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After 26 years, we're at the end of the Rainbow
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"But don't take my word for it!"
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There are some things you know for certain: what goes up must come down, Elizabeth Bennet will fall irrevocably in love with Mr. Darcy, and TV will never be as good as when you were a kid.
I am devastated to report that the last has truly entered into the realm of fact with the passing of one of PBS’ greatest accomplishments on Friday, August 28th: Reading Rainbow. After a 26-year run, the butterfly in the sky has finally fluttered to a rest, never to air another show – but not because the show is no longer beloved by millions young and old, nor is it because the station is making way for a new program. No, LeVar Burton will never crack another brightly-colored children’s book on air because no one will pay for it. Plain and simple, there isn’t a company willing to put up the money needed to renew the show’s broadcasting rights. Not PBS, not the Public Broadcasting Corporation – who could easily garner the needed support from viewers like you. Unbelievably, the justification behind the end of PBS’s third longest-running show (behind Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood) is that the new emphasis lies with teaching kids how to read, not getting them excited about doing it.
Sound a little backwards to you, too? The shift in philosophy started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, realizing that the tube was quickly becoming a primary information medium for the younger generations, encouraged educational television to focus more on the basic tools of reading. Backed by research, naturally, using television to teach has become the primary aim of most children’s shows; only the Disney channel, with its older Hannah Montana crowd, is inching back towards the realm of entertainment. And as Reading Rainbow, which was the 1980s answer to “how do we get kids to read,” didn’t fit with that particular typecast, its days were numbered.
Though it’s disconcerting to hear that some believe the flat screen has become a more effective tool than the living, breathing educator, I find greater unrest in the ease with which these corporations thoughtlessly toss aside cherished traditions, only to keep up with the times. I’m willing to bet I would have to search for a member of Generation Next who wouldn’t recognize the comforting theme song. I know for certain that the show itself has been discussed at UCLA in the past year (a conversation I may or may not have taken part in). The news that this old favorite is going off the air because promoting a love of reading is no longer desirable is like a death sentence to those who didn’t grow up with Harry Potter. While I agree that American literacy is a source of embarrassment, its promotion should not come at the cost of its passion.
Burton himself expressed a clear love of reading, describing it as “part of the birthright of the human being….It’s just such an integral part of the human experience – that connection with the written word.” These days, it’s difficult to find a public figure (as an actor, Burton also appeared in Roots and Star Trek: The Next Generation) so strongly endorsing literacy, or a literature-based TV show that has earned the prestige of over two-dozen Emmys. The fact is, they simply don’t exist. And if this pattern continues, their past will be erased as well.
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