USC Media Student Bryn Kressin & Packaging Boyhood Book Winners
From Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth
Jan.1, 2010 Happy New Year!
This joyous photo of youthful exuberance is Bryn Kressin, at left; one of our Shaping Youth winners of yesterday’s Packaging Boyhood book drawing where we pulled names from those who commented or tweeted about our weekly posts about boys, manhood and media messages impacting the males we love.
The other two winners were author/educator Dr. Liz J Myer (who writes about ending gender harassment/bullying in schools) and Suzette Valle (who writes about young Hollywood’s influence on kids and teens at Mamarazzi Knows Best) …
Meanwhile, thanks again, Bryn, for this slideshow of your life lessons abroad…and congratulations to all three winners of the Packaging Boyhood book; which is clearly one of my most important media literacy picks for 2009 along with Diane Levin & Jean Kilbourne’s So Sexy So Soon, Rachel Simmons’ Curse of the Good Girl and Liz Funk’s poignant SuperGirls Speak Out on the gender studies/media front. (more…)
New Years Media Messages: Packaging Boyhood Meets The Hangover
From Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth
Dec. 29, 2009 Last night I watched ‘The Hangover’ rated R, which I’d heard described by several YOUNG teens (meaning unable to buy a ticket unless sneaking in via diff. multiplex theater) as ‘hilarious,’ and ‘over the top’ and wanted to see where the kid appeal was coming from and try to ‘relate’ to why this movie was a ‘favorite’ on many a Facebook page.
I’m not here to summon Dana Carvey’s SNL ‘Church Lady’ character from yesteryear or count the number of 100+ “f-bombs” or ‘That’s so gay/REtard vs. reTARD and paging Dr. Faggot‘ slurs are in the film…
However, today’s our last Tuesday of featuring Packaging Boyhood for our Packaging Boyhood book drawing 12-31 (just leave a comment to enter to win) and The Hangover is absolutely ripe for media analysis on how they’ve chosen to ‘package’ manhood (as boyhood).
The Packaging Boyhood authors might view the movie’s plotline as a mashup of their Chapter 5 (”Wanna Play? What Boys Do”) and Chapter 6 (”Rebel, Resist & Refuse“) as it’s got all of the elements and then some…
Toss in the segue to New Years celebrations and ‘par-TAY’ cues, plus the film’s dvd release and it’s exceedingly timely. Yes, yes, it’s a given that the movie is NOT remotely for kids, yet it’s also self-evident that they’re its biggest fans, given the ‘tender ages’ of KIDS reviewing the film on Common Sense Media’s user-generated forum alone. Similarly, any bachelor party-Vegas theme is bound to have ‘X-treme’ excuses for stupid/silliness and debauchery, after all, it’s a Todd Phillips film, (Road Trip, Old School, etc.) not a high brow Academy Award nominee. (more…)
New Man in the Hood: Robin Hood, that is
A boy running through the woods, a naked teen girl sits up in bed, alert, and pulls the sheet to her chest (much like the Vanity Fair Miley Cyrus photo shoot), scores of helmeted men ride through the woods, then emerge from the sea, and finally the thumping music changes and we hear a fierce and horrible cry that comes from the mouth of Russel Crowe. Nope, not Gladiator 2. Watch on. Then comes the montage of arrow shooting, head slicing, body stabbing violence. He’s the “Hero Behind the Outlaw” the screen says. And in case you didn’t see an dhear that fearsome scream 10 seconds ago, they’ll bring it to you again as Crow rides his horse furiously forward, sword poised to kill. “Rise and rise again…til llamas become lions.” Llamas? Did I hear correctly? Okay, can you guess what movie this was a trailer for? That beloved story of old, that folk hero – Robin Hood. He took from the rich and gave to the poor, right? And he had a gang of merry men? They don’t look so merry anymore.
This 60 second trailer has in it just about every problematic theme we talk about in PB. There is one man, chosen. (He’s not much of a team player). He’s almost God-like (rise and rise again.) He must do violence to be good. (What an awful message.) Every hero must be a superhero, over the top. (Of course he is the strongest, angriest.) And his violence is okay because it’s justified (the bad guys, presumably the “rich”, are hurting the people, although the trailer doesn’t show “the people” or the “poor” – kind of boring we guess. It’s hard to be action-packed when you’re hungry.) And there’s a woman who waits for him (Cate Blanchett is Maid Marian, why, oh why!?)
