I Spy a Land with Free Children!
Free to Be... You and Me and the last episode of history class for 2024!
Welcome back to the history class, the last one for 2024! I started this Substack to go along with my radio show, also called history class, to have a written component to go along with what I talk about on air. I probably get 100 casual listeners if you count the people walking past the station. If you don’t count them, I only get two listeners, one is my dad and the other is a bot from Canada, but I like being able to share history with the world even if it’s just with two people. For the last episode, I’m taking a piece out of a larger project I’m working on. My big thesis is about Sesame Street, which will of course get its own episode (or two, or three). I’m not quite ready to tackle Sesame Street, so I’m starting with something less recognized by modern society: Free to Be… You and Me!
My parents were not like the parents of every other kid my age. While everyone else got to watch Spongebob and whatever was on Disney, I was watching what my parents used to watch. They were born in the 70s, which means what I was watching was equally ancient (haha). Besides Sesame Street, I saw a lot of The Electric Company (ch-at, chat), Schoolhouse Rock! (of course I know the preamble), and Free to Be… You and Me. While I’m still bitter I never got to watch Hannah Montana, these programs hold a special space in my heart and still hold up. More importantly, they paint a picture of what the 1970s looked like and how the ideals and concepts of bigger social movements were made accessible to the child.
Before we get into the program, it’s pretty important to consider what was going on during the 1970s. In the 1960s, there was both an increase in household income for middle-class whites and the War on Poverty for lower-class minorities. This disparity was apparent socially and politically. Televisions embraced advertising for nearly everything, especially junk food and toys for kids, but all of these advertisements were of white families and white children. Ads were also gendered: toys for boys and toys for girls, girls help in the kitchen and boys fix things. These ads presented a view of gender roles that were yet to be openly broken. There was no diversity worth mentioning. The civil rights movement was still in full effect. Schools were integrated, but neighborhoods were not. De facto segregation was still prominent. Based on property taxes, schools in middle-class neighborhoods were better funded, and thus white children received better education. As such, the achievement gap widened and literacy rates differed more dramatically. Once behind, it was impossible to catch up without serious intervention which was not funded. Women’s rights also became a bigger public issue. While women had been able to vote for decades, minority women faced difficulties when it came to the polls. Women with children were expected to care for the family and not work. Minority and lower-class women had been working for decades, but the new women’s rights movement once again overlooked them. However, instead of a colorblind approach, ethnic pride movements grew in popularity. Groups began to publicly embrace their culture as opposed to assimilating. Most notably, the Chicano movement in the West demonstrated this emphasis.
Now to Free to Be… You and Me. It tried tackling all of these movements into different segments, mostly gender roles. Marlo Thomas and Carole Hart created the program, which initially was released as a musical album in 1972. The program aired in 1974 commercially. Let’s start with the opening song, also called “Free to Be… You and Me”. In the program, the song plays while a group of diverse children ride a carousel smiling and laughing. The chorus lyrics are very, very folksy:
There's a land that I see
Where the children are free
And I say it ain't far
To this land from where we are
At another part of the song a woman sings “Every boy in this land/Grows to be his own man” and then a man sings “In this land, every girl/Grows to be her own woman”. This was an intentional choice to break gender roles from the beginning. The lyrics further express that individuals hold autonomy, both men and women. It sets the stage for the big breaking of gender stereotypes that comes in the rest of the program.
The next segment is important too. It’s two visibly genderless babies, one voiced by Thomas and the other voiced by Mel Brooks discussing who’s the boy and who’s the girl. The baby voiced by Brooks is absolutely positive it’s the girl while the baby voiced by Thomas is positive it’s the boy. Thomas’ baby wants to be a fireman and Brooks’ baby wants to be a cocktail waitress, shouldn’t that explain which baby is which gender? This debate goes on and on until their diapers get changed. Then we know who is who. The conclusion is that these biological traits determine gender and not emotional qualities. Of course, we now know that isn’t really true, but for 1974 this is a pretty up-and-coming ideology. There’s multiple baby segments throughout the program, but I will only be discussing this one for the interest of time. They all follow the same theme.
The next segment is Roberta Flack and Michael Jackson singing about what they want to be when they grow up. It’s pretty self explanatory.
“Parents are People” is a big one. Thomas and Harry Belafonte (a “We Are the World” VIP) sing about how parents are more than caretakers and children. Notably mommies can be doctors, welders, or umpires while daddies can be bakers, painters, or referees. This segment got quite a bit of attention because Thomas and Belafonte push matching strollers together on the street, which some took to mean they were an interracial couple. This negative attention came predominantly from the South, which asked that the segment be removed from the program. It wasn’t.
