Sesame Street is one of those institutions that we take for granted. It is on every day, it has a stable of characters most of us grew up with and it’s a great way to grab a child’s attention during the day.
But how did Sesame Street become an institution? And more importantly, how did it actually change television? These are some questions that Marilyn Agrelo answers with her heartwarming documentary Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street.
Make no mistake, this film is exactly what you think it is – a well produced documentary featuring all things good (and some bad – it is a documentary after all) behind the tale of Sesame Street. Featuring amazing archival footage and access to all the key individuals, this film perfectly encapsulates Sesame Street and celebrates how it came to be – and boy, what a story it is.
I, like most viewers, know Sesame Street for its lovable characters and quirky educational methods, but I was completely caught by surprise in discovering all the subtle agendas that the Sesame Street team (including writers and educators) had with this program. As the film reveals, the team behind the show wanted to not only educate in the academic sense but also wanted to address race, class, diversity and other difficult issues for children. In the world of documentary, you often see corporations painted in a negative light, but this film takes the opposite approach. Maybe that was deliberate on HBO’s behalf, but the child in me wants to believe that there are good people in the world, and this film really does do that.
In 2021, you can call that a relative triumph.