![]() ![]() well, humanity (?) might have made it easier for adults to burn or beat or rip apart Barney dolls than it would have been with Ernie or Big Bird. And for adults, that may grate in a particularly difficult way, and it may hit their cynicism especially hard. As Burns puts it, there's nothing broken about Barney. ![]() Grover is frustrated practically all the time, after all. Grover, Bert, Big Bird - they all have these moments where they're not perfectly happy or perfectly upbeat. As Burns explains it, Sesame Street characters have something a little "broken" about them. While remaining utterly respectful of the fondness and nostalgia still felt by Barney fans, he makes perhaps the best point about one way Barney actually is different from a lot of other characters for children in ways that may explain some of the hostility that came to be so outsized. The best insights, for my money, come from Steve Burns, the former Blue's Clues host. ![]() There's some tossing around of the idea that maybe building your identity around hate has elements in common, whether you hate a dinosaur or a race of people, and if the filmmakers had spent a little more time on that, maybe they would seem more persuasive, but as it stands, it's a pretty thin point made almost in passing. Not the people who merely said Barney was annoying, but people like Rob Curran, the guy who created the "I Hate Barney Secret Society," which sent out a newsletter in the early 1990s. What are more interesting are the reflections on the Barney phenomenon itself, including what makes people build up their identities around something like hating a children's show. In a series that closes with a kind of "love your fellow human being" lesson, these digressions into some pretty rote and cheap exploitation are awfully jarring. The tee-hee-ing about Joyner seems to serve no purpose except to include a couple mentions of sex, just so that there are a couple mentions of sex. In a series that closes with a kind of "love your fellow human being" lesson, these digressions into some pretty rote and cheap exploitation are awfully jarring.īut also, regrettably, the documentary also wants to grab onto a couple of sensational-sounding stories that don't really have much of anything to do with the pop-cultural Barney story, including the difficult life of Leach's son and the fact that David Joyner, who wore the Barney costume for years, now does "tantric energy healing." Neither Leach nor her son participated, and attempts to relate their personal lives to the cultural history of Barney get pretty tenuous. Anyone who is against inclusion and kindness, says former Barney voice actor Bob West, may "need a hug." (Reactions to that will be personal mine was: "Hmm.") The documentary tries to do several things: document the creation of a phenomenon, document the creation of a cultural backlash, and try to tie those things to a larger conversation about not only internet negativity but also maybe racism and homophobia and political violence. She originally sold VHS tapes of the big guy, until he was picked up by public television and became an enormous hit as well as, of course, an enormous punching bag. I watched both hour-long installments of the Peacock documentary I Love You, You Hate Me, and I'm still not sure whether two hours is way too much time to spend talking about Barney the dinosaur or not nearly enough.īarney was created by Sheryl Leach in the late 1980s as entertainment for her son, Patrick. But it's spoiled by sensational side trips and settles on the idea that haters just need a hug. I Love You, You Hate Me examines what makes people (men especially) so hostile to a children's dinosaur. ![]()
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