Would Mr Rodgers Neighborhood be Too Woke Today?

I recently heard that Twitter labelled NPR as a state affiliated news organization, reflecting, apparently an inability for Elon Musk to google NPR's funding details. I say apparently, because when I did it, I found that less than 1% of the funding for NPR comes from the federal government, information that took me, literally, seconds to discover. Soon after that designation was made, Twitter altered the label to "government subsidized" which is at least technically true, but still very misleading. As a result, NPR, and then PBS, announced they would stop using their accounts on Twitter. I imagine that Musk doesn't mind receiving millions of federal dollars to help him with his businesses, and to help his customers buy his products, but I wonder how he would feel being called a government affiliated or subsidized business?

Anyway, I bring this up because it dawned on me after reading this latest silliness from Musk, that if Mr Rogers Neighborhood, which was a staple for PBS and watched for more than 30 years by multiple generations of children might be too woke today.

Full disclosure, I was not a fan of Fred Rogers' show. I referred to him as Mr Vomit Man, because he seemed too nice, too caring, too sappy, perhaps even a bit fake. Of course, I was a teenager when I first saw his show, watched by my siblings. The fact that I was not the target audience for The Neighborhood, or even for Sesame Street for that matter, didn't mean much to me then, but during the mid to late 90's when my children were young, I realized how valuable, how positive, both these shows and Public Broadcasting was for their impressionable minds. 

One of my wife's favorite stories about our son, JW, was that one day he came into the kitchen and told my wife that the TV was broken. Nora hurried into the living room to see what was wrong, but there seemed to be nothing amiss. The TV was on, the picture and sound were working fine. What was JW referring to?

Nora had changed the channel from PBS to a regular station, most likely because the PBS children's shows were over. JW thought the TV was broken because those other channels which also broadcast children's shows, had commercials. It was these interruptions that he was not accustomed to, these ads for cereal and toys, etc that did not appear on PBS. The actual content was replaced by a commercial, so he thought something was wrong.

It is for that reason alone, no commercials for useless items, that federal support, even at a minimum, is important. In a sea of advertising the latest and greatest everything, having one channel that does not indoctrinate our children into the morass of consumerism seems lost on those that continue the call to defund these necessary organizations. 

But I digress.

Fred Rogers, as the vast majority of people who watched his show with their children can attest, was the real deal. He truly believed that all people were special, especially all children. He didn't just believe in helping children understand the changing world around them, and their own changing minds and bodies, but felt it was critical to provide them with a safe neighborhood to be their true selves. 

Many people probably don't remember this, I certainly didn't nor had I read about it before today, but during an episode in 1969, Fred Rogers invited a local police officer, who was black, to dip his feet in a pool, thereby sharing that pool with the man. Believe it or not, this was pretty controversial back then, scandalous even to some self described religious people. Remember, white only public swimming pools, drinking fountains, food service counters, might have been officially abolished by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but reality didn't always match the law, and in those days, the media outlets were owned and controlled by rich, white men, so mixing the races, even just their toes, was a big deal. 

I provided this example, because, while I can't prove it, Fred Rogers having passed away 20 year ago, I feel comfortable in saying that he would have addressed head on the issues of inclusion, equity and diversity that have so many insecure adults foaming at the mouth. His neighborhood of 50 years ago was inclusive, so I have no doubt it would be so today. 

I know it might sound ridiculous to some, but I have no doubt that once Fred Rogers invited RuPaul on his show, to read, or count, or just have a laugh with the children, he would have been attacked by the religious right and the self imposed arbiters of morality. Yes, I believe that one of our most beloved children's TV pioneers, recipient of the 2002 Presidential Medal of Freedom, were he alive today, still advocating for a safe place for children, still including equal representation on his show, would be a target for the nonsense we see about being 'woke'. Fred Rogers was woke before it was a thing, and, I believe, would be proudly woke today.

Which brings me to the Bud Light controversy. As I understand it, the Anheuser-Busch organization sent a commemorative beer can (or cans) to Dana Mulvany, a transgender woman who had posted that she had just celebrated 1 year of being a woman. As Mulvany is one of the thousands of "influencers" who have followers on TikTok, etc, the venerable beverage company thought it might be a good idea to work with her, as a way to expand their market presence, given that since the advent of the IPA and craft beer industry, Budweiser and Bud Light have lost some market share, especially in America. So, while Budweiser products are still the most consumed in the world, it is foreign drinkers who have kept it at the top, not American.

Clearly though, as the backlash to this decision expands and reverberates throughout the beer drinking world, as other influencers produce their own videos and clips of them shooting up cases of beer, or vowing to never drink a bud again, and as some tavern and bar owners pull Bud Light to avoid altercations between their employees and patrons, and among their patrons as well, it begs the question, do these irate Bud Light drinkers really hate transgender people, or are they afraid to drink a beer that a transgender person might drink, and risk being ridiculed by more "manly" beer drinking friends and relatives?

Is their manhood that fragile, that buying a beer that a transgender person might like makes them less masculine? 

It used to be that many beer drinkers thought men who drank wine were sissies. Of course, Bud Light was considered a sissy beer by many manly men 20 years ago, what man cares about calories, right?, but that seems lost on these outraged customers.

My wife commonly calls beer like Bud Light, Miller Light, actually most American beers, weasel piss. I famously say that she likes her beer chewy, meaning with lots of flavor, even heavy.  Stouts were her beer of choice. So, to her, while men were free to drink Bud Light, she didn't think much of their choice. Put it this way, when we were in Ireland she had a Guinness virtually every night.

Would Nora shoot up some cases of Guinness if they associated with a transgender person in hopes of expanding their market? Undoubtedly not, since she does not live in fear that someone will judge her manliness by the beer she drinks. 

Think about it. Some men are upset about their beer of choice, Bud Light, being associated with a transgender person. Perhaps they should reevaluate their opinion about what makes a beer 'manly', or what makes a man manly, for that matter.