Bullying In Children's 'So Funny I Forgot To Laugh'

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Children’s television shows are about entertaining, learning and sending messages to the child viewers. Whether the show is portraying a positive message or a negative message, a message is being received. The messages television shows send help to enhance the children’s knowledge and understanding of things going on in their lives. On the children’s television show, Arthur, the show portrays many messages to children. For example, the episode “So Funny I Forgot to Laugh,” shows how bullying is mean and affects the victim. In this episode, Arthur jokes about Sue Ellen’s sweater. Although Sue Ellen and the rest of her friends think the jokes are funny at first, she doesn’t understand why Arthur continues to joke about her sweater by calling …show more content…

According to Selekman and Vessey’s (2004) article, Bullying: It Isn 't What It Used To Be, they state that bullying includes physical acts such as “causing physical injury, taking money, lunch, or homework, taking or damaging belongings of others, engaging in extortion” or psychosocial/verbal acts such as “humiliating in front of peers; spreading rumors about the person or his/her family, shunning or excluding, slamming books, gesturing, and setting one person against another.” According to the episode of Arthur, Arthur was humiliating Sue Ellen in front of their friends by making fun of her sweater. Therefore, he was being a bully. In Arthur’s case, he didn’t recognize the effects his bullying had on Sue …show more content…

Whether they have been bullied, are the bully, or have witnessed bullying, any source of information can help a child out. Hypothetically speaking, if a child were to watch an episode, such as “So Funny I Forgot to Laugh,” and recognized that he or she was a victim of bulling just like Sue Ellen was, then he or she could address the situation accordingly rather than let the bullying continue. “The best intervention is communication. Parents should be encouraged to talk to their children to discuss the child 's view of bullying, what causes people to bully each other, how it feels to be bullied or to bully others, and the effects bullying behaviors have on students who are victims and the bystanders” (Selekman and Vessey, 2004). Sue Ellen didn 't talk to her parents about the bullying, but she did mention it to her teacher. Although she didn 't go to her parents, telling her teacher was the right thing to do to help get the bulling to halt. The teacher was then able to address the concerns with Arthur and bring it to his attention that he was bullying Sue Ellen and that bullying would not be tolerated at school. The message this sends is that children who are bullied can go to other adults, besides his or her parents, to get help if

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