Recommendation: Free To Be…You and Me’s “Boy Meets Girl”
A reader recommends…
a segment from a 1970s children’s album/TV program
I’m not sure whether you will love it. I’m curious to see what you all think of it.
I mostly think Free To Be…You and Me is awesome. It sends some good messages and the ideas it expresses were pretty liberated for its time. I was listening to “Boy Meets Girl” (two newborn babies discussing sex…or is it gender?) again recently and thought about its ending and the conclusion that the babies draw. The ideas were almost radical to me as a kid in the environment I was in. But now I’m an adult who knows that not everyone feels that the type of genitalia we have defines whether we’re boys or girls, and I’m not so sure about the end message. Can anyone expect people to have been thinking like that back in the 70s? I don’t know.
[Album text is here for anyone who can’t watch/listen.]
Category: recommendations, videos 5 comments »
August 16th, 2009 at 3:21 pm |
Wow, that was rad.
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August 16th, 2009 at 7:11 pm |
Ha! Awesome!
Goo.
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August 17th, 2009 at 3:30 am |
For me, the ending of this clip didn't ruin the general idea. The babies are trying to define their genders through wacky details –such as their baldness or their personalities– and their genitalia is just another arbitrary thing they use to determine their gender. I don't know if the filmmakers meant it this way, but I think this scene can be read as poking fun at the silliness of sex–>gender.
And… I love that movie! There's even a part about a little boy, Billy, who wants a doll (although I didn't agree with that scene's end message)
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August 17th, 2009 at 4:09 pm |
…Is that mel brooks?
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September 2nd, 2009 at 8:15 pm |
I thought that was great :)
xx Dee
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