It’s just a trailer, but we’re guessing that any possible message about poverty and greed and fairness and well, socialism, is pushed aside for tons of footage of head rolling, blood dripping violence. The only moral that seems to exist in action films today seems to be about justifying violence. And the only kind of hero film that can be made today (save for the slacker dude anti-hero hero) is the violent hero.
Turning Boys into Monsters: Energy Drink Leaves a Foul Taste (Again)
From Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth
Dec. 8, 2009 It’s Tuesday, time for our weekly “Packaging Boyhood” focus, so what better time than the holiday season to sound the ‘red’ siren on the ‘green’ brand that tween and teen boys are sucking up to…Monster energy drink.
With everything from motocross and macho madness to the thumping, screaming, ‘over the top’ rebel yell, Monster ‘packs a vicious punch’ by creating lil’ monsters out of the male middle-school set without a clue (or a care) as to the impact of the jolt and crash ‘kick ass flavor’ to their adolescent bods.
Wow. I feel like I got a testosterone infusion just reading the freakin’ label, “when it’s time to unleash the beast within, grab a Monster and GO BIG!’
Packaging Boyhood authors wrote a whole chapter on ‘What Boys Do’ and rightfully nail this verbiage as positioning violence and risk taking and ‘pushing the limits’ as a culture conduit to ‘manhood.’
Gotta say, it’s been fun counter-marketing the sheer absurdity of the entire energy drink category based on the hyped up, gender specific packaging alone. (not just ‘Monster, Monster Hitman, & Monster Sniper’ but Full Throttle, Red Bull, and other spiky, thuggish, ‘tough guise’ contrasts to the myriad pink think thinspiration cues of energy drinks like RockStar for the girls) It’s so predictably stereotyped that it’s almost amusing, and easy to see into the ‘crystal ball’ of the future and be able to tell kids what to watch for in advance. (more….)
Books ‘Bout Boys: Packaging Boyhood
From Jennifer Fink, Blogging ‘Bout Boys
Like it or not, the media has a massive effect on today’s boys. That’s why I was so excited to see Packaging Boyhood: Saving Our Sons from Superheroes, Slackers and Other Media Stereotypes, a new book by Lyn Mikel Brown, Sharon Lamb and Mark Tappan. Today, they share with us an excerpt about boys and drinking — and as a resident of Wisconsin, a state that consistently leads the nation in binge drinking, I agree that it’s high time we started paying attention to the unconscious messages we send our sons.
According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, males age 12 or older report higher rates than females for all measures of alcohol use and abuse, including binge drinking and alcohol dependence.
No wonder. The party-hardy atmosphere is everywhere they are – from about age 5 and up. We’re not talking about the ubiquitous beer commercials during Monday Night Football, the crazy liquored-up antics on VH-1 or MTV reality shows, or even the champagne drinking players in rap videos. We’re talking cartoons, G-rated films, and tween TV. Whether it’s the Poison Apple Pub in Shrek or the cool bar on the beach where the Madagascar friends hang out, socializing in animated films often means drinking.
And just like it is in real life, over-indulging leads to trouble-making and stupid behavior. Elliot the deer and Boog the bear, two buddies in the animated film Open Season, trash a country store after getting “drunk” on candy bars. Buzz Lightyear drinks too much “tea” in Toy Story, and his friend Woody tries to sober him up. In his movie, SpongeBob SquarePants has a terrible hangover from his ice-cream bender of the night before.
But why let the elementary school set have all the fun? Nothing says cool to a “tweenager” more than a good out of control party. TV shows targeting tweens help kids imagine being a mythic teenager; you know, the guy who has the hot babes and the fun parties, who hangs in clubs, dorms, and other places where there are no pesky, dopey, intrusive, nagging parents; the guy who has no homework or after school job and who doesn’t actually work hard at anything.
That’s why the boys in The Naked Brothers Band, a Nick show about a group of precocious preteens living the rock star dream, do their best to imitate the kinds of problems parents are trying to control. In their first movie, a mockumentary of their rock star rise to fame, then six-year-old bad boy drummer Alex develops a lemon-lime soda addiction. When their original band breaks up, he binges in a bar scene, chugging like a frat boy, and ends up in a luxury rehabilitation Soda-holics at Sea program.
