But I Like You
September 18, 2018 7:12 AM Subscribe
Oh, and Judy Freudberg (noted writer of An American Tail and The Land Before Time)
Ok, first kneejerk reaction, so much talent came from Sesame Street roots. I knew a fair bit already but it continues to impress.
Also, re: Kevin Clash
There’s a cruel irony in that. For the record, three courts cleared him of any wrongdoing after those charges emerged.
That's news to me because I honestly just went radio silent on that whole scandal thing with Kevin not only because, well, scandal, but because of how Elmo had shifted things on the Muppet side kinda drastically in recent years. I felt like Elmo was becoming Sesame Street instead of a part of it, for better or for worse. Not to mention that I hated to think that the guy who was the devoted puppeteer from Being Elmo was also this bad guy or, alternatively, that his career was being shot to hell due to accusations alone. It was just too much for me to parse so I opted out of following it altogether.
This was a great read, thanks for posting it.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:26 AM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ok, first kneejerk reaction, so much talent came from Sesame Street roots. I knew a fair bit already but it continues to impress.
Also, re: Kevin Clash
There’s a cruel irony in that. For the record, three courts cleared him of any wrongdoing after those charges emerged.
That's news to me because I honestly just went radio silent on that whole scandal thing with Kevin not only because, well, scandal, but because of how Elmo had shifted things on the Muppet side kinda drastically in recent years. I felt like Elmo was becoming Sesame Street instead of a part of it, for better or for worse. Not to mention that I hated to think that the guy who was the devoted puppeteer from Being Elmo was also this bad guy or, alternatively, that his career was being shot to hell due to accusations alone. It was just too much for me to parse so I opted out of following it altogether.
This was a great read, thanks for posting it.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:26 AM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
This reminds me of what Rebecca Sugar said about how kids needed completely innocent, G-rated gay characters in their media, never considered as deviant or adults-only, just silly and sweet.
I hope this article doesn't come up again the next time public broadcasting has a Congressional knife at its throat.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:32 AM on September 18, 2018 [32 favorites]
I hope this article doesn't come up again the next time public broadcasting has a Congressional knife at its throat.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:32 AM on September 18, 2018 [32 favorites]
This is such a nice, interesting, human interview.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:32 AM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:32 AM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
Since he didn't originate Bert and Ernie, it's sort of interesting (maybe) to think about Bert and Ernie being gay only when he wrote them. The rest of the time ... who knows?
It's also surprising that I don't think I've ever seen a family with same-sex parents depicted on Sesame Street. There are tons of video packages that show all types of families, pretty deliberately including different skin tones and non-American cultures, but I can't recall having seen same-sex parents.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:47 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's also surprising that I don't think I've ever seen a family with same-sex parents depicted on Sesame Street. There are tons of video packages that show all types of families, pretty deliberately including different skin tones and non-American cultures, but I can't recall having seen same-sex parents.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:47 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
There’s a cruel irony in that. For the record, three courts cleared him of any wrongdoing after those charges emerged.The article linked there doesn't support the sentence. It was one judge, not three courts, and "The judge ruled that three accusers had waited too long to file their lawsuits." and did not clear him (very rarely do courts declare someone innocent anyway)
That's news to me because I honestly just went radio silent on that whole scandal thing
posted by BungaDunga at 7:55 AM on September 18, 2018 [15 favorites]
Kevin Clash's accusers had presented themselves as past the age of consent on the hookup sites.
posted by brujita at 7:58 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by brujita at 7:58 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
nice confirmation!
posted by honey badger at 8:02 AM on September 18, 2018
posted by honey badger at 8:02 AM on September 18, 2018
This makes me glad for one reason in particular: I am a Bert, and no one really likes Bert. That Salzman wrote Bert as someone who could be liked - who he liked! - makes me feel better about Bertitude.
I don't think I'd make a very good film editor, though.
posted by Frowner at 8:17 AM on September 18, 2018 [47 favorites]
I don't think I'd make a very good film editor, though.
posted by Frowner at 8:17 AM on September 18, 2018 [47 favorites]
Yeah, Kevin Clash got a bad, BAD deal.
As for Ernie and Bert being gay, I stand by my opinion of stop forcing adult issues onto preschool children.
Good article though, thanks.
posted by Melismata at 8:19 AM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
As for Ernie and Bert being gay, I stand by my opinion of stop forcing adult issues onto preschool children.
Good article though, thanks.
posted by Melismata at 8:19 AM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
As for Ernie and Bert being gay, I stand by my opinion of stop forcing adult issues onto preschool children.
Adult issues like literacy? Numeracy? Sharing? Compassion? Diversity, as in "There are people who aren't exactly like you and your family, and that's okay, and you shouldn't be afraid of them."?
Please, let us know which "issues" are too much to start "forcing" onto children and what your bright line is on when we should start forming people into functional human beings who exist in a society.
posted by Etrigan at 8:25 AM on September 18, 2018 [128 favorites]
Adult issues like literacy? Numeracy? Sharing? Compassion? Diversity, as in "There are people who aren't exactly like you and your family, and that's okay, and you shouldn't be afraid of them."?
Please, let us know which "issues" are too much to start "forcing" onto children and what your bright line is on when we should start forming people into functional human beings who exist in a society.
posted by Etrigan at 8:25 AM on September 18, 2018 [128 favorites]
Yeah, I was afraid I'd get jumped on for that. When I was that age, I had adults in my life who said "I'm gay, and you must think about that! You must think about my sexuality!" It made me really uncomfortable. Have a same-sex couple on Sesame Street? Absolutely. But bash it over our heads? No, thanks.
posted by Melismata at 8:28 AM on September 18, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 8:28 AM on September 18, 2018 [6 favorites]
I don't know what you mean by "forcing"? They didn't change Sesame Street. Bert and Ernie's relationship is still what it was, it's just a bit of backstory on that relationship that ultimately had no bearing to how the two of them interacted with one another in supportive, kind, often funny and fun ways.
How is Bert & Ernie being gay an "adult issue"? It's just a reality of the world and not something that should be demonised, made mysterious or shamed.
posted by like_neon at 8:30 AM on September 18, 2018 [35 favorites]
How is Bert & Ernie being gay an "adult issue"? It's just a reality of the world and not something that should be demonised, made mysterious or shamed.
posted by like_neon at 8:30 AM on September 18, 2018 [35 favorites]
As for Ernie and Bert being gay, I stand by my opinion of stop forcing adult issues onto preschool children.
Being gay isn't an adult issue.
We don't try to hide the existence of straight relationships from preschoolers.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 8:31 AM on September 18, 2018 [112 favorites]
Being gay isn't an adult issue.
We don't try to hide the existence of straight relationships from preschoolers.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 8:31 AM on September 18, 2018 [112 favorites]
I am very confused as to where you think any "bashing" of sexuality over children's heads (or even our own heads) is happening in this instance of Bert & Ernie on Sesame Street.
posted by like_neon at 8:32 AM on September 18, 2018 [17 favorites]
posted by like_neon at 8:32 AM on September 18, 2018 [17 favorites]
No, we don't. But we also don't blatantly talk about sex in front of them either.
Never mind, I don't feel like arguing here. But this article: They're not gay, they're puppets was what I was trying to get across.
posted by Melismata at 8:34 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
Never mind, I don't feel like arguing here. But this article: They're not gay, they're puppets was what I was trying to get across.
posted by Melismata at 8:34 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
When I was that age, it would have utterly transformed my life to know that there were woman who lived with and loved other women, in the same way that my mom and dad lived with and loved each other. Precisely because it wasn't something I had any context for, I probably would have needed it emphasized and pointed out to me, so I wouldn't just think those two women were good friends or sisters or something.
Different children (including queer children, who will grow up to be queer adults) need different things. Sesame Street can be more of those things to more children than it's managed to date, although what it has managed to date is wonderful.
posted by Stacey at 8:34 AM on September 18, 2018 [70 favorites]
Different children (including queer children, who will grow up to be queer adults) need different things. Sesame Street can be more of those things to more children than it's managed to date, although what it has managed to date is wonderful.
posted by Stacey at 8:34 AM on September 18, 2018 [70 favorites]
No, we don't. But we also don't blatantly talk about sex in front of them either.
Woah there, it's a pretty big leap to go from "Bert & Ernie are two guys who love each other" to "This is forcing children to learn about Gay Sex".
I mean, Luis and Maria were an straight married couple on Sesame Street. Do you think that "forced" the concept of sex to kids?
posted by like_neon at 8:38 AM on September 18, 2018 [89 favorites]
Woah there, it's a pretty big leap to go from "Bert & Ernie are two guys who love each other" to "This is forcing children to learn about Gay Sex".
I mean, Luis and Maria were an straight married couple on Sesame Street. Do you think that "forced" the concept of sex to kids?
posted by like_neon at 8:38 AM on September 18, 2018 [89 favorites]
No, we don't. But we also don't blatantly talk about sex in front of them either.
I’m confused why you conflate talking about “sex” with acknowledging that Bert and Ernie (or I guess any gay couple) are a couple. Do you assume that straight people are talking about sex if they mention the opposite sex partner they live with?
I was a gay kid who watched Sesame Street and it would’ve been nice to know this about Bert and Ernie, though I was a lucky kid who had gay adults present in my life. Like, yeah knew my “uncles” David and Kimo were together and you know what? They never once discussed their sex life with me.
(On preview - jinx, like_neon)
posted by rtha at 8:43 AM on September 18, 2018 [53 favorites]
I’m confused why you conflate talking about “sex” with acknowledging that Bert and Ernie (or I guess any gay couple) are a couple. Do you assume that straight people are talking about sex if they mention the opposite sex partner they live with?
I was a gay kid who watched Sesame Street and it would’ve been nice to know this about Bert and Ernie, though I was a lucky kid who had gay adults present in my life. Like, yeah knew my “uncles” David and Kimo were together and you know what? They never once discussed their sex life with me.
(On preview - jinx, like_neon)
posted by rtha at 8:43 AM on September 18, 2018 [53 favorites]
I was "protected", as a child, from knowing that my aunt and uncle were in same-sex relationships. When my uncle got AIDS, my mom was willing to tell me about him, but still wouldn't let anybody in the family tell me about my aunt. Because it was "inappropriate". That aunt is probably the only person on that side of the family who I might still want to have a relationship with, because she wasn't complicit in enabling my mother to be horrible, but that "protection" meant that I functionally never had a relationship with her in the first place and I don't know how to create one in my thirties. Because you can't interact, as a child, with the adults in your life without being allowed to know about their long-term romantic partners and get anything but the shallowest, least meaningful version of that interaction.
Oh, look, your aunt's roommate is coming to Thanksgiving again this year. That definitely doesn't mean anything. This woman definitely isn't part of your family or anything.
It matters, that kids get to see romantic partners as a thing that is not gender-dependent. And they can figure out whatever as far as how they choose to relate to their own romantic partners and express affection to those people when they're old enough to do so.
posted by Sequence at 8:50 AM on September 18, 2018 [59 favorites]
Oh, look, your aunt's roommate is coming to Thanksgiving again this year. That definitely doesn't mean anything. This woman definitely isn't part of your family or anything.
It matters, that kids get to see romantic partners as a thing that is not gender-dependent. And they can figure out whatever as far as how they choose to relate to their own romantic partners and express affection to those people when they're old enough to do so.
posted by Sequence at 8:50 AM on September 18, 2018 [59 favorites]
As a child (and indeed as an adult!) when I met a couple I generally didn't think about them, like, having sex. I never thought about the sexual aspects of my friend Nicole's parents' relationship, but I knew that they were her mom and dad and that they were in a romantic relationship.
If you're going to have straight couples on a show, you can have gay couples.
