Sir Ian McKellen is no stranger to the word “resist.” As Gandalf, almost all of his dialogue to Frodo could be distilled to “resist the ring.” But another creature who needs his expertise has a problem more serious than the one ring to rule them all — cookies.
Below, watch McKellen explain the definition of “resist” to Cookie Monster, who playfully avoids understanding until absolutely necessary:
Points for the use of magnets as an example, MagnetoKellen.
It makes me sad that such a great vocabulary lesson is closed by the horrible grammar model of Cookie Monster. This is not sound educational programming, especially for children who may not have good language models at home. Love, Your Neighborhood Speech Language Pathologist
*clouded, not closed. I detest autocorrect.
Misty, I must respectfully disagree. In my opinion, the beauty behind Sesame Street is that all these different characters live together in relative harmony, despite vastly differing levels of education, wealth, and even addiction. Something as simple as Cookie Monster’s poor grammar, coupled with the fact that no one really questions it, quickly shows to children a couple life lessons: A — They don’t need to be perfect or the same as everyone else to have friends, and B — If they encounter someone speaking radically different, they deserve friendship and respect like anyone else.
I agree that it seems odd to give vocabulary lessons in this manner. However, I believe if every character on Sesame Street spoke perfect English and with the same diction, these undertones of equality and respect would immediately disappear.
And for a word like ‘resist’, what better character on Sesame Street than the Cookie Monster to demonstrate to children, particularly those with much lower vocabularies, that just because you desperately want something doesn’t mean you can’t control your urges to take it.
Anyway, that’s my take on The Street. Love, your neighborhood college bookstore manager.
For a minute I thought he was wearing a sweet cookie sweater
its criminal that this has no comments yet 🙁
shame on you all.
They are “Resisting” to put comments xD