Then there’s bad boy Zack on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, a show about twin tweens living it up in a luxury hotel (the new version of the show has them living it up on a luxury cruise ship—more babes in bikinis!), who sets up his own underage dance club in the hotel lounge. The boy “bartender” pushes sugary soda to shy, nice girl, Barbara, and after chugging root beer – “Hit me again!” – she takes her hair down, whips off her glasses and starts dancing suggestively while the crowd shouts, “Go Barbara! Go Barbara!” It’s a nerdy boy’s dream when she staggers to Cody and kisses him hard on the mouth.
Most of these preteen shows feature 8-14 year olds running their own lives in a world created for them by adult writers who know how to create a pseudo-sanitized version of Entourage. All the themes, expectations, and desires are there—but it’s okay because the drinks they’re chugging aren’t really alcoholic and the come-ons and references to hot girls don’t really lead to the party-house bedroom. But there’s no missing the staggering around and slurred speech or the wild, loose behavior as anything but an imitation of the real thing.
So what’s a parent to do? Watch these shows and movies with your son. Help him understand what’s really being sold with those funny antics and silly situations, and discuss the behavior you see.
Here are a few “typical boy” behaviors to look out for in his media:
Koolaid or soda chugging in ways that suggest chugging a beer;
Doing “jello shots”, even when it’s just jello.
Getting crazy, acting goofy or doing stupid things after drinking sugary sodas or some other beverage.
Sharing woes or drowning troubles in a bar or saloon;
Living a party social life in clubs, dorms, or on the beach, chilling with sodas or drinks in beer mugs, champagne flutes, or cocktail glasses.
It will be nearly impossible to protect him from a “drinking is a rite of passage for boys” media message, so start these conversations early. Put his natural powers of observation to work, teach him to question advertising, and help him know when to say no to this version of “boys will be boys” behavior!
Lyn Mikel Brown, Ed.D., Sharon Lamb Ed.D., and Mark Tappan, Ed.D. are authors of Packaging Boyhood: Saving Our Sons From Superheroes, Slackers, and Other Media Stereotypes.
Who’s Your Fave Fictional Male Role Model and Why?
From Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth
Nov. 17, 2009 Missed my mark on the Tuesday Packaging Boyhood post last week where I wanted to springboard from the fabulous “author’s spotlight” on Ypulse where they asked readers to share a fictional male role model they admire and why.
Ypulse offered a copy of the Packaging Boyhood book for the ‘first 3 comments’ and I chimed in that I’d like to carry it forward and continue the contest here on Shaping Youth with our end of year drawing next month since we’re giving away three copies from the names that are leaving comments each Tuesday. (yep, you keep commenting, you keep getting entered, do the math, play the odds, eh?)
Wanna play? I’m eager to hear from boys to men, as well as the females in their lives who may have a different pick altogether as we grapple with heroes, archetypes anti-hero role models and the ever-shifting concepts of masculinity, boyhood studies and what it means to be a man today. (more…)
Disney XD: A Case Study on Packaging Boyhood
From Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth
Nov. 3, 2009 In diving into media messages targeting boys for my weekly Tuesday Packaging Boyhood posts, my mind snap went to ‘gaming’ pronto.
Is this a stereotype? Or did I just do a Malcolm Gladwell style “Blink” in rapid cognition? I flipped to the Packaging Boyhood chapter on “What Boys Do” since we know marketers are tapping a boy’s desire to be ‘powerful’ and admired by others for their image as same, which plays right into gaming. Sure enough, along with tackling topics like sports, speed, winning, guys-n-guns, beer-n-babes, heroes, “tough guise” and porn, they shared:
“Boys told us they love games where they can perform like rock stars, jump or kick like sports stars, fight like warriors, or kill enemies with some of the most impressive weapons of modern combat. By playing video games, a boy can become a hero; he can turn the tide of battle or make the right decision to change the world,” wrote authors Lyn Mikel Brown, Mark Tappan and Sharon Lamb.