Admittedly, I think there's a much larger place for friendships and undefined relationships, especially on a kids' show, because kids are mostly negotiating those. But if you're going to have straight couples, there's nothing weird or excessive about having gay ones.
~~~
As an actual queer person (no puppet! you're the puppet!) it really fatigues me when straight people have these weird sexual ideas, like the way I dress and act is some kind of sexual fetish - like my everyday ordinary clothes that you can buy in any store are the equivalent of BDSM gear. Or like "being identifiably gay in public" is the equivalent of having a public sex fetish.
Being identifiably gay is not the same as constantly being sexual in public. That's a straight-people reading and it says way more about the observer than the observed.
It's also really creepy to experience!
posted by Frowner at 8:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [133 favorites]
If you're going to have straight couples on a show, you can have gay couples.
Admittedly, I think there's a much larger place for friendships and undefined relationships, especially on a kids' show, because kids are mostly negotiating those. But if you're going to have straight couples, there's nothing weird or excessive about having gay ones.
~~~
As an actual queer person (no puppet! you're the puppet!) it really fatigues me when straight people have these weird sexual ideas, like the way I dress and act is some kind of sexual fetish - like my everyday ordinary clothes that you can buy in any store are the equivalent of BDSM gear. Or like "being identifiably gay in public" is the equivalent of having a public sex fetish.
Being identifiably gay is not the same as constantly being sexual in public. That's a straight-people reading and it says way more about the observer than the observed.
It's also really creepy to experience!
posted by Frowner at 8:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [133 favorites]
I think it's also a question of how preschool-aged kids interact with the idea of romantic love. Like, we have plenty of hetero-paired friends who don't, and won't, have kids. I wonder sometimes how my daughter thinks of them (I don't recall what I thought at that age). Depicting Bert and Ernie as a couple rather than roommates -- how do you do that, in the context of the stories that have (and haven't, more importantly) already been told? Just, suddenly they're married (or otherwise paired)? I don't think that works, really.
It would be trivial to include representations of human same-sex couples, with or without children, in one of the many crowd scenes or video packages. It would be a little more difficult to do the same with a Muppet couple (but, of course, do-able; Julia, Sesame Street's first autistic muppet, is an important layer of representation that was added recently).
posted by uncleozzy at 8:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
It would be trivial to include representations of human same-sex couples, with or without children, in one of the many crowd scenes or video packages. It would be a little more difficult to do the same with a Muppet couple (but, of course, do-able; Julia, Sesame Street's first autistic muppet, is an important layer of representation that was added recently).
posted by uncleozzy at 8:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
Never mind, I don't feel like arguing here. But this article: They're not gay, they're puppets was what I was trying to get across.
"A few years ago, much ado was made about one of the Teletubbies being gay. Cartoon characters, like puppets, do not have sex lives. They're not real."
Fictional characters don't have to be real to have various lives, it's kind of the crux of enjoying fictional media of any sort. You know the characters in a book aren't real, yet they still have sex lives, thoughts, perspectives, etc. Those attributes are imbued into creations by their creators.
If you want ot take that route, why stop at such an arbitrary point? Bert and Ernie aren't real so why do we show them doing any activities? Clearly puppets, not being real, can't do activities, they're just being controlled by puppeteers to make it seem as though they have a voice and are capable of doing things. Puppets aren't real so why are they forcing the alphabet on our kids even though the alphabet can be used to spell bad words!?
Being gay isn't about sex, sex is about sex. Homosexuality is an all-ages topic.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:01 AM on September 18, 2018 [34 favorites]
"A few years ago, much ado was made about one of the Teletubbies being gay. Cartoon characters, like puppets, do not have sex lives. They're not real."
Fictional characters don't have to be real to have various lives, it's kind of the crux of enjoying fictional media of any sort. You know the characters in a book aren't real, yet they still have sex lives, thoughts, perspectives, etc. Those attributes are imbued into creations by their creators.
If you want ot take that route, why stop at such an arbitrary point? Bert and Ernie aren't real so why do we show them doing any activities? Clearly puppets, not being real, can't do activities, they're just being controlled by puppeteers to make it seem as though they have a voice and are capable of doing things. Puppets aren't real so why are they forcing the alphabet on our kids even though the alphabet can be used to spell bad words!?
Being gay isn't about sex, sex is about sex. Homosexuality is an all-ages topic.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:01 AM on September 18, 2018 [34 favorites]
I'm really just repeating a lot of what has been said, but... you don't have to talk about sex at all to talk about love. And it's so SO important to talk about love to children (and everyone else) - about who we love and how we love and when we love, and what being loved means. I'm overly maudlin today, perhaps, but I want my child to recognize every single opportunity for love that might be open to them, including the ones that their immediate family don't happen to illustrate.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 9:01 AM on September 18, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 9:01 AM on September 18, 2018 [15 favorites]
But we also don't blatantly talk about sex in front of them either.
The more I think about this the madder I get, in part because Melismata is not someone I think of as someone who unthinkingly repeats homophobic lies and bullshit more typically used by right-wing opponents who object to teaching kids that gay people exist because if you teach that then obviously you must also be teaching children how adults fuck. That someone like Melismata can repeat propaganda like this is, to me, a sign that other people who think of themselves as supporters of lgbtq rights can also hold views like this and I want to tell you all to cut this out! Think about why you somehow equate “talking about gay people” as “talking about sex.” I mean come on. You are smarter than this.
posted by rtha at 9:05 AM on September 18, 2018 [123 favorites]
The more I think about this the madder I get, in part because Melismata is not someone I think of as someone who unthinkingly repeats homophobic lies and bullshit more typically used by right-wing opponents who object to teaching kids that gay people exist because if you teach that then obviously you must also be teaching children how adults fuck. That someone like Melismata can repeat propaganda like this is, to me, a sign that other people who think of themselves as supporters of lgbtq rights can also hold views like this and I want to tell you all to cut this out! Think about why you somehow equate “talking about gay people” as “talking about sex.” I mean come on. You are smarter than this.
posted by rtha at 9:05 AM on September 18, 2018 [123 favorites]
Nthing those who are reiterating that Bert and Ernie's relationship isn't about sex, BUT ALSO, kids are curious about sex in a variety of ways at a variety of ages, and it's as appropriate for kids to learn about queer sex in age-appropriate ways as it is for them to learn about straight sex in age-appropriate ways.
posted by ITheCosmos at 9:05 AM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by ITheCosmos at 9:05 AM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
I think it is really beautiful that so much of what he was writing about via Bert and Ernie was how a long term relationship is about compromise, and dialogue, and forgiveness, and two people finding joy in their differences. (Also as I kid I definitely identified more with Bert, and I am here for Bert solidarity and realizing that Bert was loved and cherished, not just enduring Ernie's chaos.)
As much as I enjoy "this is how they got together" narratives, I wish we had a million more "this is how they stayed together, even though it was hard and life is complicated" narratives. I feel really moved that Bert and Ernie was, in the hands of at least one writer, one of the latter.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:11 AM on September 18, 2018 [56 favorites]
As much as I enjoy "this is how they got together" narratives, I wish we had a million more "this is how they stayed together, even though it was hard and life is complicated" narratives. I feel really moved that Bert and Ernie was, in the hands of at least one writer, one of the latter.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:11 AM on September 18, 2018 [56 favorites]
Hm, Melismata, do you feel that gay couples in real life should pretend not to be together the same way straight couples are around small children, lest the small children somehow be bashed over the head with the graphical homosexual sex?
I'm really astounded to see this opinion aired on Mefi, I am.
posted by praemunire at 9:12 AM on September 18, 2018 [24 favorites]
I'm really astounded to see this opinion aired on Mefi, I am.
posted by praemunire at 9:12 AM on September 18, 2018 [24 favorites]
Oh god, I am a Bert stan as well! I related to him so much more as a Lawful Good and Ernie was just too Chaotic Good for me as a child who preferred lining things up and ordering things by size.
posted by like_neon at 9:15 AM on September 18, 2018 [19 favorites]
posted by like_neon at 9:15 AM on September 18, 2018 [19 favorites]
I'm really astounded to see this opinion aired on Mefi, I am.
I am not. As Frowner commented above, this conflation of sexual orientation and sexual practice amongst straight people towards gay people is super common. I don't want to pile on Melismata but hopefully some of these comments can be read with an open mind to lead to some introspection and growth.
posted by like_neon at 9:20 AM on September 18, 2018 [21 favorites]
I am not. As Frowner commented above, this conflation of sexual orientation and sexual practice amongst straight people towards gay people is super common. I don't want to pile on Melismata but hopefully some of these comments can be read with an open mind to lead to some introspection and growth.
posted by like_neon at 9:20 AM on September 18, 2018 [21 favorites]
I think it's something they might have explored a little bit more on the show -- clearly Bert & Ernie had a really solid loving relationship, but -- how did they make it work, being so different? But then I think a little harder, and it's all right there.
Bert is Ernie's anchor, and Ernie is Bert's butterfly. They each had their own unique and very different ways of interacting and coping with the world, but through each other they could experience the comfort/solidity and joy/chaos that the other more readily embodied.
Bert may not have been able to cut loose and be manic, but he could very much enjoy watching Ernie do it even as he shook his head in exasperation. And Ernie clearly valued Bert's stability and controlling ways, even as he gently mocked or rebelled.
It's not that they're GAY that is being shoved at us. It is that they love each other and they happen to be two male characters. It's called representation and it matters.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:21 AM on September 18, 2018 [74 favorites]
Bert is Ernie's anchor, and Ernie is Bert's butterfly. They each had their own unique and very different ways of interacting and coping with the world, but through each other they could experience the comfort/solidity and joy/chaos that the other more readily embodied.
Bert may not have been able to cut loose and be manic, but he could very much enjoy watching Ernie do it even as he shook his head in exasperation. And Ernie clearly valued Bert's stability and controlling ways, even as he gently mocked or rebelled.
It's not that they're GAY that is being shoved at us. It is that they love each other and they happen to be two male characters. It's called representation and it matters.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:21 AM on September 18, 2018 [74 favorites]
I have a Sesame Street aged kid. We tell him Bert and Ernie are married. He has no idea what sex is.
My kid knows gay couples, my kid was the ring bearer at a wedding just this spring of two dear friends (T and S) but he lives in a household that as far as he can tell is straight. He -needs- to know right now that the tv shows we let him watch have people just like the people he knows who love him very much but live 1500 miles away. He's a little blond white kid with presumably straight seeming parents, and straight seeming grandparents and straight seeming local aunts and uncles (mostly) he needs as much exposure to people not like him and his immediate family as possible.
I tell my kid that Bert and Ernie are married -just like Mommy and Daddy - all it means for him is that there's two men, one of whom is loud and messy and scatterbrained and one who is fussy and tidy and picky and they love each other and live together and make it work. And it means he sees two men who are married and living together as -the exact same thing- as a man and a woman. And that's so important. He might be straight, he might be bi, he might be gay, he might be ace, we don't know because he's four and a half but it does. Not. Matter.
Because right now he knows that love is love is love, and that as far as he's concerned, Bert and Ernie on TV, and Aunt T and Aunt S, and Mommy and Daddy and Mr A and Mr B - all those couples are married and love each other and are the same exact thing where love is concerned.
My kid doesn't know about sex yet, of course he doesn't know about sex* yet, he's FOUR AND A HALF But he knows love.
He really really knows love. Little kids -get- love. They know it means kissing boo-boos and hugs and making someone Popsicles when they're sick and getting coffee in the morning so your wife can sleep in and walking the dog in the rain, and holding hands and hugging a lot and sometimes kissing.
