{"id":505,"date":"2006-08-22T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-22T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html"},"modified":"2006-08-22T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-22T12:00:00","slug":"a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html","title":{"rendered":"A Pagan Presence on Sesame Street?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/AbbyCadabby.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 8px\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\" \/>Last week marked the introduction of a new character on &#8220;Sesame Street&#8221;: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.muppetcentral.com\/news\/2006\/080606.shtml\" target=\"_new\">Abby Cadabby<\/a>, a fairy-in-training. Abby, who hails from Fairyside Gardens, Queens, is young, eager to learn, and has been described as a feminist who also likes being a &#8220;real girly-girl.&#8221; Looking different than your typical Muppet, Abby was conceived as a strong female character who is &#8220;someone from a different culture, without having consciously to introduce somebody from Indonesia or India.&#8221; According to the Muppet Wiki, &#8220;Her design was originally very earthy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Earthy? Could that be a code word for Pagan? Certain Earth-based sects hold a belief in fairies, or the Fae, as they are known. And, like Abby, they work magic, although Abby&#8217;s repertoire is currently limited. Plus Abby embodies the strong feminist message often espoused by pagan groups.<\/p>\n<p>While it&#8217;s fun to speculate about Abby&#8217;s religious affiliation, she seems to be more pink moppet than pagan Muppet. Besides, it&#8217;s more likely that she&#8217;ll raise eyeballs amongst the conservative Tinki-Winkie&#8217;s-holding-a-purse set for being a feminist, pink Muppet from Fairyside Gardens, Queens. Is today&#8217;s episode is being brought to you by the letter &#8220;L&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>One thing is certain, however, &#8220;Sesame Street&#8221; producers are praying that she can work some powerful magic&#8211;powerful enough to bring in Elmo-sized dollars.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;padding-bottom:0.25em\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week marked the introduction of a new character on &#8220;Sesame Street&#8221;: Abby Cadabby, a fairy-in-training. Abby, who hails from Fairyside Gardens, Queens, is young, eager to learn, and has been described as a feminist who also likes being a &#8220;real girly-girl.&#8221; Looking different than your typical Muppet, Abby was conceived as a strong female&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Pagan Presence on Sesame Street?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Pagan Presence on Sesame Street?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week marked the introduction of a new character on &#8220;Sesame Street&#8221;: Abby Cadabby, a fairy-in-training. Abby, who hails from Fairyside Gardens, Queens, is young, eager to learn, and has been described as a feminist who also likes being a &#8220;real girly-girl.&#8221; Looking different than your typical Muppet, Abby was conceived as a strong female&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-08-22T12:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/AbbyCadabby.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ellen leventry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Pagan Presence on Sesame Street?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Pagan Presence on Sesame Street?","og_description":"Last week marked the introduction of a new character on &#8220;Sesame Street&#8221;: Abby Cadabby, a fairy-in-training. Abby, who hails from Fairyside Gardens, Queens, is young, eager to learn, and has been described as a feminist who also likes being a &#8220;real girly-girl.&#8221; Looking different than your typical Muppet, Abby was conceived as a strong female&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2006-08-22T12:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/AbbyCadabby.jpg"}],"author":"ellen leventry","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html","name":"A Pagan Presence on Sesame Street?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/AbbyCadabby.jpg","datePublished":"2006-08-22T12:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-08-22T12:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/4679b2a5898dc96dae2c922e84d4bb2f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/AbbyCadabby.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/AbbyCadabby.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/08\/a-pagan-presence-on-sesame-str.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Pagan Presence on Sesame Street?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/4679b2a5898dc96dae2c922e84d4bb2f","name":"ellen leventry","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"ellen leventry"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/ellen-leventry"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}