Yep. Sounds pretty dang motivating. Who wouldn’t want to have control of their own destiny? Sure beats dressing up to please and serve with all the pink think video game gender cues…(more…)
“Halloween Beyond the Cliche: Packaging Boyhood Part Two”
From Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth
Oct. 27, 2009 It’s the Tuesday before Halloween, perfect timing to wrap up part two of our Packaging Boyhood post about gender clichés, costumes, and ‘Saving our Sons from Superheroes, Slackers & Stereotypes’ as the book’s title says.
Moreover, we have tips & tactics for those eager to hear how to best play dodgeball with ambient influences.
We’ve all heard those exhausted “NOW what?” frustrations from media literate parents confronted with pester power and exposure to “what’s perceived as cool” even if the wee one has never “seen the movie, show, or media attached to it.” (THAT is ambient marketing, my friends)
Media and marketing are so ubiquitous with saturation on so many emotional levels of ‘peer acceptance’ that if you try TOO hard to veer elsewhere you may land smack dab into ‘forbidden fruit’ territory…one step forward, three steps back. So the first given that the Packaging Boyhood authors impart is to try not to ‘over-react’ and make such a ‘huge’ deal out of it all in wide-eyeballed, ‘omg, what are you even thinking!’ mode.
Truth be told, I used to predict a direct correlation with the playground posse…the more sanctimonious the parenting style, “My child will NEVER be seen with a ____ gun, weapon, Barbie doll, makeup, Lunchable, piercing, tattoo, etc. (insert item du jour) the more likely that very same child would be the one coveting said item the most. (more…)
“Packaging Boyhood: What About BOYS Halloween Costumes?”
From Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth
October 19, 2009 Last week I promised an ongoing once a week focus on Packaging Boyhood through the remainder of the year regarding boys and how our sons are handling the media-marketing zeitgeist…
I realize I DO focus a considerable amount on girls, body image and so sexy so soon developmental angst, not just because I have a daughter, but because the sexualization is so prevalent, overt, and ‘in your face’ with damaging statistics showing up early on. So yes, I’ve already covered girls’ Halloween Horrors of ‘wicked innocence’ and vamp-n-tramp costumes ad infinitum (who hasn’t, eh?)…but boys? Not so much.
Instead of prostitots and sexed up storybook faire, we have pimp, gangstah, buffed boy body imagery in blow-up-your-muscles he-man style, with bling and bucks to ‘pretend to pay’ for your hookers and make change for your johns. (If you need full evidence of sexist/racist cues, there’s an entire site devoted to PimpCostumes.com–not gonna link, sorry)
Are we having fun yet? Not when parenting articles link the media corollaries for childrens’ distress, like this new one from Michele Borba citing eating disorders, stress and body dissatisfaction hammering boys now too. So today Packaging Boyhood authors and Shaping Youth Advisory Board members Dr. Sharon Lamb & Dr. Lyn Mikel Brown (who were part of the APA girls sexualization study, so have firsthand experience here!) offer part one of a two-part post on boys and Halloween. (more…)
Yep, Halloween is Too Sexy Too Soon! But What About Too Tough Too Early?
Parents are rightly concerned about “too sexy too soon” Halloween costumes for little girls, but does anyone ask, “What about the boys?” The search for boys’ costumes can be treacherous, too, and just as filled with over-hyped and stereotyped “choices.” These ten tips for choosing Halloween costumes for your son, from Drs. Lyn Mikel Brown, Sharon Lamb, and Mark Tappan (authors of Packaging Boyhood) and The Dad Man, Joe Kelly, can help parents fight back:
1. Help him think outside the scary ninja, fighter, superhero box that equates being a boy with full-throttle, over-the-top aggression. Imagination and creativity help boys break out of gender stereotypes, increase their resiliency, and provide great practice for reality.
2. Encourage him to be anyone or anything for Halloween–and the rest of his life. Help him to be inspired by real men doing fun, clever, cool things that go beyond showboating, super powers, wielding big weapons, or seeking revenge.
3. Listen to his ideas and encourage all the possibilities. Don’t assume he buys into the message that he must be some version of Super Scary Special Forces Ninja Bounty Hunter Fighter World Saving Man. Let his costume choice surprise you!
4. Discuss and work on Halloween costumes together. It’s a great learning and bonding experience. Hey, boys enjoy a little sewing, too. Help him recall the best costumes he ever saw, and share some favorites from your childhood.