He knows that his Aunt T and Aunt S got married and that means a big party and Mommy made a big cake and he got the cake ends and ate a whole frosting flower**, and that they want to live together and be best friends forever, and that it's just like Mommy and Daddy except Aunt T and Aunt S can borrow each other's pants more.
Of COURSE he doesn't see it as sexual. Why would he? Why would anyone? Why would anyone look at any couple and make assumptions that the relationship is only about sex?
(For that matter, we don't know that Bert and/or Ernie are even sexual. They could be Ace and that representation is important to, so don't assume, yo)
Assuming that gay romance is sexual but straight romance isn't is problematic. It stigmatizes same-gender couples as having shallower relationships based solely around sexual attraction (since we already assume that relationships based solely around sex are somehow less valid, which is another entire problem in and of itself) and not about romance, deep friendship, affection...
* Yes, we've covered inappropiate touching and consent, don't @ me.
** He's FOUR. His motivation for this wedding was a frosting flower. He is -very- motivated by the frosting flowers.
posted by FritoKAL at 9:31 AM on September 18, 2018 [109 favorites]
My kid knows gay couples, my kid was the ring bearer at a wedding just this spring of two dear friends (T and S) but he lives in a household that as far as he can tell is straight. He -needs- to know right now that the tv shows we let him watch have people just like the people he knows who love him very much but live 1500 miles away. He's a little blond white kid with presumably straight seeming parents, and straight seeming grandparents and straight seeming local aunts and uncles (mostly) he needs as much exposure to people not like him and his immediate family as possible.
I tell my kid that Bert and Ernie are married -just like Mommy and Daddy - all it means for him is that there's two men, one of whom is loud and messy and scatterbrained and one who is fussy and tidy and picky and they love each other and live together and make it work. And it means he sees two men who are married and living together as -the exact same thing- as a man and a woman. And that's so important. He might be straight, he might be bi, he might be gay, he might be ace, we don't know because he's four and a half but it does. Not. Matter.
Because right now he knows that love is love is love, and that as far as he's concerned, Bert and Ernie on TV, and Aunt T and Aunt S, and Mommy and Daddy and Mr A and Mr B - all those couples are married and love each other and are the same exact thing where love is concerned.
My kid doesn't know about sex yet, of course he doesn't know about sex* yet, he's FOUR AND A HALF But he knows love.
He really really knows love. Little kids -get- love. They know it means kissing boo-boos and hugs and making someone Popsicles when they're sick and getting coffee in the morning so your wife can sleep in and walking the dog in the rain, and holding hands and hugging a lot and sometimes kissing.
He knows that his Aunt T and Aunt S got married and that means a big party and Mommy made a big cake and he got the cake ends and ate a whole frosting flower**, and that they want to live together and be best friends forever, and that it's just like Mommy and Daddy except Aunt T and Aunt S can borrow each other's pants more.
Of COURSE he doesn't see it as sexual. Why would he? Why would anyone? Why would anyone look at any couple and make assumptions that the relationship is only about sex?
(For that matter, we don't know that Bert and/or Ernie are even sexual. They could be Ace and that representation is important to, so don't assume, yo)
Assuming that gay romance is sexual but straight romance isn't is problematic. It stigmatizes same-gender couples as having shallower relationships based solely around sexual attraction (since we already assume that relationships based solely around sex are somehow less valid, which is another entire problem in and of itself) and not about romance, deep friendship, affection...
* Yes, we've covered inappropiate touching and consent, don't @ me.
** He's FOUR. His motivation for this wedding was a frosting flower. He is -very- motivated by the frosting flowers.
posted by FritoKAL at 9:31 AM on September 18, 2018 [109 favorites]
I've always been resistant to Bert & Ernie as a gay couple. It wasn't because I didn't want to see gay couples on tv - I loved queer content even before I knew I was queer, and my favourite musician in 1984 was Boy George, because he wore make-up - I didn't actually know what songs he sang. Later, I loved Mr Humphries (Are you Being Served) so much - and yes, I know he's problematic, but he was also so wonderfully queer.
But for Bert and Ernie -- it's just that at some point I saw - or I read in a book? I imagined? - an adult Bert taking care of a kid-Ernie, and so I thought they had an uncle/child or guardian/child relationship, and then seeing that as romantic felt icky, like incest.
Looking back, I realised that a) I think I imagined that familial relationship and b) given how they relate to each other, it makes more sense for them to be a couple, and yes, kids need to see happy queer people and couple-dom is not sex.
This makes me glad for one reason in particular: I am a Bert, and no one really likes Bert. That Salzman wrote Bert as someone who could be liked - who he liked! - makes me feel better about Bertitude.
Berts are eminently lovable. I'm married to a very-Berty Bert.
Ernies like me are also lovable, but also really, really annoying - especially when we eat cookies in your bed, or play the trumpet late at night, or let the boogie-woogie sheep steal you in your bed...
posted by jb at 9:34 AM on September 18, 2018 [14 favorites]
But for Bert and Ernie -- it's just that at some point I saw - or I read in a book? I imagined? - an adult Bert taking care of a kid-Ernie, and so I thought they had an uncle/child or guardian/child relationship, and then seeing that as romantic felt icky, like incest.
Looking back, I realised that a) I think I imagined that familial relationship and b) given how they relate to each other, it makes more sense for them to be a couple, and yes, kids need to see happy queer people and couple-dom is not sex.
This makes me glad for one reason in particular: I am a Bert, and no one really likes Bert. That Salzman wrote Bert as someone who could be liked - who he liked! - makes me feel better about Bertitude.
Berts are eminently lovable. I'm married to a very-Berty Bert.
Ernies like me are also lovable, but also really, really annoying - especially when we eat cookies in your bed, or play the trumpet late at night, or let the boogie-woogie sheep steal you in your bed...
posted by jb at 9:34 AM on September 18, 2018 [14 favorites]
Never mind, I don't feel like arguing here.
Never mind? You teed this up perfectly - anyone who wants to come in here to talk about the interview with Saltzman has to thread their way around the homophobia that you've hand-wavingly put on display here.
Anyway.
I just came here to make this comment - that I thought this was a pretty great story from the interview...
Saltzman: I’d written a bit for a trumpet player, and Sesame Street being Sesame Street, the musician cast was Dizzy Gillespie. I was, as usual, tongue tied and star struck in front of a legend of this magnitude, but I stayed close during shooting. Mostly trimming lines; he was not comfortable acting. But when he played on screen for a group of kids, they were mesmerized. The sound! The cheeks! When we were done, the trumpeter, as trumpeters do, emptied his spit valve. One of the kids was fascinated, riveted to the falling thread of drool. She said with a pre-schooler’s sneer “What’s THAT?” Dizzy said, “That’s jazz.”
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:37 AM on September 18, 2018 [63 favorites]
Never mind? You teed this up perfectly - anyone who wants to come in here to talk about the interview with Saltzman has to thread their way around the homophobia that you've hand-wavingly put on display here.
Anyway.
I just came here to make this comment - that I thought this was a pretty great story from the interview...
Saltzman: I’d written a bit for a trumpet player, and Sesame Street being Sesame Street, the musician cast was Dizzy Gillespie. I was, as usual, tongue tied and star struck in front of a legend of this magnitude, but I stayed close during shooting. Mostly trimming lines; he was not comfortable acting. But when he played on screen for a group of kids, they were mesmerized. The sound! The cheeks! When we were done, the trumpeter, as trumpeters do, emptied his spit valve. One of the kids was fascinated, riveted to the falling thread of drool. She said with a pre-schooler’s sneer “What’s THAT?” Dizzy said, “That’s jazz.”
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:37 AM on September 18, 2018 [63 favorites]
I mean, Luis and Maria were an straight married couple on Sesame Street. Do you think that "forced" the concept of sex to kids?
I'm pretty sure Maria was pregnant at one point, and Luis was identified as the father, so ... yes?
Straight sex is implied constantly to children. We just don't recognize when it is.
But here's the big question: are Felix & Oscar gay?
(just being silly - have never seen the play, though I watched the show as a kid and was always aware of the connection to Bert & Ernie)
posted by jb at 9:39 AM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm pretty sure Maria was pregnant at one point, and Luis was identified as the father, so ... yes?
Straight sex is implied constantly to children. We just don't recognize when it is.
But here's the big question: are Felix & Oscar gay?
(just being silly - have never seen the play, though I watched the show as a kid and was always aware of the connection to Bert & Ernie)
posted by jb at 9:39 AM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
N.B. When you find yourself 'reasonably' objecting to something as basic as on-screen representation of gay people and you do so using the same rhetoric that was employed by Newt Gingrich, Jesse Helms, & co. way back in 1994 ("forcing" your sexuality on children, "bashing" your sexuality into our faces, etc.) — maaaybe take a step back and think about what that says about your stance on this issue.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:50 AM on September 18, 2018 [38 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:50 AM on September 18, 2018 [38 favorites]
Man, when I think about the fucked-up way my mother bent over backwards to hide even the notion that gayness was something you could be from me as a kid--and later, when my baby sister was a kid, pressured me to stay closeted and not be visibly queer or leave books on queerness lying around where she could see--God, I heard the word "lesbian" for the first time in the context of another kid asking me if I was one, and I could tell from the tone that it was an insult. I'll turn twenty-eight tomorrow, and my (also queer) sister is sixteen. This ain't an artifact of the old homophobic past, guys--it matters to little kids to know that queer relationships are even possible, and that means seeing same-gender couples around them in the same kinds of light, not-particularly significant, easy-going contexts they see hetero couples.
I mean. I guess that adults who made you uncomfortable as a kid are worth swaddling kids like me so tightly we never see ourselves around us. I don't know your pain, just that you said adults pushed your boundaries, and that's a rough thing for a kid to deal with. I just--man, there's got to be some kind of middle ground, and it fucking hurts seeing that there's a beautiful clear middle ground no one complains about for straight people, but nothing for kids like me.
posted by sciatrix at 9:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [38 favorites]
I mean. I guess that adults who made you uncomfortable as a kid are worth swaddling kids like me so tightly we never see ourselves around us. I don't know your pain, just that you said adults pushed your boundaries, and that's a rough thing for a kid to deal with. I just--man, there's got to be some kind of middle ground, and it fucking hurts seeing that there's a beautiful clear middle ground no one complains about for straight people, but nothing for kids like me.
posted by sciatrix at 9:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [38 favorites]
Folks, please remember Melismata is a long term and valued member of the site. Please be kind.
Melismata? Yep, that was a huge can of worms but it seems like you've provided an important point to talk about why this has all been a problem for queer people to not have many (or any) positive role models in media.
it really fatigues me when straight people have these weird sexual ideas, like the way I dress and act is some kind of sexual fetish - like my everyday ordinary clothes that you can buy in any store are the equivalent of BDSM gear. Or like "being identifiably gay in public" is the equivalent of having a public sex fetish.
Oh my God, try being trans! I just want to be able to wear the clothes I find most flattering and comfortable, and it's honestly really boring in that I like long skirts, maxi dresses and otherwise really remarkably boring, classic and modest femme clothes and it's instantly treated and reacted to as a fetish.
Like I'm walking around at a party or in public wearing a comfy, classy dress and like the only thing I could possibly have in mind is kinky sex and being a pervert.
You know what I really, really want? I want to be able to walk on a beach with my headphones on and not be scared. I want to be able to go to the library or cafe looking and feeling good and dive into a book and be left alone.
I'm still stuck in social boy presentation mode because of how everyone demands that if I want to wear a dress or skirt, almost everyone is going to demand I have no stubble, no facial hair or secondary masculine characteristics and holy shit like it's not like I don't want to already spend 10 to 20 thousand dollars on dating a medical laser for the next 3 years, I just can't afford it.
