The new Babysitters Club show on Netflix

daagahminayin

Thu, Jul 16 2020, 10:47 am

jerusalem90 wrote:

I don't mind that they made one character African American, also one could definitely be Hispanic because the modern reality is there is a huge young Hispanic population and a significant AA one, but what makes me not want to watch is the transgender part they threw in.

A lot of kids go through a stage where they'd like to be a different race, but they just know they can't and no one suggests mutilating them for it. A lot of little kids would wonder about being the other gender, maybe go through a stage where they wish they were the other gender, but for the vast majority that stage will come to an end and they'll be adults who are glad they didn't mutilate their genitals.

About the Mixed race girl with the white father -- I have no problem with that, but I'd hope that the part would be written with input from a mixed race woman - preferably with a white dad and black mom just like the character -- and not by a preachy white liberal or a person with two black parents.

I have no problem with ethnically diverse characters in a show; my issue was more that they changed the characters I was emotionally attached to from my childhood.

That said, I did watch the first episode and I really liked it! Apart from the nods to wokeness that is a part and parcel of most shows now, it was very cute and well done. And I actually wasn’t bothered by the ethnic change the way I thought I’d be.

tigerwife

Thu, Jul 16 2020, 11:48 am

sequoia wrote:

So, who thought that people with diabetes turn into actual oranges after reading The Truth About Stacey?

Oooh part of me still hurts for her over the embarrassment at wetting her bed at that sleepover...

As soon as I saw there would be a show, I knew it wouldn’t happen without being vastly updated. Still, the promotional photos had that same color and style as the original book art, so that was cool. I didn’t watch the show, though.

Children of biracial couples can be an interesting springboard for discussion but I don’t know why they chose Mary Anne for that. She was self conscious for her plain looks and for the most part, biracial children are usually exotically beautiful Very Happy

. Though somehow she was the only one with a boyfriend. Is Logan in the show?

Last edited by tigerwife on Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:02 pm; edited 1 time in total

jerusalem90

Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:00 pm

saw50st8 wrote:

I really enjoyed it. I thought the updates they made to modernize it made sense.

The transgender kid was well done IMO. It showed how it would affect a young babysitter and how she handled it. She's not parenting the transgender kid.

Hmm, maybe I'll give it a chance then.

newcomer

Thu, Jul 16 2020, 12:06 pm

Logan is. But her boyfriend from Sea City has been changed to a gay character which, as there were already a couple of gay parent couples seemed a bit overkill to me.
What struck me the weirdest was that the girls addressed all the parent clients by first name. They were way too respectful in the books to dream of doing it.
It was mostly well done, but worked best when it stuck to the books imo.
I was glad to see Stacey got updated to wearing an insulin pump, though.

ETA: It also bugged me that Kristy's mom said to her, don't tell your brothers but I love you the most. Not in a jokey way.

daagahminayin

Thu, Jul 16 2020, 1:49 pm

TranquilityAndPeace wrote:

I don’t think I’m personally interested in watching the show... but this thread made me think: what was it about those softcover books that drew my friends and I to them like a magnet? The library could never keep up with our desire to read about Kristy and Mary Anne and Claudia!

It was like junk food... colorful, cool, there was a character for everyone to identify with, all the different handwritings to match the personalities, aspirational - the fact that they were 13 or even 11 in some cases and could babysit!

I was seriously obsessed.

Here are two vignettes from my childhood.

1) I didn’t grow up in the US. When the 90s TV Series first came out, it screened at 6am. The first day it came out happened to be the morning of my friend’s birthday sleepover. Her father told us he had written to the TV channel to ask them to broadcast the first episode then for his daughter’s birthday. I totally believed him for many years.

2) Since I didn’t grow up in the US, the cover illustrations and logo of the books were different. When I was 11, we went on a family trip to California. In a bookstore there, I saw the US covers for the first time. I was deeply troubled and freaked out that my beloved characters were drawn so differently. I later had a nightmare about it.

FranticFrummie

Thu, Jul 16 2020, 2:10 pm

My DD is super liberal, and even she thought the diversity seemed "forced". She didn't think the characters were developed naturally, and that they were one dimensional. She said it felt like tokenism.

She much prefers the Disney Channel, with old favorites like "Saved by the Bell", and "Kickin' It" (which I personally loved.) We even thought "Hannah Montana" was kind of cute in some episodes.

With the Disney Channel, there's a lot less propaganda going on, and kids just get to be kids.