5. Add his own twist to action and adventure, and have his character do something other than control, dominate, look tough, and fight. Help him imagine an action hero who plays the ukelele, scales mountains, sings, or goes on eco-adventures.
6. Sit down and let your son create his own character and story. He can raid the family closets or dress up box to become the wildest, funniest, or coolest character ever! And he can keep using homemade costumes to play the part of great characters all winter long.
7. Tap his love for scary stories and the history of Halloween; help him go “traditional” and be Frankenstein, a ghost, or a skeleton. Avoid those pumped up costumes with the fake muscles sewn in. Use your own imagination and create a fun backstory to go with the scary, ugly, and awful look.
8. Draw on his favorite book or character. Reread the book with him to plan what he’ll need to Clancy of Clancy The Courageous Cow, Ron or Hagrid from the Harry Potter adventures, or Bilbo Baggins.
9. Is your son an athlete, a history buff, into science or music? Halloween is a chance to act out the activities he loves. The list is endless. He could be Jackie Robinson, Joshua Chamberlain, Albert Einstein, Albert Pujols, or Bono. And don’t rule out famous women – remember it’s about what he loves to DO. His Jane Goodall can carry a stuffed gorilla; his Van Gogh can wear a bandage on his ear. Once you start brainstorming, ideas will flood in.
10. Halloween is all about being what you aren’t for a night. Help him try on new roles and be whatever wild and crazy identity captivates him in the moment. Teach him that it’s false advertising when stores label police officer, marine, and firefighter costumes as “for boys” or cats, colorful butterflies, singers, and dancers “for girls.” Halloween is a day of imagination-a perfect opportunity to show him that he can be anyone and anything! Take this opportunity to widen his world when all those marketers out there are pressing him to narrow it.
Finally, for a humorous perspective on how crazy this all can be, check out this clip from The Onion.
President says “Being Successful is Hard.” Yep. So Man-Up Media!
We have to ask, did President Obama get page proofs to Packaging Boyhood? “I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work – that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. Chances are you’re not going to be any of those things. The truth is, being successful is hard.”
This is exactly our point. Boys are constantly promised via movies and TV that the can slack off, play people, and still get ahead. They’re given the message that hard work and studying is for girls. Thanks to our President for giving the nation’s schoolchildren a one minute media critique. Now can marketers and media producers get the message and create boy characters that are modeled after, hmmmm, our President?
War Dolls
The ban has been lifted on reporting deaths from Afghanistan and Iraq. Today the AP published a tribute to a Marine who died recently in Afghanistan, including details of how he received his mortal injuries and a picture of his last moments on the battlefield. What do we feel and what will we allow ourselves to feel about such a story and such images in front of our sons? Sadness? Anger? Despair? How do we honor our troops?
Marketers make the most out of little boys’ (and girls’) desire to find and look up to heroes. And since the real stories about those who fight wars in foreign countries have not been allowed in the news, they have appeared in movies that big guys (especially vets) love, movies like the chilling “Hurt Locker” that shows the suffering, the underside and dangers of macho posturing, and the craziness of the risk-taking that is sometimes necessary and sometimes not when real men find that war is a drug. We can’t show these movies to little boys or have deep discussions with them about the way war consumes and transforms men because they can’t fully understand and we need to protect them from the violence. But we can talk to them about the hurt, can’t we?
Notice how these recent war hero dolls from the GI Joe Cobra line are portrayed for their littlest customers. They are uber-protected with masks, shields, padded suits, heavy boots. We can laugh at how over the top they look, but the message they send — that these guys are vulnerable and in need of massive protection — is no laughing matter. It’s scary out there.