As a child I would have loved to have any kind of rolemodel at all that wasn't a serial killer, the butt of a joke, the punchline to an insult or an ongoing mental health catastrophe. I'd also would love to have any trans role model at all that wasn't actually a gay drag queen or crossdresser or fetishist.
None of these things are actually trans identity or my identity. It's utterly insane that there's so much projection going on towards queer people.
posted by loquacious at 9:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [59 favorites]
Melismata? Yep, that was a huge can of worms but it seems like you've provided an important point to talk about why this has all been a problem for queer people to not have many (or any) positive role models in media.
it really fatigues me when straight people have these weird sexual ideas, like the way I dress and act is some kind of sexual fetish - like my everyday ordinary clothes that you can buy in any store are the equivalent of BDSM gear. Or like "being identifiably gay in public" is the equivalent of having a public sex fetish.
Oh my God, try being trans! I just want to be able to wear the clothes I find most flattering and comfortable, and it's honestly really boring in that I like long skirts, maxi dresses and otherwise really remarkably boring, classic and modest femme clothes and it's instantly treated and reacted to as a fetish.
Like I'm walking around at a party or in public wearing a comfy, classy dress and like the only thing I could possibly have in mind is kinky sex and being a pervert.
You know what I really, really want? I want to be able to walk on a beach with my headphones on and not be scared. I want to be able to go to the library or cafe looking and feeling good and dive into a book and be left alone.
I'm still stuck in social boy presentation mode because of how everyone demands that if I want to wear a dress or skirt, almost everyone is going to demand I have no stubble, no facial hair or secondary masculine characteristics and holy shit like it's not like I don't want to already spend 10 to 20 thousand dollars on dating a medical laser for the next 3 years, I just can't afford it.
As a child I would have loved to have any kind of rolemodel at all that wasn't a serial killer, the butt of a joke, the punchline to an insult or an ongoing mental health catastrophe. I'd also would love to have any trans role model at all that wasn't actually a gay drag queen or crossdresser or fetishist.
None of these things are actually trans identity or my identity. It's utterly insane that there's so much projection going on towards queer people.
posted by loquacious at 9:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [59 favorites]
There are, like, gay children. Kind of a lot of them?
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:58 AM on September 18, 2018 [24 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:58 AM on September 18, 2018 [24 favorites]
I am extremely happy to find other Berts here. I was a Bert. I am still a Bert. I am trying to let my Ernie-ness in a little more, but also to love my Bertness. (Ask me about my love of canning jars and fountain pens and neat, minimalist bullet journal layouts! Looking at Bauhaus design gives me visceral pleasure!)
I'm also super-queer and Ace and I feel like that is also my Bertiness. There were no gay people around my family growing up, no queerness of any kind really, and it would have been nice to have a clearer queer icon in my tiny life. To be assured that it was ok to not really fancy any of the boys, or to never have sex. It was a long and winding path, and a fairly unhappy one at times. But this is such a common story; I won't bore you with the nth iteration. You know my story, because there was no representation of any kind, especially of an age-appropriate kind, when I was forming my conception of the universe.
Now there is, and it means the next Bert kid who isn't straight, has a person in their conception of the universe. That blows my mind. You know what I would have loved? To get hit over the head with someone different than my family and my community, which didn't have room for queerness. That would have been amazing.
posted by kalimac at 9:58 AM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'm also super-queer and Ace and I feel like that is also my Bertiness. There were no gay people around my family growing up, no queerness of any kind really, and it would have been nice to have a clearer queer icon in my tiny life. To be assured that it was ok to not really fancy any of the boys, or to never have sex. It was a long and winding path, and a fairly unhappy one at times. But this is such a common story; I won't bore you with the nth iteration. You know my story, because there was no representation of any kind, especially of an age-appropriate kind, when I was forming my conception of the universe.
Now there is, and it means the next Bert kid who isn't straight, has a person in their conception of the universe. That blows my mind. You know what I would have loved? To get hit over the head with someone different than my family and my community, which didn't have room for queerness. That would have been amazing.
posted by kalimac at 9:58 AM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
We don't talk about sex to pre-school kids, but we do talk about partnerships and family. Through just about every Disney and Dreamworks animated feature we see people pairing up and courting each other. Certainly I knew that a kiss was meaningful by the time I got to kindergarden, in that you didn't just go around kissing everyone on the lips, or even on the cheek.
So while the actual details about sex were kind of squicky to me even after I got answers to my questions as a pre-teen, I already knew that one of the things I was supposed to do in life was to find a person of the "opposite" sex to share my life with and raise a family. It wasn't until I was an adult that an older gay man introduced me to his husband, showed me his wedding pictures, and let me crash on the couch for the night. And that blew my fucking mind in the early 1990s that gay people had also husbands and weddings and households.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 10:04 AM on September 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
So while the actual details about sex were kind of squicky to me even after I got answers to my questions as a pre-teen, I already knew that one of the things I was supposed to do in life was to find a person of the "opposite" sex to share my life with and raise a family. It wasn't until I was an adult that an older gay man introduced me to his husband, showed me his wedding pictures, and let me crash on the couch for the night. And that blew my fucking mind in the early 1990s that gay people had also husbands and weddings and households.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 10:04 AM on September 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
Cycling back to the actual article, god--the wistfulness woven through it is so palpable. I really relate to the sorrow about--what if I'd been more open, what if I'd been a better ally to the other people like me, what if I'd pushed the envelope more? but then, what if we'd lost all the good work we did do? what if, what if, what if--
what if I'd been able to fight through the pressure to be quiet just that harder? what if I'd been better, somehow?
what if I wasn't so scarred-over and crabbed-up and bad at being open? what if I'd been able to rip through the secrecy and reach out instead of being scared of being seen?
God. *face in hands*
And--not knowing how to respond to gay flirting in the workplace! Yeah, I'll bet! I'm shit at flirting, but thinking about encountering same-gender flirting in my workplace is so goddamn alien for so many reasons; encountering it unexpectedly is--yeah, I'd have panicked too!
posted by sciatrix at 10:06 AM on September 18, 2018 [35 favorites]
what if I'd been able to fight through the pressure to be quiet just that harder? what if I'd been better, somehow?
what if I wasn't so scarred-over and crabbed-up and bad at being open? what if I'd been able to rip through the secrecy and reach out instead of being scared of being seen?
God. *face in hands*
And--not knowing how to respond to gay flirting in the workplace! Yeah, I'll bet! I'm shit at flirting, but thinking about encountering same-gender flirting in my workplace is so goddamn alien for so many reasons; encountering it unexpectedly is--yeah, I'd have panicked too!
posted by sciatrix at 10:06 AM on September 18, 2018 [35 favorites]
Loquacious -- please rock the skirts when you can. I wear mine as weather (both outside and mental) permits. We need to push the window of "normal" to include people with facial hair wearing non-bifurcated garments so that perhaps some time in future we, and other people like us, don't have to be scared. The only way to do that is to .. wear them and be scared sometimes. I don't wear 'em all the time. But I do have a rainbow bag or a rainbow hat or or something else to just make the environment that I inhabit not 100% "deniably straight."
And that's what expanding the scope of representation is about. If we're out there, and undeniably so, they can't say we aren't. They can't say we're not normal, if we're there and just being normal people. And people who notice, like kids, will know we exist, and that if they're like us, that it's okay for them to exist too.
Just a little fist-bump of "do it when you can" if I may. Solidarity, wearing the good clothes for the good fight for the future.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:06 AM on September 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
And that's what expanding the scope of representation is about. If we're out there, and undeniably so, they can't say we aren't. They can't say we're not normal, if we're there and just being normal people. And people who notice, like kids, will know we exist, and that if they're like us, that it's okay for them to exist too.
Just a little fist-bump of "do it when you can" if I may. Solidarity, wearing the good clothes for the good fight for the future.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:06 AM on September 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
When I go shopping with my daughter, I am forever seeing children's clothes and baby clothes that say stuff like "Heartbreaker In Training" (on a girl's tanktop) or "Lil' Ladykiller" (on a baby boy's onesie) or the like. Heteronormativity is so saturated into everything that even as a trans non-binary person I hardly blink at this stuff anymore. The background radiation of "cis and hetero = normal" permeates through so many things and starts from the second you're born. As you get older, if you happen to not be cis and/or hetero, you begin to wonder if you really are who you think you are, or if you're some kind of mutation best hidden from everyone else. It makes for a miserable childhood and miserabler adolescence.
So if your first reaction to reading "I wrote Bert and Ernie gay" is to wrinkle your nose and fret about it, consider these trans and queer children (yes, they exist - we assume straightness and cisness in children easily enough, don't we?) and the pain and isolation they feel that literally nothing around them reinforces the fact of their existence. We can let kids be cis and straight without fretting overly about being aware of hetero sex at too young an age; why can the same not apply to trans and queer kids?
I mean I can tell you, as a kindergartner I had crushes on boys and girls alike, with literally no concept of what sex was. I knew I was both a girl and a boy. But I had no vocabulary to express this because there was absolutely nothing around me that gave me examples of people like me, let alone the words to express it.
I'm here for gay Bert and Ernie all day, every day.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 10:09 AM on September 18, 2018 [40 favorites]
So if your first reaction to reading "I wrote Bert and Ernie gay" is to wrinkle your nose and fret about it, consider these trans and queer children (yes, they exist - we assume straightness and cisness in children easily enough, don't we?) and the pain and isolation they feel that literally nothing around them reinforces the fact of their existence. We can let kids be cis and straight without fretting overly about being aware of hetero sex at too young an age; why can the same not apply to trans and queer kids?
I mean I can tell you, as a kindergartner I had crushes on boys and girls alike, with literally no concept of what sex was. I knew I was both a girl and a boy. But I had no vocabulary to express this because there was absolutely nothing around me that gave me examples of people like me, let alone the words to express it.
I'm here for gay Bert and Ernie all day, every day.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 10:09 AM on September 18, 2018 [40 favorites]
I was a gay kid who watched Sesame Street, growing up in an evangelical Christian household, and it would absolutely have been wonderful for me to know that same-sex couples existed and could be stable and loving and etc. So to that degree, I wish that the show could have acknowledged Bert & Ernie as a couple, because that was news I was not going to get any other way (and in fact did not really get until I was in college).
I am also glad that it didn't, because I was growing up in an evangelical Christian household. Had Bert & Ernie been presented as a gay couple, that would have been it for me watching Sesame Street. Also, the pastors whose churches we attended, and the Christian magazines my parents got, and etc., would have had that many more opportunities to tell me how terrible and miserable and sinful being gay was. (Not that they held back anyway, but the condemnation would have been a lot more relevant to me, because I liked the Muppets and would have been paying more attention, and started paying more attention at a much younger and more impressionable age.) Not to mention that the evangelicals of the time would definitely have gone much harder against PBS much earlier, and likely succeeded in getting the show taken off the air (or at least off PBS).
I think keeping Bert & Ernie in the closet was better for me personally, not because of how I would have taken them -- I badly needed an example like that -- but because of how the adults around me would have reacted. Today, making that same decision would be inexcusable, because it's possible to upset conservatives while still having a viable show, and a lot more people think being gay is just fine, same-sex marriage is enough of a thing that everybody's going to hear about it sooner or later, etc. But however good of an idea a gay couple on Sesame Street would have been in an idealized world, I don't think it was possible in the world we actually had then.
If you want to argue that more kids would have been helped by seeing the example than harmed by experiencing the adult backlash, well, okay. I can be one of the few whose needs are outweighed by the needs of the many. But that feels . . . shitty.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:18 AM on September 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
I am also glad that it didn't, because I was growing up in an evangelical Christian household. Had Bert & Ernie been presented as a gay couple, that would have been it for me watching Sesame Street. Also, the pastors whose churches we attended, and the Christian magazines my parents got, and etc., would have had that many more opportunities to tell me how terrible and miserable and sinful being gay was. (Not that they held back anyway, but the condemnation would have been a lot more relevant to me, because I liked the Muppets and would have been paying more attention, and started paying more attention at a much younger and more impressionable age.) Not to mention that the evangelicals of the time would definitely have gone much harder against PBS much earlier, and likely succeeded in getting the show taken off the air (or at least off PBS).
