Dita De Boni: Katy does the Street

It's a testament to the power of the consumer dollar that outraged parents managed to get Sesame Street to pull the duet between Katy Perry and Elmo from the show's upcoming season.

The "offending" clip (you can see it here, along with 10,000+ comments) features Perry in a kind of horrible yellow faux wedding dress with what looks like a lot of cleavage - but which actually is a low cut dress attached to a flesh coloured top that goes up to a respectable point on her chest. Unlike most of her outfits.

Personally I don't really care for Katy Perry. She wears terrible clothes, horrible makeup, and appears to specialise in samey, computer-pop music.

However, I also acknowledge I am 38-years-old and therefore have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to hot trends in pop - hot trends that include revealing as much of your large mams as possible.

Regardless of what you think of her though - and honestly, she was never going to be dressed tastefully given any of her previous performances - this is hardly one of her worst revealing outfits.

Have we become, as parents, more conservative about what our children see and listen to?

Or, as it seems from this vantage point, are we hyper vigilant about our young ones, and then completely give up under an onslaught of Miley Cryus and Grand Theft Auto once our kids become teens?

I wonder if society has become more conservative or not. These days we have Jersey Shore and Britney Spears, for sure. But certain things children may have been exposed to the 70s and 80s are absolutely not kosher now.

I own a copy of The Muppet Show Season One, which is also aimed at young children (as well as adults, much like Sesame Street).

I notice many of the songs performed by the guest stars on this collection would be given short shrift these days - including Florence Henderson singing Nice Girl Like Me (as in, what's a nice girl like me doing a place like this?) She's in a bar, and mimes guzzling half a bottle of whiskey before she's even opened her mouth.

Not only are many of the songs in the collection pretty risque, but there's also the none-too-subtle sexual innuendo between Kermit and Miss Piggy that provides the backdrop to almost every issue.

Nothing like that on today's Sesame Street. The guest stars are hipper but the content is not. What's up with that?

Meanwhile, adults wishing to see Katy Perry frolic with Elmo (innocently, although she's painted up like a bordello madame) can set their pulses racing at the singer's own website.