But if we describe war as scary and men as vulnerable will that only make the heroes more heroic, will that only make our little boys want to grow up to wear massive equipment and run straight into explosions? Maybe the narrative we have to create is closer to one they learned in nursery school—that while it’s never good to use force, bite or hit, it might sometimes be necessary if they need to protect someone else or themselves from danger. The problem with these dolls, though, is that they don’t come with stories that help children understand the down side of violence, the risks and loss. The protective armor suggests anything goes and the vulnerable guy underneath will walk away unscathed, a winner no matter what or why the battle. So maybe what parents need to do if and when our son wants to play with these war dolls is to create a story for him about his family and kids back home and how much he misses them, to give him 2 or 3 other dolls at the same time and make them his friends… to get some gear and boots for Barbie (ha!) and let him know that the troops include men and women, dads and moms. To make real the people in the doll, even if your son needs to act out fantasy scenes of war and explosions and harm in order to understand them. That way your son can, in his own way, begin to understand some of the terrible realities of war—and the tragic sacrifices that many of our troops have made—all so well hidden behind the masks and armor worn by GI Joe Cobra and his comrades.
The Rise of G.I. Joe
GI Joe’s presence in the action figures aisle has been hardly noticeable amidst the scores of superheroes and wrestlers, but believe us, he’s every bit as muscled up and now comes with huge weaponry. Over a year ago we wrote that Joe’s only hope for survival was to star in his own TV show, video games, and movies, since today’s action figures are now simply marketing tie-ins rather than stand-alone toys that encourage boys to develop their own story lines for playtime. So that’s what Joe’s marketers have done — TV, video games, and now The Rise of Cobra. But it’s a PG-13 movie with “strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout.” In other words, it isn’t something five and six year old boys who love the dolls should go to. But just as we predicted, the marketing for the movie will reach far and wide so that grown men will want to see the action and the tiniest tykes will be begging to watch their doll (oops, excuse us, their “action figures”) come to life. That’s because the same action-packed ads that grab adults will be shown incessantly in places that the smallest kids go. And just today we see that our friends at Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood are on top of this. Good for them. They write that since March over 3000 ads for violent PG-13 movies have been aired during children’s programming. We’re sure some fast food place will be giving out miniature Joe dolls too, and no doubt just to the boys. Do sign the CCFC petition to stop advertising PG-13 movies to little kids. And if your little boy looks up to soldiers and wants a G.I. Joe doll, talk to him about the bravery and also the fear real soldiers sometimes feel, the every day (nonsteroidal looking) guys in uniform who have families and friends who love and miss them, and the peace-keeping force work that a lot of soldiers do for the good of all. Tell him because the media won’t — not enough bombing, maiming, or shooting action in that, is there?
A Real Apology from Chris Brown
R&B artist Chris Brown has apologized. A real apology this time. Not like his earlier protest that “the media is wrong” about their reporting of the beating he gave to his then girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna, or his father’s explanation that the behavior that landed Rhianna in the hospital was just a “stumble”. This time it’s a public video apology. Do we buy it? We know too much about marketing to swallow it hook, line, and sinker, but we welcome it. It matters. Boys are watching, listening, thinking. In Packaging Boyhood we write about Brown and a slew of other young male artists, sports stars, and actors — “role models”, like it or not — who get caught in bad behavior and respond with all version of excuses. In a rare rant, we write:
We guess they didn’t get the memo: You are our kids’ role models, whether we like it or not, so “man up” to it. Don’t say you didn’t ask for it. Of course you asked for it. You went out looking for fans. You honed an image that would procure more fans. You do “shout outs” to your fans. And your fans are loyal to you. You can’t be just part superstar or a superstar when you feel like it. With great power comes great responsibility. We don’t only want our sons to be able to muster a decent apology, one that comes without excuse-making, playing dumb, “bad weeks”, forgetting about former lies, a “that was then” but I’m different now, shoddy medical arguments, and the all-purpose, “I’m just a kid”. We want our kids to make better judgments than you in the first place. How about if each one of you were to say exactly what you should have done differently and showed a little empathy for those you disrespected. How about making reparations? How about putting in a little service to clean up the mess you’ve made.
We want real apologies, and Chris Brown has given a pretty nice one.
“I want to live my life so that I am truly worthy of the term ‘role model.’” Good for him.
The Sissy Duckling
Just heard about a great book for kids–boys and girls. The Sissy Duckling (Simon & Schuster, 2002, ISBN 0-689-83566) is a children’s book written by noted actor Harvey Fierstein and illustrated by Henry Cole. It is 40 pages long and intended for children ages 4-8. It follows the story of Elmer, a duck who is mocked for being a “sissy” but who ultimately proves his bravery. It was made into an HBO children’s special, with Fierstein as the voice of Elmer the Duck.