For most parents or grandparents, you understand the power and magic of children's television shows. Maybe you remember the good old days of classic Looney Toons or Mickey Mouse cartoons. Maybe you watched shows like Saved by the Bell or You Can't Do That on Television. Or maybe you're around my age and enjoyed shows like Hannah Montana, Kim Possible, and Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide.
But what are your kids watching?
I think it's very important to know. No matter what people try to tell you, children are very susceptible to media. What goes into their heads is what comes out of their mouths. If you're pulling your hair out trying to understand why your kids or grandkids (or nieces or nephews) act the way they do, maybe it's time you sat down and watched their TV shows.
The focus of this blog: Jessie.
Jessie is a show about an aspiring actress who moves to Manhattan to pursue her Broadway dream. But without money, connections, or talent, she ends up being hired as a nanny by a little girl she meets on the street. The little girl, Zuri, is a member of the Ross family, a very wealthy family with two "very busy" parents and their four children. The parents are in the pilot episode and maybe five or six other episodes throughout the series, as they're always "traveling for business."
The oldest of the four kids is Emma, a preteen ditzy blonde popular girl who's always on her cell phone and cares more about what dress she's wearing than pretty much anything else. Still though, at 14 years of age, that's rather common. She actually has a sweet heart, and learns selflessness and responsibility throughout the series, as she gets older and begins to mature. She also happens to be the only Ross who was not adopted, though that hardly warrants mentioning because refreshingly, the children actually treat each other as real siblings, like a family of adopted children ought to do. Kudos on that, Disney Channel. Kudos on that.
The second oldest in the family is Luke, who was adopted as a baby. Nobody knows really what his biological background is, though his version of events is his parents found him in an alien cradle Superman style and he's really a super powered alien baby from another planet, but it's just a story and he knows it. It is painfully obvious to him that he's the least favorite child of his parents, and Jessie. Luke is originally portrayed as a "bad boy" type who breaks rules, lies, and hits on Jessie. As the series progresses, however, the actor takes on the character and Luke becomes less and less "bad" and more and more "secret softie." In the later seasons, he also becomes more selfless, and begins to try and take care of the next child on the list, his little brother Ravi.
Ravi is the second youngest of the children, even though he was only adopted fairly recently, and is very close to Luke in age. Ravi was adopted by the Ross family from an orphanage in India, and of all the children, he is portrayed the most offensively. At first glance, he is very well educated and has a very good grasp on Indian culture, even helping Luke with school projects. Not to mention he speaks English almost perfectly, although with a strong Indian accent, and he is a master at playing the sitar. He also has a seven-foot long pet Asian Water Monitor lizard, that he raised from egghood. And yet, somehow, this well-educated, cultured little boy who had enough money to raise a high-maintenance lizard is portrayed as slightly stupid in some episodes, and very stupid in others.
In one episode, he reveals that when he was adopted, he went into his new room and found it to be prepared for an infant. But, being the poor sad little foreigner that he is, was ignorant enough to think that the crib his new parents had bought was a "wooden cage" for his lizard, and thought similar things about the rest of the items in the room. When Jessie tactlessly reveals that they were expecting an infant, he goes into a bit of an identity crisis for the remainder of the episode. Because Indian children have never seen cribs before. Nice, Disney. You lose major points for that.
Finally, we get to Zuri, the youngest of the Rosses. Zuri was adopted at infancy like Luke, and she hails from Uganda. Zuri is a wild and imaginative little spitfire that says what she feels, has tea parties with her imaginary friends, and likes to use the family butler as a jungle gym. A regular little girl. She also becomes loyal to Jessie practically instantly, and loves her wholeheartedly. She loves her parents and siblings wholeheartedly as well, though being such a young girl, she was easily spoiled by her absent parents and constantly-quitting nannies, and is rather selfish at times. Again, she's a little girl. That happens. She looks up to Emma as her beloved big sister, and she simultaneously both torments and adores her brothers, who indulge her and sometimes torment her right back.
Now that we've got the characters established, let's get to the meat of the show. My synopsis in one word: Horrible.