I think keeping Bert & Ernie in the closet was better for me personally, not because of how I would have taken them -- I badly needed an example like that -- but because of how the adults around me would have reacted. Today, making that same decision would be inexcusable, because it's possible to upset conservatives while still having a viable show, and a lot more people think being gay is just fine, same-sex marriage is enough of a thing that everybody's going to hear about it sooner or later, etc. But however good of an idea a gay couple on Sesame Street would have been in an idealized world, I don't think it was possible in the world we actually had then.
If you want to argue that more kids would have been helped by seeing the example than harmed by experiencing the adult backlash, well, okay. I can be one of the few whose needs are outweighed by the needs of the many. But that feels . . . shitty.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:18 AM on September 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
I think I get what Melismata was trying for. For many people there's no need for a complete backstory on every character of every show, and Ernie and Bert might be humorously mismatched roomies that aggravate one another and still remain friends. We see ourselves and laugh and move on.
But there are various communities outside the main circle that rarely see themselves and that do have to look extra hard for representation in the stories they see in media. These used to include huge groups like women or anyone of color. And while things are clearly better for some there are others that didn't start appearing until much later: LGBTQ characters, blind people, anyone in a wheelchair, to name a few. For many of these communities seeing yourself in media as part of normal life can be hugely empowering, normalizing your experience as less outside or foreign.
If you already feel normal and represented then Bert and Ernie don't need to be anything in particular. But they were very important to others, and an educational setting is a great place to make sure those folks get to see themselves.
But perhaps the biggest benefit is how it changes the baseline for what a Normal household looks like, especially if you were already living in normal land. Most people only grow up in one home and rely on stories, movies, friends and neighbors to get an idea of how others live. Many people spend time with folks like themselves and won't get exposure to a lot of variety unless media makes an effort to reflect more of life. And this is especially true for children who frequently have to accept the curated version of life their parents provide.
posted by Cris E at 10:18 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
But there are various communities outside the main circle that rarely see themselves and that do have to look extra hard for representation in the stories they see in media. These used to include huge groups like women or anyone of color. And while things are clearly better for some there are others that didn't start appearing until much later: LGBTQ characters, blind people, anyone in a wheelchair, to name a few. For many of these communities seeing yourself in media as part of normal life can be hugely empowering, normalizing your experience as less outside or foreign.
If you already feel normal and represented then Bert and Ernie don't need to be anything in particular. But they were very important to others, and an educational setting is a great place to make sure those folks get to see themselves.
But perhaps the biggest benefit is how it changes the baseline for what a Normal household looks like, especially if you were already living in normal land. Most people only grow up in one home and rely on stories, movies, friends and neighbors to get an idea of how others live. Many people spend time with folks like themselves and won't get exposure to a lot of variety unless media makes an effort to reflect more of life. And this is especially true for children who frequently have to accept the curated version of life their parents provide.
posted by Cris E at 10:18 AM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
I think part of what makes the Bert and Ernie are gay thing weird to me is that in general as a child I assumed the muppet characters were children my age or near it, with a couple of exceptions (Oscar the Grouch for example was coded as being adult). Bert and Ernie always seemed to be kids, not grown ups.
And while certainly there are gay children, they normally don't live with their lovers (or have lovers at the age B&E seemed to be).
I always assumed they were brothers, not lovers.
I fully agree with the sentiment that Rebecca Sugar expressed. We should have G rated gay characters in children's media. I think Ruby and Sapphire really came across very well, and even transgressed their assumed gender roles in their clothing during their wedding which was nifty [1].
I just don't think Bert and Ernie fit that role, and I do think Sesame Street would be better if instead of trying to retcon them into lovers it instead introduced actual LGBT characters, whether human or adult muppet.
[1] For those unfamiliar with Steven Universe, Ruby is the more aggressive, angrier, fightier, less thoughtful and emotionally aware of the two, while Sapphire is the more passive, more thoughtful, more emotionally aware of the two. Both self identify as female though they come from a mono-gendered society. And they had Ruby wear a white wedding dress and Sapphire wear a sharp looking tux when they got married. Clip of the wedding here
posted by sotonohito at 10:26 AM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
And while certainly there are gay children, they normally don't live with their lovers (or have lovers at the age B&E seemed to be).
I always assumed they were brothers, not lovers.
I fully agree with the sentiment that Rebecca Sugar expressed. We should have G rated gay characters in children's media. I think Ruby and Sapphire really came across very well, and even transgressed their assumed gender roles in their clothing during their wedding which was nifty [1].
I just don't think Bert and Ernie fit that role, and I do think Sesame Street would be better if instead of trying to retcon them into lovers it instead introduced actual LGBT characters, whether human or adult muppet.
[1] For those unfamiliar with Steven Universe, Ruby is the more aggressive, angrier, fightier, less thoughtful and emotionally aware of the two, while Sapphire is the more passive, more thoughtful, more emotionally aware of the two. Both self identify as female though they come from a mono-gendered society. And they had Ruby wear a white wedding dress and Sapphire wear a sharp looking tux when they got married. Clip of the wedding here
posted by sotonohito at 10:26 AM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
I think part of what makes the Bert and Ernie are gay thing weird to me is that in general as a child I assumed the muppet characters were children my age or near it, with a couple of exceptions (Oscar the Grouch for example was coded as being adult). Bert and Ernie always seemed to be kids, not grown ups.
Kind of funny how that works. I guess it depends on perspective. I had always read Bert and Ernie as adults. Hard to say why I read them that way...maybe it was the apparent lack of adult supervision? Or maybe certain things Bert did seemed to be coded as "things adults do"...like how he chaired the weekly meeting of the National Association of W Lovers.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:38 AM on September 18, 2018 [14 favorites]
Kind of funny how that works. I guess it depends on perspective. I had always read Bert and Ernie as adults. Hard to say why I read them that way...maybe it was the apparent lack of adult supervision? Or maybe certain things Bert did seemed to be coded as "things adults do"...like how he chaired the weekly meeting of the National Association of W Lovers.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:38 AM on September 18, 2018 [14 favorites]
"But for Bert and Ernie -- it's just that at some point I saw - or I read in a book? I imagined? - an adult Bert taking care of a kid-Ernie, and so I thought they had an uncle/child or guardian/child relationship, and then seeing that as romantic felt icky, like incest. Looking back, I realised that a) I think I imagined that familial relationship and b) given how they relate to each other, it makes more sense for them to be a couple, and yes, kids need to see happy queer people and couple-dom is not sex. "
One of the reasons the show has resisted calls to make Bert and Ernie's sexuality canon (one way or the other) is that so many little kids think they're brothers. (It's also fairly clear, when you go back through the canon, that Ernie and Bert are children -- when they're in trouble they often have to go get a grown-up human to help them because they can't do grown-up things.)
FWIW, Sesame Street has majorly de-emphasized heterosexual adult relationships too. If you grew up in the 80s you probably remember Maria and Luis getting married and having a baby ... but Maria, Luis, and Gordon have all been dropped, and I haven't seen Susan this season. (Susan & Gordon being the other married couple.) Bob and Linda were dating, but Linda's been off the show for years now. Gina adopted a baby in the 00s, but as a single parent. Adult humans now mainly appear as friends and helpers in the neighborhood -- none of the newer characters are married or dating, and they have dropped basically all discussion of romantic relationships. The muppet monster children have parents, but they mainly appear in "mom" and/or "dad" roles, not in "husband and wife" roles. But yeah, now parents on the show (who are all monsters) function to talk about divorce, remarriage, or parenting (not any pre-children-having dating), and babies are the show are all monsters too, and the curriculum isn't really about "where they come from" but how a big-brother or big-sister preschooler should act around a baby. So I think they've fairly consciously removed "overt" heterosexual human adults from the Sesame world and are a lot more tightly-focused on children and the relationships children have, not the relationships the adults around them have. (The current human adults talk about their brothers and sisters and moms and dads, but they don't have romantic partners or children anymore.)
Anyway, when Sesame Street does a "two daddies" storyline, it'll be monsters, not humans or human-like muppets, because humans on Sesame Street no longer have sex lives in any way shape or form. Only the shaggy monsters are shagging. :)
I think a lot of us remember Sesame from our own childhoods when there WAS a lot of heterosexuality right up in your face with Maria and Luis and their baby and stuff, but if you watch it today, adult (human) romantic relationships have been almost entirely removed. It's weird to go back now and watch the Maria/Luis marriage stuff b/c it seems very foreign to the current show's vibe.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:38 AM on September 18, 2018 [16 favorites]
One of the reasons the show has resisted calls to make Bert and Ernie's sexuality canon (one way or the other) is that so many little kids think they're brothers. (It's also fairly clear, when you go back through the canon, that Ernie and Bert are children -- when they're in trouble they often have to go get a grown-up human to help them because they can't do grown-up things.)
FWIW, Sesame Street has majorly de-emphasized heterosexual adult relationships too. If you grew up in the 80s you probably remember Maria and Luis getting married and having a baby ... but Maria, Luis, and Gordon have all been dropped, and I haven't seen Susan this season. (Susan & Gordon being the other married couple.) Bob and Linda were dating, but Linda's been off the show for years now. Gina adopted a baby in the 00s, but as a single parent. Adult humans now mainly appear as friends and helpers in the neighborhood -- none of the newer characters are married or dating, and they have dropped basically all discussion of romantic relationships. The muppet monster children have parents, but they mainly appear in "mom" and/or "dad" roles, not in "husband and wife" roles. But yeah, now parents on the show (who are all monsters) function to talk about divorce, remarriage, or parenting (not any pre-children-having dating), and babies are the show are all monsters too, and the curriculum isn't really about "where they come from" but how a big-brother or big-sister preschooler should act around a baby. So I think they've fairly consciously removed "overt" heterosexual human adults from the Sesame world and are a lot more tightly-focused on children and the relationships children have, not the relationships the adults around them have. (The current human adults talk about their brothers and sisters and moms and dads, but they don't have romantic partners or children anymore.)
Anyway, when Sesame Street does a "two daddies" storyline, it'll be monsters, not humans or human-like muppets, because humans on Sesame Street no longer have sex lives in any way shape or form. Only the shaggy monsters are shagging. :)
I think a lot of us remember Sesame from our own childhoods when there WAS a lot of heterosexuality right up in your face with Maria and Luis and their baby and stuff, but if you watch it today, adult (human) romantic relationships have been almost entirely removed. It's weird to go back now and watch the Maria/Luis marriage stuff b/c it seems very foreign to the current show's vibe.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:38 AM on September 18, 2018 [16 favorites]
If you want to argue that more kids would have been helped by seeing the example than harmed by experiencing the adult backlash, well, okay. I can be one of the few whose needs are outweighed by the needs of the many. But that feels . . . shitty.
I mean I wouldn't go so far as to say "the pain you would have experienced would have been outweighed by the greater good", of course. But hear me out: homophobic adults will shriek homophobic murder at anything, even things that are not deliberately or at all coded as queer. Like the whole TeleTubbies kerfuffle some years back. Or the 3rd grade teacher who once told me (who knows why) that Sesame Street was a bad influence because Big Bird was gay. The Pink Menace is everywhere to these people, as we both well know.
