No doubt you're all familiar with Barney the Dinosaur. No doubt you're also familiar with the (almost global) volcanic hate of this purple lovey-dovey behemoth.
Even as a kid, I often felt like people were way, way too harsh on him. Today, despite not watching the show anymore (our cable has long since been cut and, given the quality of TV nowadays, I hardly feel like I'm missing out), I still believe this big guy deserves a break...and no, I don't mean breaking certain parts of his body.
So, as you may have guessed, today's blog post is dedicated to the famous/infamous dinosaur's defense.
I start my case with the top five reasons why the mere mention of Barney makes people scream, run away, foam at the mouth, cover their faces, or just make a sheer Pavlovian response of disgust. I take it upon myself to flip every single one of these reasons onto their heads faster than you can flip a pancake.
1. He's a pedophile.
Given Barney's constant expressions of "I love you," how he's often seen hugging and "kissing" kids on the show, and how his best-known song is "I Love You, You Love Me," the world has come to the (most erroneous) conclusion that the character freely indulges in pedophilia.
Sure, pedophilia's kind of a big deal, and I'll admit, the character could lay it on a little thick with the love and affection.
But, again, such a conclusion is most erroneous.
I, for one, never picked up a single vibe of danger, even as a kid. As far as I could tell, Barney was always very gentle, and the kids not only felt safe around him but they were doling out half the hugs and kisses of their own accord.
Besides, we could all use a bit more love. Even if you're not the physically affectionate type, you can't argue with the fact that we live in a world of increasing anger and bitterness, and so we need more kindness to counterbalance the hate. Such was the message of Mister Rogers and Sesame Street.
There's even more displays of affection on Sesame Street, especially with the Muppets, and I don't see people raising half as much fuss about that. I don't hear anybody accusing Elmo, Big Bird, or Cookie Monster of pedophilia.
Also, just for the record, my family sings Barney's "I Love You" to my dad's headstone, pretty much every time.
2. He's got a creepy design.
Maybe it's something about the eyes or the smile, or both.
I don't know; the eyes and teeth never bothered me. Given that he's supposed to be a dinosaur, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex at that, at least they were considerate enough not to give him razor-sharp teeth or true monster eyes.
At least Barney looks nothing like Sharptooth from The Land Before Time or the T-Rex from Fantasia. Otherwise, everybody would have very good reason to run away screaming!
3. He doesn't really teach you anything.
Okay, so maybe Barney isn't quite as influential as Big Bird or Fred Rogers.
But there were still a few valuable lessons to take away from the show, at least for me. Besides the obvious lessons of love and everyone being special in their own way, probably the best thing I learned from Barney and Friends was that certain "scary" things really weren't so scary after all.
When I was young, I had a crippling fear of shadows, especially at night. Once, on my way to bed with all the lights off, I caught my own shadow in a sliver of light from outside my window. I was so terrified that I couldn't move and Dad ended up having to come into the room.
This little phobia went on for quite some time, and you guessed it: Barney was the one to "cure" me. "What's That Shadow?" had such an influence on me for the better that my parents taped the entire episode so we could watch it more than once.
Sure, it still took a couple of years to completely conquer my fears, and I can't very well say I'm too comfortable with walking alone in the dark now, as an adult.
But suffice it to say that all of us, Mom and Dad most of all, had but one thing to say: "Thank you, Barney!"
4. His songs are too cheesy and irritating.
I can't really argue with this one. There were a few songs that were quite an ear worm for me then and continue to be an ear worm today, "Mr. Knickerbocker" being one of the worst. I still can't bring myself to listen to it even for nostalgia's sake.
I well remember in high school, there was a day where they played silly songs over the intercom, and one of those songs was Barney's "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe." Given the shortness of the song, it played a good three or four times before the final bell rang, which meant by the end of the day, we'd all heard it more than a dozen times. It was bad enough to where one guy in my final class threatened to strangle another guy who was singing it out loud; the first guy was that fed up with the song.
Then again, most of Barney's songs weren't half-bad. They were even rather cute if you didn't have to listen to them nonstop.
As aforementioned, "I Love You" is a little sacred family tradition when we visit Dad's grave, along with Grandma and Grandpa's graves. And the songs from "What's That Shadow?" helped me most tremendously in my youth, and I'm still rather fond of "Please and Thank You," "If I Lived Under the Sea," and "Me and My Teddy."
Overall, they could have done better, but just like with the character's design, they could have done much, much worse.
And finally...
5. Because it's "cool" to hate him.
Haters gonna hate, right?
I'd say the lion's share of Barney's "haters" hate him as much as they do for no other reason than other people hating him as well, and you know how we all strive to be part of the "in" crowd.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't find at least some of the Barney-bashing parodies amusing. There was a time when I wrote quite a few anti-Twilight songs, and those were great fun.
That said, I had much more logical reasons for disliking Stephenie Meyer's books and the movies. In a nutshell, they simply weren't that great. The story dragged on far too long, the pacing was dreadful, the grammar of the books and the imagery of the movies were a terrible mess, the characters were utterly abysmal role models, and the series as a whole wasn't sending viewers (particularly young female viewers) the most ideal messages, so I wasn't just bashing Twilight for the sake of bashing it.
Of course, I can't judge anybody outside myself, but I still wonder how many people would have given Barney the Dinosaur the time of day if the "Barney hate" wasn't quite so intense.
I rest my case here.
If you still don't care for Barney yourself, that's your prerogative. We all have our unique tastes, as we should.
All I'm saying is this big purple-and-green lug isn't the big purple-and-green creep the world makes him out to be. He deserves just a tiny bit more recognition and appreciation than he's gotten over the years. Anything that makes a positive impact on a child can't be a mistake.
Everybody could use a little love...even dinosaurs.
(All images property of their respective owners.)
