Teletubbies

"The Teletubbies" is a children television series, targeted pre-school viewers that appeared in the late nineties. It is based on four main characters: Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po, each one with a respective color, with antennas of different shapes, each with a TV in their belly and another character that is a vacuum cleaner named Noo-noo. Takes place on a field surrounded by grass, artificial flowers, real rabbits all over the place, a sun with a real baby face on it and a strange house with some technological base. You may wonder why this topic in a blog based on psychology, well this have an explanation. This children's program has caused quite controversy not only for parents who allow their children to watch TV but also for psychologists. Psychologists seem interested in this topic, they had asked: why this show is categorized for twelve-month-old children’s? It has any educational purpose? How this program helps in the development of a child? Why so many parents have created a negative controversy regarding to this show?

At first the "Teletubbies" show, seems harmless, very colorful and happy for early childhood, which aims to help preschoolers, acquire skills, prepare for school, to help in their language development, find comfort in technology and to stimulate imagination and facilitate motor development. Psychology research has concluded that there is no evidence that the program is educational in any aspect for a one-year-old child, that don’t contribute in their language or help them to feel comfortable with technology. In conclusion there is nothing to suggest that can facilitate motor development of a child 12 months old or that it has an educational value at all. On the contrary, it was found that children 12 months old shouldn’t be watching TV, but after being three years old, because early television results in obesity, decreased school participation, causes changes in the arteries located in the eyes, increased risk of high blood pressure, among other consequences.

I had read so many articles in relation to this subject and it appeared to have so much controversy regarding to this show such as; the history, symbols, characters, setting, etc. One of the controversies which many agreed about was referring to the character Tinky Winky (the violet one) for being gay and Dipsy (the green one) for being black, but as I have no homophobic or racist problem I will not go into detail. Not only this, it is said that the characters are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, also identifying them as demons. It is said to that it shows subliminal messages that go directly to the subconscious of the child using collective hypnosis, which is quite interesting, since I had previously made an entry regarding to hypnosis. Recently had read an article by a mother who said that her son after seeing this program attacked her at midnight, describing that his son was possessed in some way. The last article that I read about the “Teletubbies” was that the show was inspired by a horrifyingly true story based on children of an institute of mental disability in Bulgaria that have a sad/horrible end and the show was created to make this a happy ending for the children’s that had suffered in the past.

Ignoring all these numbers of stories and articles relating to this popular toddler program, I found the task of seeing an episode of “Teletubbies” to be able to jump into my own conclusions. After watch a whole episode I concluded the following: It is a very absurd program without any logic at all, the characters are creepy as hell, not a sign of any early childhood education, moral or teaching, and the language used in this case the babbling does nothing regarding to the child development of language. The “Teletubbies” are not the only infant program that lacks education and contain subliminal messages, there are many others like this but at least in this case there have several psychological researches. I'm not a mother, but I’m an aunt and I care about the education and development of my niece and if I understand that there is a programs that are unsuitable for them is my responsibility to prohibit the access of it. It is very important if you are in charge of an infant and you let them watch TV, make sure is something appropriate to his age or appropriate at all.