Why, you ask? Because of the title character, Jessie herself. Jessie just so happens to be the most selfish person on the show. She has proven over and over again that she cares more about her next audition than the children themselves.
This is especially apparent in one episode, in which she agrees to babysit Wendy, the child of a busy producer in exchange for an audition for his latest production. As soon as the father is gone, Jessie leaves the penthouse, and Wendy immediately begins bullying Zuri mercilessly, breaking her toys, breaking the rules, bossing Zuri around, and tormenting the butler. Jessie doesn't return until seconds before the father, and when Wendy says she wants to return, Jessie happily agrees to babysit anytime.
During the next babysitting session, Jessie walks into the room right after a precious vase is broken by a dodgeball Wendy intended to hit Zuri in the face with. Jessie blames Zuri instantly, and when Wendy fabricates a story further indicating that Zuri broke the vase, Jessie completely believes her and pulls Zuri aside. She first guilt-trips Zuri by saying "Zuri! You know how important this is for me! For once, can't you just think about someone besides yourself?" Then, when Zuri tries to defend herself and tells Jessie that Wendy is a horrible monster, Jessie snaps, word for word, "She is not! And I'm really disappointed in you. Now, be nice!" I swear, the look of absolute heartbreak on that little girl's face is obvious to see, and when Wendy threatens to ruin Jessie's chances of getting the audition, Zuri agrees to keep quiet because of her love for Jessie.
It isn't until Wendy begins to torment Jessie that she finally believes Zuri (and the butler.) Even then, she still makes Zuri play with Wendy in an effort to get the audition. At the end, Wendy, who is aiming a water balloon slingshot at Jessie, accidentally hits her father in the face when Jessie dodges right at the elevator door behind her opens. Wendy instantly blames Zuri. Her father demands that Zuri apologize, and Jessie almost lets it happen, but is so fed up at being tormented herself that she interrupts Zuri's apology to tell the dad off. She turns the situation by a "heartfelt explanation" that Wendy is acting up because she wants her dad's attention, and she wins the audition.
This is only one instance of selfishness displayed by Jessie throughout the show. On top of her selfishness, Jessie has no concept of appropriate disciplinary measures, and is constantly snapping at, falsely accusing, and sometimes openly mocking the children. Sometimes she let's the kids get away with anything as long as they don't bother her, and then sometimes she does the exact opposite and punishes the children for nothing, or she doles out a punishment that far exceeds the crime committed. In one episode, she grounds Luke and omits him from the day's planned fun activities, for using Emma's laptop. Not even misusing the laptop or breaking the laptop. Just using it.
In one episode, Emma forgets to pick Zuri up from school because her head's in the clouds over a "totally important school dance she just has to be at." Teenage girl stuff. Jessie is getting after her for it, which is good. When a girl forgets to pick up her sister from school, it's very important to get after her for it. But a scolding is all she's getting until Emma comments that picking Zuri up from school is supposed to be Jessie's job anyway. Which is true. Jessie's the nanny. The Ross' pay her very well, for being a nanny. And at this point in the show, Emma is 15. She doesn't have a car, or a license. In fact, she doesn't even appear to have a driver's permit yet. How is she supposed to pick up Zuri in the first place? But Jessie freaks out and grounds Emma from her big dance, because she "needs to learn." She needs to learn what, exactly? That Jessie is always right and that it's wrong to say that she's not? Emma wasn't going to be punished when the only offence was forgetting Zuri. It wasn't until Emma called Jessie out on her own part in it that she's suddenly grounded.
Jessie's morals are skewed as well. In one episode, Zuri wants to enter a beauty pageant. Jessie at first insists that beauty pageants are sexist and demeaning to women. Zuri responds "how many did you lose?" Jessie says "...three. Now go play!" But then it's revealed that Jessie's nanny nemesis, the mean and ugly Nanny Agatha, has entered her charge in the pageant, and now all bets are off. Now I want to examine three parts of this episode. First, Nanny Agatha.