It's fortunate your family didn't see anything queer about Sesame Street and it would have sucked royally if they cut you off from it had they believed there was any gay business going on in the show. But it's impossible to avoid setting off homophobic tripwires in people who are forever obsessed with and searching for the gay agenda in every nook and cranny.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 10:40 AM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
I mean I wouldn't go so far as to say "the pain you would have experienced would have been outweighed by the greater good", of course. But hear me out: homophobic adults will shriek homophobic murder at anything, even things that are not deliberately or at all coded as queer. Like the whole TeleTubbies kerfuffle some years back. Or the 3rd grade teacher who once told me (who knows why) that Sesame Street was a bad influence because Big Bird was gay. The Pink Menace is everywhere to these people, as we both well know.
It's fortunate your family didn't see anything queer about Sesame Street and it would have sucked royally if they cut you off from it had they believed there was any gay business going on in the show. But it's impossible to avoid setting off homophobic tripwires in people who are forever obsessed with and searching for the gay agenda in every nook and cranny.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 10:40 AM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
Gonzo is Pansexual.
posted by sammyo at 10:40 AM on September 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 10:40 AM on September 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
I do think Sesame Street would be better if instead of trying to retcon them into lovers it instead introduced actual LGBT characters, whether human or adult muppet.
It's not being retconned. The writer says in the interview that he thought of Bert and Ernie as a gay couple when he wrote for the show in the 80s.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 10:43 AM on September 18, 2018 [26 favorites]
It's not being retconned. The writer says in the interview that he thought of Bert and Ernie as a gay couple when he wrote for the show in the 80s.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 10:43 AM on September 18, 2018 [26 favorites]
Gonzo is Pansexual.
Bullshit! He only has eyes for Camilla!
posted by loquacious at 10:48 AM on September 18, 2018 [23 favorites]
Bullshit! He only has eyes for Camilla!
posted by loquacious at 10:48 AM on September 18, 2018 [23 favorites]
TBH, I think it's pretty clear that a lot of closeted or discreet-by-necessity GLBTQ writers have created GLBTQ characters without talking about it - Frog and Toad, of course; Jack and Guy in We Are All In The Dumps With Jack And Guy; many of the adult characters in John Bellairs stories; and there's a pretty plausible trans reading of the Matrix. It's not retconning; it's how writers write.
That's not all those characters are. You don't need to pay attention to whether Frog and Toad are friends or partners, or to wonder why neither Professor Childermass nor Uncle Jonathon nor Prospero nor Roger are ever described as having girlfriends or wives. The Matrix is about a lot of things; the trans reading is just one reading. But those readings are intended, not just read onto the story, and they're intended because the authors wrote them in, because even when GLBTQ people are not able to be out, we still live our lives.
posted by Frowner at 10:51 AM on September 18, 2018 [25 favorites]
That's not all those characters are. You don't need to pay attention to whether Frog and Toad are friends or partners, or to wonder why neither Professor Childermass nor Uncle Jonathon nor Prospero nor Roger are ever described as having girlfriends or wives. The Matrix is about a lot of things; the trans reading is just one reading. But those readings are intended, not just read onto the story, and they're intended because the authors wrote them in, because even when GLBTQ people are not able to be out, we still live our lives.
posted by Frowner at 10:51 AM on September 18, 2018 [25 favorites]
Also, I forgot to mention in response to "It would be trivial to include representations of human same-sex couples, with or without children, in one of the many crowd scenes or video packages." --
when Sesame does montages of "real people," they do typically include same-sex couples these days. The most recent Father's Day episode talks about how you might have a dad, or a step-dad, or even two dads (show appropriate real-human families affectionately interacting for each one). A letter-of-the-day segment for F shows children talking about all their different families, and one little girl says "I love my moms" and both her moms kiss her. (There are many more packages where there's no voiceover so you just see them hugging or holding hands or whatever.)
That said, I am very ready for a monster muppet with two gay dads (since only monsters are parents anymore!), and also I want the dads to be chaos muppets, because Sesame's a little heavy on the order muppets these days.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:52 AM on September 18, 2018 [14 favorites]
when Sesame does montages of "real people," they do typically include same-sex couples these days. The most recent Father's Day episode talks about how you might have a dad, or a step-dad, or even two dads (show appropriate real-human families affectionately interacting for each one). A letter-of-the-day segment for F shows children talking about all their different families, and one little girl says "I love my moms" and both her moms kiss her. (There are many more packages where there's no voiceover so you just see them hugging or holding hands or whatever.)
That said, I am very ready for a monster muppet with two gay dads (since only monsters are parents anymore!), and also I want the dads to be chaos muppets, because Sesame's a little heavy on the order muppets these days.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:52 AM on September 18, 2018 [14 favorites]
"A few years ago, much ado was made about one of the Teletubbies being gay. Cartoon characters, like puppets, do not have sex lives. They're not real."
Bert and Ernie always seemed to be kids, not grown ups.
And while certainly there are gay children, they normally don't live with their lovers (or have lovers at the age B&E seemed to be).
One of the reasons the show has resisted calls to make Bert and Ernie's sexuality canon (one way or the other) is that so many little kids think they're brothers. (It's also fairly clear, when you go back through the canon, that Ernie and Bert are children -- when they're in trouble they often have to go get a grown-up human to help them because they can't do grown-up things.)
The teletubbies are not even kids yet - they are toddlers, being taken care by the robot vacuum and the house. Maybe they are queer - but I always thought of them as just delightfully gender-independent.
As for Muppets: age is weird. Big Bird is clearly a child - in one of the movies, he even gets sent to Bird Fostercare. Snuffalupagus is a Mr., but lives with his mom, so maybe also a kid? But Grover has a job - lots of them (waiter, super-hero, etc.), and Kermit is a reporter so obviously an adult.
Bert and Ernie live alone, and are mostly human shaped (as opposed to Big Bird), so I always thought of them as adults (though a bit less wise than the human characters).
posted by jb at 10:53 AM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Bert and Ernie always seemed to be kids, not grown ups.
And while certainly there are gay children, they normally don't live with their lovers (or have lovers at the age B&E seemed to be).
One of the reasons the show has resisted calls to make Bert and Ernie's sexuality canon (one way or the other) is that so many little kids think they're brothers. (It's also fairly clear, when you go back through the canon, that Ernie and Bert are children -- when they're in trouble they often have to go get a grown-up human to help them because they can't do grown-up things.)
The teletubbies are not even kids yet - they are toddlers, being taken care by the robot vacuum and the house. Maybe they are queer - but I always thought of them as just delightfully gender-independent.
As for Muppets: age is weird. Big Bird is clearly a child - in one of the movies, he even gets sent to Bird Fostercare. Snuffalupagus is a Mr., but lives with his mom, so maybe also a kid? But Grover has a job - lots of them (waiter, super-hero, etc.), and Kermit is a reporter so obviously an adult.
Bert and Ernie live alone, and are mostly human shaped (as opposed to Big Bird), so I always thought of them as adults (though a bit less wise than the human characters).
posted by jb at 10:53 AM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
when Sesame does montages of "real people," they do typically include same-sex couples these days
Huh, that's great! (My kid is not yet five but apparently decided that she was beyond Sesame Street around the time of her third birthday ... so I haven't seen a new episode in practically two years.)
posted by uncleozzy at 10:55 AM on September 18, 2018
Huh, that's great! (My kid is not yet five but apparently decided that she was beyond Sesame Street around the time of her third birthday ... so I haven't seen a new episode in practically two years.)
posted by uncleozzy at 10:55 AM on September 18, 2018
It's also fairly clear, when you go back through the canon, that Ernie and Bert are children -- when they're in trouble they often have to go get a grown-up human to help them because they can't do grown-up things.
They also lived alone in their own apartment, read the newspaper (and not just the funnies), cooked dinner, and what not. So I'm not sure how "fairly clear" that is really. They read like adults to me. Bert and Ernie clearly defy normative expectations of what being an adult or a child means, and is another example of their defiance of the status quo. In this essay I will
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 10:55 AM on September 18, 2018 [35 favorites]
They also lived alone in their own apartment, read the newspaper (and not just the funnies), cooked dinner, and what not. So I'm not sure how "fairly clear" that is really. They read like adults to me. Bert and Ernie clearly defy normative expectations of what being an adult or a child means, and is another example of their defiance of the status quo. In this essay I will
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 10:55 AM on September 18, 2018 [35 favorites]
Loquacious -- please rock the skirts when you can.
I'm working on it. I do it around the house now in mixed company and thankfully my housemates reactions have been "What do you mean boy or girl clothes? You're just wearing clothes!"
I also have some stuff planned for outings and events, including a nice queerdo fancy tea party and some other fun relaxed stuff.
To be fair, almost all of the clothes I wear out are now technically femme or ambiguous anyway. Like the only things that are left that are actually masc branded clothes are my pants and shoes and maybe my rain hoody.
I've also mostly stopped caring what my neighbors think if they see me in the yard. They probably can barely tell that I'm wearing a long black skirt instead of pants.
posted by loquacious at 10:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'm working on it. I do it around the house now in mixed company and thankfully my housemates reactions have been "What do you mean boy or girl clothes? You're just wearing clothes!"
I also have some stuff planned for outings and events, including a nice queerdo fancy tea party and some other fun relaxed stuff.
To be fair, almost all of the clothes I wear out are now technically femme or ambiguous anyway. Like the only things that are left that are actually masc branded clothes are my pants and shoes and maybe my rain hoody.
I've also mostly stopped caring what my neighbors think if they see me in the yard. They probably can barely tell that I'm wearing a long black skirt instead of pants.
posted by loquacious at 10:56 AM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
TBH, I think it's pretty clear that a lot of closeted or discreet-by-necessity GLBTQ writers have created GLBTQ characters without talking about it - Frog and Toad, of course; Jack and Guy in We Are All In The Dumps With Jack And Guy; many of the adult characters in John Bellairs stories; and there's a pretty plausible trans reading of the Matrix. It's not retconning; it's how writers write.
Gore Vidal, interviewed in The Celluloid Closet:
"You got very good at projecting subtext without saying a word about what you were doing."
[...]
'Don't say anything to Heston.'"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:57 AM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Gore Vidal, interviewed in The Celluloid Closet:
"You got very good at projecting subtext without saying a word about what you were doing."
[...]
'Don't say anything to Heston.'"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:57 AM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
This article was sweet, and important, and enlightening, and taught me things about Muppet productions that I never knew before (it saddens me to learn that even on Sesame Street, the writers could feel like second-class contributors who didn't get to hang out with the stars).
It also ensured that I'll have "Caribbean Amphibian" stuck in my head for the rest of the day, so thanks a lot for that, I guess.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:05 AM on September 18, 2018
It also ensured that I'll have "Caribbean Amphibian" stuck in my head for the rest of the day, so thanks a lot for that, I guess.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:05 AM on September 18, 2018
Kermit is a reporter so obviously an adult.
Frog babies are tadpoles, so yeah Kermit is much closer to adult hood than most muppets. Lalalala but what about Muppet Babies lalala can't hear you!
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:23 AM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Frog babies are tadpoles, so yeah Kermit is much closer to adult hood than most muppets. Lalalala but what about Muppet Babies lalala can't hear you!
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:23 AM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Gonzo is Pansexual.
Bullshit! He only has eyes for Camilla!
Gonzo is pansexual and monogamous.
posted by solotoro at 11:32 AM on September 18, 2018 [17 favorites]
Bullshit! He only has eyes for Camilla!
Gonzo is pansexual and monogamous.
posted by solotoro at 11:32 AM on September 18, 2018 [17 favorites]
Gonzo is pansexual and monogamous.
