I'm planning to tell you all about my new world-saving computer AND my new and improved life plan AND my unfortunate encounter with burning hot chocolate lava AND the guy who now lives in my basement, but I don't have time for any of that right now. Instead, I will give you this conversation from Madame 5-yr-old (she had a birthday in November).
We were watching a video adaptation of some Maurice Sendak stories. One of the stories, "Alligators All Around," is an alphabet story featuring an alligator. To represent the letter I, the story says "Imitating Indians" and shows the alligator dancing around a fire with a headdress and tomahawk in a very unfortunate, stereotypical portrayal of a Native American.
Madame: How do you imitate an Indian?
My sister: (in a noncommittal, trying not to perpetuate stereotypes or encourage tomahawk use in the house, way) Oh, I don't know. It would be tricky.
Madame: It sure would. First, you'd have to go all the way to India.
6 comments:
Wait! Where are the pictures from Stratford? I wasn't done with England yet.
I always have a hard time when the kids do "Book of Mormon Stories" in Primary and all make the finger feather headdresses and the "how" folded arms. I look around at the other adults and think, "Are we still doing this?" And I guess we are.
M.E.--I'll post them when I get them.
Amy--I know! My sister and I were just talking about that and how it needs to stop.
I love that song with the gestures...(hi I read your blog from Amy's blog) You probably don't like when they sing the Indian song in the Disney animated Peter Pan movie either..."who made the red man red?"... Sorry, I grew up about 10 minutes from an Indian reservation. I might be biased.
It's true. I don't like that part of Peter Pan. We've shown a number of older movies at library events, and I never remember the really dated parts of the films (if I saw the movies when I was younger) and I'm always surprised by them. I almost had a rage-induced aneurysm during Annie, Get Your Gun. If I'd been Annie, I would have told Frank he was a jerk and then possibly shot him in the leg for being such a patronizing misogynist.
We have just been watching this same movie. Todd is mostly fascinated by the nudity in the last part, IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN. Apparently he has never seen a penis before.
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