Film: Do We Need Another Hero?

This year a pedestal has been a particularly wobbly place to be.   In the last few weeks alone we have seen huge earth shattering revelations from some of the "squeaky cleans" and the "morally superiors".  The pro family anti-gay Josh Duggar can now adulterous sex criminal to his name.  It may take us awhile to look at Subway the same after thus week's sick and sad revelations about Jared Fogle.  And the half dozen more women who came forward in the last couple weeks is only really scratching the surface of the fall of  former comedian great and family icon Bill Cosby.  Former pedestal dwellers like Tiger Woods will probably tell you from personal experience that the fall is greater for a hero or a role model.  

I remember thinking earlier this week that maybe there are really no heroes.  Why should there be when the people we look up to let us down?

Then I put a random DVD from Netflix into my old school Blu-Ray  player.  The movie was I am Big Bird: the Caroll Spinney Story.  The cynical part of myself told me that Big Bird was going to be ruined for me from footage of Caroll Spinney swearing at an elderly person or tripping a preschool child.  Fortunately no such footage was shown in the highly unlikely event it exists.  

Everyone knows Big Bird, but few knew Caroll Spinney the man who has played him and Oscar the Grouch for over 40 years.  For the first twenty minutes  I waited patiently to see if Mr. Spinney was going to be knocked down a peg.  It turns out the man who plays Big Bird is......get ready......a human being.  He had a challenging relationship with one of his parents like a few people I know.  He also was divorced and didn't get to see his children as much as he'd have liked which is similar to a few other people I know.  He was also maybe a little jealous of the Elmo takeover Sesame Street had a few years ago but who wouldn't be? And that my friends is pretty much that's the extent of the "scandal" in this film. 

I have to admit there was a moment when I looked at the TV and thought "this is going to be boring". But it turns out that being a human being like Caroll Spinney isn't boring at all.  I had always wondered how the puppeteering of Big Bird and Oscar haooened and through behind the scenes footage Spinney makes it look easy.  But it isn't.  

This movie reminded me what an important part of my young childhood Sesame Street, Big Bird and even Oscar the Grouch were.  They taught me a lot.  They taught me how to count in Spanish. I learned about other countries like China.  And Big Bird even jumped into the deep end one day  when Sesame Street dealt with the real life death of the actor who played Big Bird's friend Mr. Hooper. 

While there are a few surprising anecdotes in the movie that I will not reveal so that you might try to watch this very good documentary, it turns out that Caroll Spinney is basically a slightly flawed decent human being.  Maybe there are real heroes after all. Caroll Spinney should definitely be one of them!