In every episode involving Nanny Agatha, Jessie and the children pepper every single sentence with an insult to the ugliness of Nanny Agatha. They mock her appearance at every opportunity. I want to point out that this is, in my opinion, completely unacceptable. Yes, Nanny Agatha is a very mean nanny. But to make fun of her? And even if they do make fun of her, why only ever her appearance? She is a mean, spiteful, lying woman. And what is the only thing anyone mentions? Her wart and bad teeth. And since Jessie not only encourages the children to do this but joins them in it, the message that the children, and your children, are learning, is that it's okay to make fun of people if they're ugly.
The second thing I want to talk about is the beauty pageant itself. Soooo it's only sexist because Jessie can't win one? Sooooo it's only demeaning until Jessie gets into a nanny war? Sooooo it's only wrong until they have something to prove? I consider this a step backward, with thinly veiled assumptive language, stating that women secretly want to strut on the stage and have their bodies judged by men. That the only reason they say they don't like it is because they feel inferior, and a beauty pageant will give them the confidence they need to feel good about themselves. And that pitting little girls against each other to determine once and for all which is the prettiest/most talented of the two is a perfectly acceptable form of rivalry.
And finally, the meat of the episode: Zuri doesn't possess a conventional talent such as singing or dancing, and Jessie, wanting to win, suggests, implements, and forces Zuri to rehearse lip-syncing so they'll win. Zuri spends the whole episode obviously not wanting to cheat and getting disillusioned to the pageant, and still Jessie coerces her into continuing, telling her that lip-syncing isn't cheating, it's "playing to our strengths." Finally, right before Zuri gets on stage, she makes Jessie see sense by saying, with air-quotes included, "I can't wait to play to my strengths on my spelling test. And play to my strengths on my math test." Jessie finally lets Zuri ad-lib an original dramatic monologue, instead of lip-sync. Also, I want to note that Jessie and Emma constantly make fun of Zuri's lack of talent all throughout pageant practice. At the very least, the episode ends with neither Zuri nor Nanny Agatha's charge winning the pageant, and the prize going to some other girl they all made fun of backstage. Nice.
So now I've covered Jessie's selfishness, her inappropriate methods of punishment, her skewed morals, and her secret longing to win a beauty pageant. Still not convinced that she's a bad nanny? Just wait until you hear about the episode where she actually loses Ravi and Emma in the subway systems of New York City.
Yeah, you heard me right. Jessie takes everyone but Luke to go see Battery Park, making the bad decision to use the subway systems. She promptly gets lost, taking trains to all over the city, until she manages to board a train with only Zuri, leaving the other two behind. In a subway. In New York. So, a 14 year old blonde girl, and a 12 year old boy who obviously belongs to a minority racial group. Who also happen to be rich, and not altogether out of the public eye. The very real danger these kids would be in were this real life instead of a TV show simply can't be stated. In the episode, Jessie eventually finds her way back to them, they are still safe, and even though they didn't go to Battery Park, everyone had a basically fun day where they learned about New York, and it all turned out ok anyway. And Jessie nervously makes the suggestion that their parents don't need to hear about the whole "getting lost on the subway" thing.
This blog is starting to get rather long. I'm probably about done, right?
Wrong. Don't worry, I won't be much longer. I've given you a synopsis on the show, and a detailed explanation of Jessie's character. Now I'm going to let you in on some of the hidden agendas and "jokes" that will go right over a kid's head... but are wildly inappropriate for a Disney Channel show.
Jessie suffers from bad relationship problems, which is made apparent by her constant complaints about every boy she's ever dated whenever Emma so much as has a school crush. Eventually, Jessie starts dating the building's doorman, which is practically doomed from the beginning because he can't even compliment her without her bringing up another boy she dated who didn't, he can't so much as be ten minutes late without her freaking out that he's "just like the rest," who she openly despises for being so poor, wearing such shabby clothes, living in such a lousy apartment, and coming from such a stereotypical New York Italian family. Eventually, she does break up with him. She breaks up with him because she's jealous that he's been spending time with a young and pretty doorman-in-training, and she lays the flirting on huge with her underwear model ex-boyfriend (whom she had dumped in Texas, by texting his mom, because he apparently used to be ugly) in an attempt to get her boyfriend jealous too. Then she gets mad that he gets mad that she's openly flirting in front of his face. They then both admit they had feelings for the two people they were getting each other jealous over, and decide that if the spark is gone and they're noticing other people, they should break up and start dating other people.