Right, I thought of this right after I hit post. But I still don't know about that, he's been busted chasing other chickens around the stage on the Muppet Show more than a few times.
posted by loquacious at 11:37 AM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
Right, I thought of this right after I hit post. But I still don't know about that, he's been busted chasing other chickens around the stage on the Muppet Show more than a few times.
posted by loquacious at 11:37 AM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
Can we not do this thing of equating bi/pan/etc people with non-monogamy?
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:40 AM on September 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:40 AM on September 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
Of course Bert and Ernie are adults. They both occasionally take care of children in their families.
Bert has a brother named Bart, and occasionally takes care of his nephew, Brad.
Ernie sometimes takes care of his niece, Ernestine.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:46 AM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Bert has a brother named Bart, and occasionally takes care of his nephew, Brad.
Ernie sometimes takes care of his niece, Ernestine.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:46 AM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Bert and Ernie are clearly homoromantic asexuals.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:07 PM on September 18, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by elsietheeel at 12:07 PM on September 18, 2018 [9 favorites]
And Kermit has the delightful nephew Robin.
Representation matters. Never mind that my family most closely resembles Waldorf and Statler.
posted by wellred at 12:08 PM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Representation matters. Never mind that my family most closely resembles Waldorf and Statler.
posted by wellred at 12:08 PM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Can we not do this thing of equating bi/pan/etc people with non-monogamy?
Agreed, and not my statement or intent.
posted by loquacious at 12:09 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
Agreed, and not my statement or intent.
posted by loquacious at 12:09 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
it's just that at some point I saw - or I read in a book? I imagined? - an adult Bert taking care of a kid-Ernie
jb, you're not alone in that as when I was a kid I certainly saw them as having either an older brother / younger brother relationship (the crazy stuff Ernie pulls on Bert always reminds me of the kind of things I and my brother would do to each other) or an older Bert looking after a younger Ernie. As a kid, I never thought of their love for each other as a romantic love. Not that I have an issue with it either way and I think they do have an ambiguous enough of a relationship that people can freely interpret it anyway they like. FWIW, my partner's evangelical parents definitely saw Bert & Ernie as being gay and the show was largely forbidden or censored because of it. Though oddly the Muppet Show was allowed in their house (but not the Vincent Price or Alice Cooper episodes). Regardless, representation, whether it is gender or race, is absolutely critical for children to see especially when they are young.
That aside I liked this interview a lot. It is interesting to me how many fascinating and human stories that have come from the people who have worked in Henson created media. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that but I am always pleased to read or hear them.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:21 PM on September 18, 2018
jb, you're not alone in that as when I was a kid I certainly saw them as having either an older brother / younger brother relationship (the crazy stuff Ernie pulls on Bert always reminds me of the kind of things I and my brother would do to each other) or an older Bert looking after a younger Ernie. As a kid, I never thought of their love for each other as a romantic love. Not that I have an issue with it either way and I think they do have an ambiguous enough of a relationship that people can freely interpret it anyway they like. FWIW, my partner's evangelical parents definitely saw Bert & Ernie as being gay and the show was largely forbidden or censored because of it. Though oddly the Muppet Show was allowed in their house (but not the Vincent Price or Alice Cooper episodes). Regardless, representation, whether it is gender or race, is absolutely critical for children to see especially when they are young.
That aside I liked this interview a lot. It is interesting to me how many fascinating and human stories that have come from the people who have worked in Henson created media. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that but I am always pleased to read or hear them.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:21 PM on September 18, 2018
Heh. Relevant to the discussion at hand. Anthony Oliviera on Twitter just now:
I guess I'll just point out puppets (in entertainment, in therapy, etc) are bits of felt onto which we project human qualities and characteristics and that it is v interesting to me which human qualities and characteristics ppl decide are allowable ones.
I also think re: Bert/Ernie, "Puppets don't have an orientation" is an EXTREMELY HILARIOUS way to describe puppets when you consider their function for most of western theatrical history has been to be extremely horny.
Also you will then have to explain Miss Piggy.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:36 PM on September 18, 2018 [31 favorites]
I guess I'll just point out puppets (in entertainment, in therapy, etc) are bits of felt onto which we project human qualities and characteristics and that it is v interesting to me which human qualities and characteristics ppl decide are allowable ones.
I also think re: Bert/Ernie, "Puppets don't have an orientation" is an EXTREMELY HILARIOUS way to describe puppets when you consider their function for most of western theatrical history has been to be extremely horny.
Also you will then have to explain Miss Piggy.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:36 PM on September 18, 2018 [31 favorites]
As a small queer kid who watched a moderate amount of Sesame Street and an in-retrospect-kind-of-surprising-amount of syndicated out-of-order The Odd Couple reruns, I definitely read both Bert & Ernie and Felix & Oscar as couples. Being a small kid, my conception of "couple" didn't yet incorporate sex, and it would be years until I had access to words like "gay" or "queer" or "orientation," but it certainly seemed obvious to Small Me that they were partnered, and I never even thought to question it -- perhaps because I was still too young and inexperienced to know how such partnerships could be, and were, rejected by older kids and adults.
Also you will then have to explain Miss Piggy.
Miss Piggy is a magnificent force of nature beyond the poor limits of human reckoning. Like the gods of the ancient Greeks, she is to be appreciated, and perhaps appeased, but certainly not "explained."
posted by halation at 12:44 PM on September 18, 2018 [31 favorites]
Also you will then have to explain Miss Piggy.
Miss Piggy is a magnificent force of nature beyond the poor limits of human reckoning. Like the gods of the ancient Greeks, she is to be appreciated, and perhaps appeased, but certainly not "explained."
posted by halation at 12:44 PM on September 18, 2018 [31 favorites]
What a lovely (if occasionally heartbreaking) interview.
When I was actually watching Sesame Street as a kid, I don't think that relationship ever occurred to me. My mom was exclusively dating women at the time, I spent Sundays at a church overwhelmingly populated by non-cis/het people, and very rarely had a straight babysitter. The idea wouldn't have seemed at all strange, I think. But, I'm not sure it ever occurred to me that any muppets had romantic relationships with each other. I don't think I really registered that Bert and Ernie lived together to a greater extent than all the other muppets seemed to live together. I hope other kids were paying more attention than me and found the subtext inspiring.
posted by eotvos at 12:50 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
When I was actually watching Sesame Street as a kid, I don't think that relationship ever occurred to me. My mom was exclusively dating women at the time, I spent Sundays at a church overwhelmingly populated by non-cis/het people, and very rarely had a straight babysitter. The idea wouldn't have seemed at all strange, I think. But, I'm not sure it ever occurred to me that any muppets had romantic relationships with each other. I don't think I really registered that Bert and Ernie lived together to a greater extent than all the other muppets seemed to live together. I hope other kids were paying more attention than me and found the subtext inspiring.
posted by eotvos at 12:50 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Fuck the whole idea of a canon even existing and interpret it in a way that makes you feel more whole as a human being.
When I was a kid Bert and Ernie threw off "they are in a relationship" vibes and I also had to construct and imagine whole narratives out of thin air because no is writing trans and genderqueer folks into any kind of mass media.
So make it up however you want in whatever way that gets your through your life and fuck arguing with people about what the authors intent was.
posted by nikaspark at 1:06 PM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
When I was a kid Bert and Ernie threw off "they are in a relationship" vibes and I also had to construct and imagine whole narratives out of thin air because no is writing trans and genderqueer folks into any kind of mass media.
So make it up however you want in whatever way that gets your through your life and fuck arguing with people about what the authors intent was.
posted by nikaspark at 1:06 PM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
The “rumor” that they were gay has been going around forever. I always kind of liked that it showed gay people just being themselves. Like, sure, they were gay, but it wasn’t about them being gay. It was just about THEM. They’re just people. I’m glad it was confirmed, though I do wish it was official canon from the beginning.
posted by Weeping_angel at 1:15 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Weeping_angel at 1:15 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Sesame Workshop is backpedaling on Twitter, saying Bert and Ernie "do not have a sexual orientation."
posted by kelborel at 1:17 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by kelborel at 1:17 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Too late, Sesame Workshop, they are already Forever Gay in my mind and that bell can't be unrung
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 1:20 PM on September 18, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 1:20 PM on September 18, 2018 [9 favorites]
I feel like the whole point is that being gay isn't necessarily much to do with sex, and that Sesame Workshop isn't doing a great job of reading the room.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:28 PM on September 18, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 1:28 PM on September 18, 2018 [6 favorites]
Sesame Workshop is backpedaling on Twitter, saying Bert and Ernie "do not have a sexual orientation."
More than that, they're saying they do not have a sexual orientation because they are puppets, which makes one wonder about all of those other opposite-gender-paired parents in the Sesame and Muppet universes.
posted by Etrigan at 1:30 PM on September 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
More than that, they're saying they do not have a sexual orientation because they are puppets, which makes one wonder about all of those other opposite-gender-paired parents in the Sesame and Muppet universes.
posted by Etrigan at 1:30 PM on September 18, 2018 [12 favorites]
>It's also fairly clear, when you go back through the canon, that Ernie and Bert are children -- when they're in trouble they often have to go get a grown-up human to help them because they can't do grown-up things.
> They also lived alone in their own apartment, read the newspaper (and not just the funnies), cooked dinner, and what not.
These apparently contradictory pieces of evidence can be resolved by deducing that they are in their early 20s
posted by en forme de poire at 1:32 PM on September 18, 2018 [51 favorites]
> They also lived alone in their own apartment, read the newspaper (and not just the funnies), cooked dinner, and what not.
These apparently contradictory pieces of evidence can be resolved by deducing that they are in their early 20s
posted by en forme de poire at 1:32 PM on September 18, 2018 [51 favorites]
I wonder what it means that my very favorite couples of childhood were Bert and Ernie, and Frog and Toad.
And I grew up to be bi.
Both are such great examples of how you can love someone with a very different personality.
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:36 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
And I grew up to be bi.
Both are such great examples of how you can love someone with a very different personality.
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:36 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
For many people there's no need for a complete backstory on every character of every show..
For all those who think sexuality is so unimportant you can background it... SEXUALITY ≠ SEX! It codes for the way you move through the world, and who occupies your interest. Let's try a role reversal. Major sitcom with two leads, a presumably (but never defined!) straight woman and man. They live together, banter back and forth in what could be a flirty way, razz each other all the time, know everything about each other. Are they siblings? Lovers? Friendly roommates? The series goes on for 49 years, runs in 120 countries and is viewed by 6.2 million people on YouTube every week... but gee, who knows! The backstory's not important! We'll just leave their entire dynamic to speculation.
Straight America would never, ever let those two characters stay ambiguous.
Queerness isn't incidental, it's fundamental.
It doesn't have to be the story, but it always informs the reading.
posted by fritillary at 1:39 PM on September 18, 2018 [26 favorites]
For all those who think sexuality is so unimportant you can background it... SEXUALITY ≠ SEX! It codes for the way you move through the world, and who occupies your interest. Let's try a role reversal. Major sitcom with two leads, a presumably (but never defined!) straight woman and man. They live together, banter back and forth in what could be a flirty way, razz each other all the time, know everything about each other. Are they siblings? Lovers? Friendly roommates? The series goes on for 49 years, runs in 120 countries and is viewed by 6.2 million people on YouTube every week... but gee, who knows! The backstory's not important! We'll just leave their entire dynamic to speculation.
Straight America would never, ever let those two characters stay ambiguous.
Queerness isn't incidental, it's fundamental.
