noo, who turns out to be the most interesting resident of Teletubby Land.

The four other residents, the Teletubbies, are alien babies who speak in "goo-goo" talk, which quickly wears thin and becomes cloying. The tubbies, while meant to be "aliens," are nevertheless easily grouped by sex and race, because they are nothing more than gross and simplistic embodiments of racial and sexual stereotypes. Let's examine them further:

The biggest tubby is "Tinky Winky." He's the only white male of the group (therefore, he must be the biggest one, of course). Since depicting an arrogant, privileged, violent white male stereotype would be disastrous for the myth of the "idealistic" Teletubby Land, Tinky Winky is cast as a transgendered boy. He carries a purse, wiggles his ass a lot when he walks and dances, dresses in purple, and his antenna is an inverted, purple triangle. Subtle.

The alpha female is "Laa-Laa," a girl of Asian descent. She wears yellow, has an amber-colored face, plays with a red ball, and giggles about twice as much as all of the other tubbies put together. And to remind us that Asian women are subservient, sweet, and the epitome of femininity, her antenna is shaped in a curlicue (gotta have that hole in the middle!). By the way, the name "Laa-Laa" is reminiscent of nicknames bigoted adults will give to an Asian-American girl when they can't be bothered to remember her real name. Lovely.

The other male tubby is of African descent and, in probably the most horrific name-choice for a TV character since "Buckwheat," the creators of the show christened him "Dipsy." Poor Dipsy is saddled with a neon green suit and a leopard-skin tophat that makes him look unfortunately like a junior pimp-in-training. When the tubbies dance, it's Dipsy who spreads his legs and dances in a parody of "blackness"--pelvic thrusts and all. And to literally top it all off, Dipsy carries the ultimate burden--the stereotype of the highly-sexed black male: his antenna is a phallic rod pointed straight to heaven.

Finally, the fourth and smallest tubby is a tiny, white female named "Po." As if to remind white girls that they will never be a match for white boys (or anyone), Po is the least articulate, least physically coordinated, and most clueless of all the tubbies. Good for only one thing, of course: her antenna is a simple round O stuck on top of her head.

Aside from the overtones of drug use (a magic pinwheel spins out TV waves that make the tubbies' antennae glow and sends them into half-lidded ecstasy at the thought that their stomach TVs might broadcast something), the tubbies are also the most boring creatures alive. Unlike real children, they never have an original thought; instead, an authoritative male narrator tells them what to think and do only moments before they realize: "yes, that's what I must do!" Viewers are not allowed for even a moment to believe that these alien babies are alone or in control of their environment--the adult narrator is, and it's the job of the tubbies to do exactly what he--he--says. There is a female narrator, but she speaks in goo-talk and only to open and close the program.

Obviously, the Teletubbies prepare toddlers to become TV addicts, but they also prepare them for a worse fate: race stereotyping, sex discrimination, and the blind acceptance of authority. In short, the Teletubbies has everything it takes to prepare your child for school. So park him/her in front of the boob tube every morning at 7:00 a.m. sharp (even the timing is right!), if you want your kid to become the perfect foot soldier for John Stanford, et. al.

MediaWatch is written every two weeks by members of the MediaWatch collective, a local group monitoring Seattle news media. Our next meeting will be Monday, June 7 at 6:00 PM, 3rd floor Univ. Baptist Church (4554 12th Ave. NE in Seattle). For info or to get involved, e-mail mediawatch@u.washington.edu or call 632-1656.