Miranda Cosgrove Teaches Kids Not to Bully, Shouldn't Her Show Teach the Same Lessons?

by Taylor Leake · 2011-04-04 04:21:00 UTC
Topics:

The 4th graders at Crescent Elementary School in Sandy, Utah recently won a contest run by a local radio station. They were the class that entered the most anti-bullying pledges on the stations website, and their prize was a visit from Miranda Cosgrove, star of Nickelodeon's popular show iCarly, and a rapidly rising tween star in her own right.

Cosgrove spent an hour taking photos with the 90 excited 9 and 10-year-olds and signing pictures for them. Many of the students are even more committed to standing against bullying after the visit.

"People don’t realize it’s hurting them and they grow up being afraid of people," said 9 year old Cameryn Bennion.

Cosgrove was proud of her part in the event.

"It’s a really great cause," she told the media.

There's little doubt that it is a great cause, and Cosgrove should be proud, but perhaps Cosgrove should be talking to her own network about bullying: iCarly frequently makes fun of 'hobos' with insensitive jokes like "any moron can have a job. It takes a special person NOT to have one!" and "I walked outside my house... saw a hobo... then ran back inside."

Far from preaching an anti-bullying message, iCarly is teaching our kids that it is okay to look down upon and make fun of people who have fallen on hard times.

It is encouraging that Cosgrove took the time to teach an important lesson to the 90 students at Crescent Elementary School, but what are the rest of the 214 million households that Nickelodeon reaches learning from her? Her visit proves that she can have a positive impact, and that she cares about this issue, so why not take it up on her own show? It would have an incredible results.

If you want to see Nickelodeon and iCarly commit to the kind of anti-bullying activism Cosgrove is involved in, instead of teaching kids that bullying is okay, please sign our petition. It asks Philippe P. Dauman, CEO of Viacom (which owns Nickelodeon) to apologize for the the inappropriate and insensitive homeless jokes on iCarly.

Making fun of the less fortunate isn't funny, it's just mean. Our kids shouldn't be learning that the poor and homeless deserve ridicule on top of the unthinkable hardships they already bear.

Photo Credit: finalcut

Winning this and similar campaigns depends on our ability to quickly call on thousands of supportive folks like you. After signing the petition below, please click here to follow us on Facebook - just click ‘Like’ at the top of the page.

Taylor Leake has advocated for workers' rights for years, from running his college chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops to working for the Wake Up Walmart campaign.

RELATED PETITION

Tell Nickelodeon to Apologize for Making Fun of Homeless People
VICTORY!
1,418 People
PREVIOUS STORY:
US Congress AWOL on "Kill Team" Investigation
NEXT STORY:
A letter from Bettina Siegel, "Pink Slime" petition creator

COMMENTS (1)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.