Parks & Recreation & Educational Entertainment

One way media can positively influence sexual health and development is through a method Ward et al (2006) name “Entertainment-Education,” which is just as it sounds – entertainment media that also includes overt educational messages (p. 60). Ward et al (2006) discuss these entertainment-education shows in the context of developing or undeveloped countries, and ask whether these mass-media educational tactics could work in the United States (p. 60-61). Although effectiveness obviously varies based on the show’s audience, I’d like to present an episode of Parks and Recreation as a mainstream American example of Entertainment-Education.

For those that haven’t seen Parks & Rec before, here’s some context: Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler, is a councilwoman in the town of Pawnee, Indiana. She and her public servant coworkers are in this scene discussing a problem that has emerged among the citizens in their town.

This clip, and the whole episode, really, deals with the issue of the quality of sex education on several levels. There’s the obvious, explicitly problem of bad sex education leading to sexually transmitted diseases – Leslie says quite clearly, “A lot of them [senior citizens] haven’t had proper sex education, and as a result, STDs are having a field day.”

This example of entertainment-education is not just geared toward women or young girls, as much of the research on the topic focuses on. The decision to incorporate senior citizens as the students of sex education, besides making the situation funnier and more entertaining, makes it easier to offer sex education to both men and women – they’re not presenting a sex education lesson at a middle school to gender-segregated groups of eighth graders. It’s not a campaign to “keep the girls pure,” and it puts responsibility on all parties involved to make sure they’re having safe sex. Furthermore, because they’re talking to senior citizens, the show doesn’t make viewers feel bad about what they may or may not know about sexual health – there’s clearly no age limit on experience or knowledge here.

The scene above also offers information pretty freely and obviously as the characters ask the nurse Ann, played by Rashida Jones, questions about sexual health. This scene is both entertaining and educational, and it offers a safe way for viewers to gain understanding about basic sexual health.

Lastly, the episode makes a political statement about the dangers of bad sex education, basically showing the “save our children” idea as ridiculous. In the following scene, Leslie encounters Marcia and Marshall Langman, who potentially too satirized recurring characters known for their crusade for “wholesome family values” in Pawnee.

The couple makes it difficult for Leslie to teach proper sex education to Pawnee’s elderly population, forcing her to become more creative about the way she teaches it in the rest of the episode. With this addition to the narrative, Parks & Rec tackles the still-present issue of abstinence-only sex education and provides a solution to the problem it confronts for the entire episode: better education is an answer to poorly prepared citizens, which can lead to serious health problems.

In this episode, Parks & Recreation provides an abundance of safe sexual health information while simultaneously calling for a reform to help solve the problem. In this way, it serves as entertainment-education on multiple levels: by showing the consequences of not having safe sex, answering questions about sexual health, and showing the dangers of poor sex education among a population, providing the example of better education as an attainable solution in the real world.

References

Ward, L. M., Day, K. M., & Epstein, M. (2006). Uncommonly good: Exploring how mass media may be a positive influence on young women's sexual health and development. New Directions for Child & Adolescent Development, 2006(112), 57-70. doi: 10.1002/cd.162