Dont recall if I posted this before or not. I can remember watching this as a kid, and it sort of epitomizes the optimism at the time that deep, societal change was possible. It was a TV special called, Free to Be...You and Me, which began as a record album and illustrated book first released in November 1972. It was a project of the Ms. Foundation for Women, featuring songs and stories sung or told by celebrities of the day. Marlo Thomas (That Girl) came up with the idea to teach her then-young niece Dionne about life, in particular that it is acceptable to refute or reject the gender stereotypes in childrens books of that time. It was so successful that it was turned into an immediately famous (at the time), emmy-winning TV special two years later, with the basic concept being to encourage post-1960s gender neutrality, saluting values such as individuality, tolerance, and comfort with ones identity. A major thematic message is that anyone—whether a boy or a girl—can achieve anything. Segments included Its All Right to Cry, sung by football hero Rosey Grier; the title track by the New Seekers; Helping, a Shel Silverstein poem performed by Tom Smothers; Sisters and Brothers by the Voices of East Harlem; When We Grow Up performed by Roberta Flack and a young Michael Jackson; Atalanta, co-narrated by Thomas and Alan Alda, a retelling of the ancient Greek legend of Atalanta; Boy Meets Girl with Thomas and Mel Brooks providing the voices for puppets, designed, performed and manipulated by Wayland Flowers, resembling human babies, who use cultural gender stereotypes to try to discover which is a boy and which a girl; Williams Doll, based on Charlotte Zolotows picture book about a boy whose family resists his requests for a doll until his grandmother explains that William wishes to practice being a good father; and Dudley Pippin with Robert Morse and Billy De Wolfe, based on stories by Phil Ressner. Some of these names are unknown to todays generation, but they were all quite famous when this special aired. As I said, I remember SO much of this, despite the fact that it was forty years ago that I saw it. This post is merely the introduction to it, but the visuals and song are a fabulous time capsule (as is the brief animation segment, done in the crude, money-saving style that Hanna-Barbara was using at the time to dominate the Saturday morning TV landscape).
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 04:44:38 +0000
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