Arguably one of the best segments is “It’s Alright to Cry” performed by Rosey Grier. If you don’t know who Rosey Grier is, he’s an absolutely massive, Black football player who had retired in 1967. He was briefly the bodyguard for Robert F. Kennedy which is also pretty cool. In 1973, he released Rosey Grier’s Needlepoint for Men, which was astonishing for the time. He broke countless gender roles even before “It’s Alright to Cry”, his name is Rosey after all. “It’s Alright to Cry” tackles a lot, most importantly gender and racial stereotypes. Strong Black male characters were lacking in television at the time. Grier both represents a strong role model to Black boys but also emphasizes that it’s okay to have emotions. In a time in which crying was for women, “It’s Alright to Cry” shows that it is, in fact, alright to cry. Everyone does it. It “lets the sad out”. Whenever I cry, I think of crying as letting the sad out and things will start getting better. Rosey Grier is the best.
“William Wants a Doll” is another good one. The message is slightly outdated in its implications, but the energy is there. All William wants for his birthday is a baby doll to hold and take care of, but everyone makes fun of him. His parents get him sports equipment to encourage childhood masculinity which he plays with glumly. At the end, his grandmother brings him a doll, assuaging his parents by singing “William wants a doll so when he has a baby some day he’ll know how to dress it…, gently caress it…, and care for his baby as every good father should learn to do”. The message was meant to take away from the idea that William might want a doll because he might be gay, a common idea at the time. The creators and writers, while liberal, did not want to imply that this child might be gay, which would turn off more than the South. While yes, maybe the kid could’ve wanted a doll to learn how to take care of it, that seems unlikely. The most likely answer is that William wants a doll because dolls are fun for everyone. Since dolls were gendered at the time however, it seems impossible that this conclusion could have been reached.
The last segment I want to talk about is “Atalanta”. This one is my absolute favorite. A king is troubled by having to choose who will marry his daughter, Atalanta. She chimes in to say that she will choose her own husband, if she even wants to get married. The king insists everyone gets married because that’s just what people do, Atalanta disagrees. The king decides there will be a track race and the fastest man shall marry Atalanta. Atalanta agrees but only if she is allowed to run as well. If she wins, she chooses her fate herself. Atalanta trains in secret at nights until she can run the track in three minutes (speedy), faster than anyone has run it before. Young John has the same idea. He practices running too, until he can also run the course in three minutes! On the day of the race, hundreds of men compete, with the townspeople filling the crowd. He tells Atalanta “farewell, for tomorrow you will be married” she says “I am not so sure of that, father”. The race begins. Atalanta pulls ahead and keeps her lead even as several men drew near. Only Young John comes close. They ran as equals, absolutely side by side, drawing a tie. Young John is given the prize of marriage by the king. He replies and says “I could not possibly marry your daughter unless she wished to marry me” and only requests that they talk. They spend the afternoon together and become friends. Atalanta and Young John go their separate ways and the king thinks about “how the world is changing”. The story ends with “perhaps someday they’ll be married, and perhaps they will not. In any case, it is certain they are both living happily ever after”. This story is adapted from the Greek myth of Atalanta. In the Greek story, Atalanta wins many battles due to her alliance with the goddess Artemis. However, when it comes to the footrace, goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite feels spurned by Atalanta, who decides she will only marry whoever beats her in a race. As such, Aphrodite gives a suitor three golden apples which he throws to Atalanta who stops to pick them up. In losing the race, she is forced to marry. Aphrodite sucks. This is why I don’t like ancient history. Even the powerful women hate other women. Anyway, the Free to Be… You and Me telling of Atalanta is awesome. It presents a powerful woman who isn’t afraid to speak for herself and a man who is receptive of the interests of women. It also highlights that marriage actually isn’t just something people do because everyone else is, but a big decision that should be done by people who truly feel a connection. If you’re going to think about the story of Atalanta, think about the Free to Be… You and Me version.
In the retelling of “Three Wishes” originally by Lucille Clifton, a Black author, the language utilized is common vernacular spoken by several Black characters. Like with the characters on Sesame Street, this choice appeals to the average child, who isn’t hearing standard, formal English on the regular. The story is animated and does its part in promoting Black women, girls, and their stories.
There’s a few more segments after that. The babies are separated and sadly go to their own families. To conclude the program is an animated version of “Free to Be… You and Me” with children riding horses in a western looking environment. It merges back into the carousel from the beginning which zooms out into New York City and then the entire earth. Then the credits roll and that’s that.
Free to Be… You and Me didn’t solve racism or gender disparity, but it tried its best to bring it to the spotlight and make it accessible for young children. Most of the modern criticism comes in response to the anti-LGBTQ+ nature of the program with William’s doll and the babies. It’s obviously dated. That being said, I think it’s more important to analyze the program within the confines of the period in which it was produced and aired. For 1974, Free to Be… You and Me did what other programs (except MAYBE Sesame Street) overlooked. It isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good. If you were playing it for your kids now, you could even skip over the bad parts and still have a full program, which I think says something. I listen to the album all the time. I’m not including a setlist at the bottom of this week’s Substack because I’m pretty much just playing the whole album, or as much as I can with my hour time slot.
As a final note, thank you for reading my first set of history class. I initially intended this to be a single academic quarter experiment, but I think I’ll keep continuing with it in 2025, as long as KSDT accepts me for another round. It’s been fun. See you back in history class in 2025!