too Black, but it was actually the
Black parents. It was the parents of the Black children who didn’t want that to be symbolizing their culture,” director Marilyn Agrelo said in TheWrap’s Sundance Studio presented by NFP and National Geographic. “We love that people think this is a story about ‘Sesame Street’ and we’re going to see the Muppets and it is but it’s a hundred other things you don’t see coming, and that’s what we love the most.”
Robinson and the other creators felt Roosevelt was a proudly Black character, but it too quietly disappeared from the airwaves after families objected. It ultimately led to Robinson’s departure from the show and was a blow to the creators who had from the beginning intended for “Sesame Street” to be a show for inner-city children. Even the stoop and street corner of the “Sesame Street” set was modeled off the look of New York City blocks that kids would see from just outside their windows.
Getting Ready for a Virtual Sundance in an Awards Season That Feels Very Different
Claudia Eller, provided by
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Last year at this time, there was some speculation in the entertainment press that a number of unsuspecting attendees at the Sundance Film Festival who had fallen ill with severe flu-like symptoms may in fact have been exposed to COVID-19 without knowing it. The annual Park City festival began its 11-day run from Jan. 23-Feb. 2 just days after the first known case of the highly contagious coronavirus was confirmed in Washington state.
The Hollywood Reporter, now our sister publication, posted a story on May 6 with the headline “Was Sundance a ‘First Petri Dish’ of Coronavirus in the States?” The writer of the piece, Tatiana Siegel, had interviewed more than a dozen festivalgoers who spoke of symptoms, including violent coughing and breathing problems, that were more acute than those associated with a bad flu.