ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Canadian children’s television show Mr. Dressup (Canada, 1967–1996), considering the show’s role in Canadian children’s lives, drawing from the dual perspectives of media studies and educational theory. It focuses on the career of female puppeteer Judith Lawrence, which included a long legacy of feminist activism and pacifism, including through the organization Voice of Women, which she co-founded in 1960. The chapter proposes that the ethos Lawrence co-created as part of the Mr. Dressup creative team reflected salient components of the goals of the Canadian welfare state and paralleled developments in Canadian primary school curriculum at the time. The chapter analyses how the show enacted a distinctively Canadian culture of care whose goal was to transcend the vast geography of Canada across a multilingual country. The chapter also provides models of creativity and imagination through the show’s activities while modeling an ethos of care through the interactions between the characters and the audience.
