great interview with Melanie Martinez
The former host of the PBS Sprout network, Melanie Martinez, is now speaking out publicly about her dismissal. Her interview at Feministing is great, particularly this passage:
…nothing has changed the way I feel about the videos. I think they are hilarious and still a relevant parody on what the kids are taught in school today.The decision to be in the videos was made by a socially aware adult married actress, albeit a comedic one! Not as a “mistake” or a “poor decision made in college which should now be forgiven.” Definitely not a “skeleton in my closet”! It’s always been listed on my resume. I wanted to act in them because it was a funny smart parody of the abstinence-only teaching in schools that I am against. Not abstinence per se, but the popular federally funded abstinence-only curriculum. Children deserve to be taught a responsible comprehensive sex education curriculum. The spoofs were a way to get people to realize how absurd the notion is, particularly back when the video was made, the Not Me Not Now group. They base their teachings on scare tactics.
(Thanks to Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon for the tip.)