This teaches your children that it's okay to be shallow, that constantly comparing your new relationships to your old relationships is normal, and that excessive flirting with people outside of your established "committed" relationships is perfectly acceptable, and that if your partner gets mad over it, it's their fault for being so close-minded. It also teaches that relationships are only about the spark, that once the spark is gone it's acceptable grounds for giving up on the whole thing, and that noticing other people means you have even more reason to give up on the whole thing.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good thing for people who obviously hate each other to get out of the relationship. I'm not saying that you have to keep dating someone after you decide they're not the one for you. What I don't like is how it was done. I don't like that it was acceptable for Jessie to flirt with her underwear model of an ex. I really don't like that she has an underwear model for an ex. I don't like that the real reason they broke up was because Jessie didn't like bowling and Tony didn't like movies with subtitles, and the "slob-meets-snob" character profile pairing didn't work out of a selfish unwillingness to learn to compromise and work through the differences. So, I guess, it's good that they broke up. It's bad that they broke up because neither of them loved the other enough to put aside their wants and do what the other wanted. Why is this a bad thing to teach kids?
Because you will never find someone who will always like exactly everything you like, and if you don't learn to compromise, you will always end up breaking up instead of establishing a healthy relationship. Even if you're already married. Once the "spark" is gone and it's harder to compromise, obviously you two shouldn't be together anymore.
And of course, this show is riddled with the standard "dumb kid=cool kid, smart kid=lame kid" concept, good kids are also lame while bad kids are also cool, all the blonde girls except for Emma are stupid and mean, and rules are meant to be broken. These messages are sprinkled throughout the show as often as they can be, and although sometimes they are hidden more cleverly, sometimes they are bluntly displayed clear as day.
And finally, I'll get to the last reason on why I don't think Jessie is a good show to let your kids watch. Her name is Mrs. Chesterfield.
Mrs. Chesterfield is the mean gaudy old lady who owns the building and hates the Ross kids, for pretty much plot exposition and no other reason. And my biggest problem with her is she hits on every male in the building, from Jessie's doorman beau to the family butler to the waiter in a restaurant. And it's not just that she hits on them. She sexually harasses them, both verbally and (in very mild doses because it's still Disney Channel, falling though it may be) physically. When the doorman has to physically remove her from the lobby, fireman-rescue style, he asks if she's comfortable. She, looking down, grins and says "No, but I LOVE the view!" When Jessie forces the butler to go on a date with Mrs. Chesterfield to get her out of trouble, he plays along and let her kiss him on the mouth for a full fifteen seconds to distract her from the group of them sneaking around in her apartment. At the aforementioned restaurant, she's been hitting on the waiter all night, and at one point actually pinches him on the butt.
"THAT'S your tip!" She declares with a grin.
"Here's a tip for you," he responds. "Call your lawyer. I'm suing you for harassment!"
Laughing happily, she exclaims: "I love it when they play hard to get!"
And so kids are taught that sexual harassment is funny. This absolutely should not be.
This is what your kids watch when they watch Jessie. Sexual harassment, selfishness, bullying, and shallow concepts of what love, be it romantic, sibling, or parental love, is and what it should be.
And it's all praised as the good of the show.
I will concede that there is one refreshing thing about Jessie. Aside from Ravi's ignorance regarding baby furniture, the show does a mostly good job of not racially discriminating against the kids. They're all treated equally, whether they're of American, Indian, or African background. Well, they're all treated equally except for Luke, who's the least favorite.
But aside from racial equality, I'd say this is one of the worst shows currently aired on Disney channel. If you've been wondering what your kids are watching these days, now you know about this one.
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