In one of the most bizarre yet frightening stories over the last 36-hours or so regards world-renowned puppeteer Kevin Clash. Clash, who is most known as Elmo from Sesame Street, was recently accused of having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a minor. This was shocking enough for me as a fan of Clash, as he was the subject of an excellent documentary that I watched regarding his life entitled Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey, but what added an interesting twist to this whole story was how not very long after these allegations were made against Clash they were instantly recanted.
More detail on the subject can be found at an excellent blog post from The New York Times, but what I want to focus on is how this bit of news seemed to have been shoved to the wayside. This is somewhat understandable, seeing as how we just finished up a presidential election last week and then there was the latest developments regarding the CIA official who resigned. Lest we forget all of those American citizens who opted to secede from the union rather than endure another four more years of President Obama. But think about this for one second... one of the most iconic figure's in children's television, Elmo, was undergoing a massive scandal and it almost seemed as if nobody cared. Perhaps this had something to do with the possibility that nobody wanted to believe this, but that still does not hide the fact that this should have been considered a bigger issue.
It just causes me to wonder what exactly we prioritize as a nation. Are we more concerned with the latest sex scandal, or what our children are watching every morning? I'm happy for Clash that these allegations were recanted, and I hope his name gets cleared. But it is something that I think we should ask ourselves moving forward, something we should have in the back of our conscience.
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