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The show, broadcast on network television in 1974 for children, assumed heterosexual mom-and-dad families; It does not distinguish between biological sex and socially constructed gender. Her gender-neutral optimism might seem naïve now, after half a century of backlash and “Can women have it all?” characteristics.
However, if you’re going to ask how well “Free to Be” has aged, it’s fair to ask how well we’ve aged too. Sure, “Barbie” raised more than a billion dollars by saying, as “Free to Be” did, that women and men are held back by the stereotypes sold in the toy aisle. Children’s entertainment like “Bluey” is a model of egalitarian parenting.
But gender essentialism is still alive and well. It starts before birth: Expectant parents shoot off pink and blue confetti cannons and burn down forests with gender reveal parties. Cultural warriors and state legislatures are consumed with angst over how much authority children (and even adults) should have to affirm their gender identities; Some young people are bullied and physically attacked for rejecting traditional categories. “Men’s rights” influencers sell the idea that women’s gains are men’s losses. Politicians use sexist exhibitions to assert dominance and not-so-subtly telegraph nostalgia for the old days.
And having reached middle age, more than a few of my fellow Gen Xers have decided, as members of generations before us did, that the level of progress we achieved when we were young was perfect and sufficient, and that the world should stop there. . You might remember “Free to Be,” with its simple gender binary—every boy “grows up to be his own man” and “every girl grows up to become her own woman,” the theme song says—as evidence that the current spectrum of Identities have gone too far.
“Free to Be” was a product of its time. But it would seem perverse to claim that this wild, rebellious work on self-determination was intended to impose rigid gender boundaries. His best claim to timelessness is his simple statement: Only you can decide who you are.
In the show’s final sequence, the cartoon children gallop back to the park, become flesh-and-blood children again, and continue their carousel ride. As they grow, they will rotate forward for a while, and backward, and so on. That’s what revolutions sometimes do; they spin.
But I hope that all of us who take the “Free to be… you and I” journey still carry some of that within us. That’s the advantage art has over carousels: even when it takes you back to where you started, it doesn’t leave you in exactly the same place. Because now you know what it feels like to walk away.