It doesn't have to be the story, but it always informs the reading.
posted by fritillary at 1:39 PM on September 18, 2018 [26 favorites]
ME: hey google guess what we're researching today
GOOGLE: what
ME: "is there canonical evidence that muppets fuck"
GOOGLE: don't you have work to do
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:39 PM on September 18, 2018 [35 favorites]
GOOGLE: what
ME: "is there canonical evidence that muppets fuck"
GOOGLE: don't you have work to do
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:39 PM on September 18, 2018 [35 favorites]
"is muppet christmas carol canon"
Because let me tell you Bob Cratchit was getting it.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:10 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
Because let me tell you Bob Cratchit was getting it.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:10 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
Sesame Street Muppets are generally considered to be the same age as the target for Sesame Street, about 3 or 4 to 5 or 6. I like seeing couples in different configurations so kids can see a variety of relationships. But 3 - 6 is pre-pubescent. At that age children are beginning to have a gender identity. Do they have a sexual orientation at that point?
This writer viewed them as a queer couple, okay. Having watched quite a bit of Sesame Street with little kids, I never saw them gay, but as close. I'm uncomfortable assigning sexual orientation to little children. I want kids to see that boys can be good friends with boys, or girls, etc., and that closeness is not limited to sexual intimacy. Other than a poke in the eye to homophobes, meh.
posted by theora55 at 2:11 PM on September 18, 2018
This writer viewed them as a queer couple, okay. Having watched quite a bit of Sesame Street with little kids, I never saw them gay, but as close. I'm uncomfortable assigning sexual orientation to little children. I want kids to see that boys can be good friends with boys, or girls, etc., and that closeness is not limited to sexual intimacy. Other than a poke in the eye to homophobes, meh.
posted by theora55 at 2:11 PM on September 18, 2018
I think some of Henson's pre-PBS work was a bit saucy. And a fair number of muppet gags were riffing on older gender-stereotype humor, such as the recently-on-metafilter Rita Moreno sketch.
While kids don't really associate that with sexual intercourse, heterosexual roles are a big part of children's media and children's play. To put on the radical queer hat for a moment, heterosexuality isn't just a sexual orientation, it's a socio-political system which defines such things as distribution of household labor and how men and women interact with each other socially. This is true even of Hays Code era material which was very prudish about showing anything that could be construed as "sex," while deeply supportive of heterosexual roles.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 2:15 PM on September 18, 2018 [20 favorites]
While kids don't really associate that with sexual intercourse, heterosexual roles are a big part of children's media and children's play. To put on the radical queer hat for a moment, heterosexuality isn't just a sexual orientation, it's a socio-political system which defines such things as distribution of household labor and how men and women interact with each other socially. This is true even of Hays Code era material which was very prudish about showing anything that could be construed as "sex," while deeply supportive of heterosexual roles.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 2:15 PM on September 18, 2018 [20 favorites]
Yep, that was a huge can of worms but it seems like you've provided an important point to talk about why this has all been a problem for queer people to not have many (or any) positive role models in media.
I just want to add to this another perspective as a hetero cis guy. My parents are also a hetero cis couple, but they had a good number of gay friends when I was growing up, and I remember one weekend when two guy friends of ours, a couple, stayed at our place. It was kind of a hot summer weekend I think and they were crashed out on a sleeping bag or something in our living room. I was, I dunno, 8 years old or so and I woke up early and walked out, and saw them there. I think they just wearing boxers under a sheet, and Alex had his arm around Alan, they were holding each other and sleeping away. I remember very, very well just kind of shrugging and being like, "oh hey they're still sleeping, guess I should be quiet" and then moving to turn on the TV 'cause, hey, it was cartoon time dude. It wasn't weird, sexual, or anything other than just kind of sweet and normal.
At the time it was absolutely no big deal. But now I realize how important that was for me, as a hetero person, that I had these guys in my life and I saw them as a loving couple and affectionate and it was just, you know, a normal thing for me. This experience (and a bunch other similar experiences) forever made it impossible to see my LGBTQ friends, family, and fellow citizens as anything but fellow humans loving in the most natural way. I'm incredibly thankful to my parents for raising me this way.
So all of this is just to say: it's not just important for LGBTQ kids to have these kinds of role models around when they are growing up, but it's super important for us hetero folks too. And there is nothing sexual or "forced" about experiencing a loving non-hetero couple even when they are being physically affectionate--on the contrary, it models healthy relationships. Kids know the difference. I remember!
posted by dubitable at 2:16 PM on September 18, 2018 [37 favorites]
I just want to add to this another perspective as a hetero cis guy. My parents are also a hetero cis couple, but they had a good number of gay friends when I was growing up, and I remember one weekend when two guy friends of ours, a couple, stayed at our place. It was kind of a hot summer weekend I think and they were crashed out on a sleeping bag or something in our living room. I was, I dunno, 8 years old or so and I woke up early and walked out, and saw them there. I think they just wearing boxers under a sheet, and Alex had his arm around Alan, they were holding each other and sleeping away. I remember very, very well just kind of shrugging and being like, "oh hey they're still sleeping, guess I should be quiet" and then moving to turn on the TV 'cause, hey, it was cartoon time dude. It wasn't weird, sexual, or anything other than just kind of sweet and normal.
At the time it was absolutely no big deal. But now I realize how important that was for me, as a hetero person, that I had these guys in my life and I saw them as a loving couple and affectionate and it was just, you know, a normal thing for me. This experience (and a bunch other similar experiences) forever made it impossible to see my LGBTQ friends, family, and fellow citizens as anything but fellow humans loving in the most natural way. I'm incredibly thankful to my parents for raising me this way.
So all of this is just to say: it's not just important for LGBTQ kids to have these kinds of role models around when they are growing up, but it's super important for us hetero folks too. And there is nothing sexual or "forced" about experiencing a loving non-hetero couple even when they are being physically affectionate--on the contrary, it models healthy relationships. Kids know the difference. I remember!
posted by dubitable at 2:16 PM on September 18, 2018 [37 favorites]
"is there canonical evidence that muppets fuck"
someone upthread mentioned teletubbies and i am here today to remind you all that there is in fact canonical evidence that teletubbies fuck, and this evidence is the telebabies. telefucking happened and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:11 PM on September 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
someone upthread mentioned teletubbies and i am here today to remind you all that there is in fact canonical evidence that teletubbies fuck, and this evidence is the telebabies. telefucking happened and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:11 PM on September 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
"is there canonical evidence that muppets fuck"
♫ ♫ ♫ Meet the Feebles! Meet the Feebles! We're not you're average... ordinary people! ♫ ♫ ♫
posted by JamesBay at 3:30 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
♫ ♫ ♫ Meet the Feebles! Meet the Feebles! We're not you're average... ordinary people! ♫ ♫ ♫
posted by JamesBay at 3:30 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
I like seeing couples in different configurations so kids can see a variety of relationships. But 3 - 6 is pre-pubescent. At that age children are beginning to have a gender identity. Do they have a sexual orientation at that point?
My desperate pre pubescent crushes on other girls in my class would suggest yes.
posted by Jilder at 3:40 PM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
My desperate pre pubescent crushes on other girls in my class would suggest yes.
posted by Jilder at 3:40 PM on September 18, 2018 [10 favorites]
The case for starting sex education in kindergarten
You’ll never hear an explicit reference to sex in a kindergarten class.In fact, the term for what’s being taught here is sexuality education rather than sex education. That’s because the goal is bigger than that, says Ineke van der Vlugt, an expert on youth sexual development for Rutgers WPF, the Dutch sexuality research institute behind the curriculum. It’s about having open, honest conversations about love and relationships.
By law, all primary school students in the Netherlands must receive some form of sexuality education. The system allows for flexibility in how it’s taught. But it must address certain core principles — among them, sexual diversity and sexual assertiveness. That means encouraging respect for all sexual preferences and helping students develop skills to protect against sexual coercion, intimidation and abuse. The underlying principle is straightforward: Sexual development is a normal process that all young people experience, and they have the right to frank, trustworthy information on the subject.
posted by en forme de poire at 3:44 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
You’ll never hear an explicit reference to sex in a kindergarten class.In fact, the term for what’s being taught here is sexuality education rather than sex education. That’s because the goal is bigger than that, says Ineke van der Vlugt, an expert on youth sexual development for Rutgers WPF, the Dutch sexuality research institute behind the curriculum. It’s about having open, honest conversations about love and relationships.
By law, all primary school students in the Netherlands must receive some form of sexuality education. The system allows for flexibility in how it’s taught. But it must address certain core principles — among them, sexual diversity and sexual assertiveness. That means encouraging respect for all sexual preferences and helping students develop skills to protect against sexual coercion, intimidation and abuse. The underlying principle is straightforward: Sexual development is a normal process that all young people experience, and they have the right to frank, trustworthy information on the subject.
posted by en forme de poire at 3:44 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
At that age children are beginning to have a gender identity. Do they have a sexual orientation at that point?
I got my first crush on somebody when I was 4, so I say "yes". Of course, I wasn't thinking of it in terms of "I want to have sex with this person", I just thought they were interesting and funny and so pretty and I just wanted to be around them and be bestest bestest friends. And maybe hug.
Looking back at it with my current experience and perspective, it was 100% a romantic-affectionate crush, and different from the other friendships I had.
posted by Lexica at 3:46 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
I got my first crush on somebody when I was 4, so I say "yes". Of course, I wasn't thinking of it in terms of "I want to have sex with this person", I just thought they were interesting and funny and so pretty and I just wanted to be around them and be bestest bestest friends. And maybe hug.
Looking back at it with my current experience and perspective, it was 100% a romantic-affectionate crush, and different from the other friendships I had.
posted by Lexica at 3:46 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
With the power of hindsight, I too believe that I recognize some of my preschool-age friendships with other girls as crushes. But whether or not it’s possible to know that now, I definitely know that by that age the other kids and I were playing house, playing games about running and chasing and kissing each other, and it was all mommies and daddies, and if the boy catches you and kisses you he’s your BOYFRIEND now, and I was absolutely soaking in heteronormativity. It would have done me no harm, and a great deal of good, to know that a house with two mommies could exist as one possible future I could imagine for myself. Yes, even in preschool.
posted by Stacey at 3:53 PM on September 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Stacey at 3:53 PM on September 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
When do we get to talk about how The Fraggles?
(ps, the comics that have been coming out lately are very good for kids and also make me smile cry - I highly suggest them. also, for those who missed it, like I did originally, the Labyrinth "sequel" is a comic and it's GREAT)
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 4:02 PM on September 18, 2018
(ps, the comics that have been coming out lately are very good for kids and also make me smile cry - I highly suggest them. also, for those who missed it, like I did originally, the Labyrinth "sequel" is a comic and it's GREAT)
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 4:02 PM on September 18, 2018
We see ourselves and laugh and move on.
That is so incredibly true. I definitely read Bert and Ernie as brothers, and I think it's because my younger sister and I were so wildly different as kids, and yet still loved each other. I was, and still am, Bert.
I think Oscar the Grouch is canonically a teenager and the oldest Muppet on Sesame Street, although I don't know whether that includes Kermit.
posted by chainsofreedom at 4:02 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
That is so incredibly true. I definitely read Bert and Ernie as brothers, and I think it's because my younger sister and I were so wildly different as kids, and yet still loved each other. I was, and still am, Bert.
I think Oscar the Grouch is canonically a teenager and the oldest Muppet on Sesame Street, although I don't know whether that includes Kermit.
posted by chainsofreedom at 4:02 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
I wonder how much cultural cachet Sesame Street has these days, anyway? I just asked my 16-year-old son if he was actually familiar with Ernie and Bert, and he said, "yeah, kinda." I know my younger son (9) is totally unfamiliar with the show.
One reason I suppose is because I'm too cheap to buy a cable plan that includes it. Instead, my kids watched YouTube when they were younger, and the specifically consumed Japanese-language content, such as Doraemon or Ultraman (they were both born in Japan and we spend part of the year there, where they also go to school).
So I'd be interested in hearing how many parents these days have kids who watch the Sesame Street show.
posted by JamesBay at 4:13 PM on September 18, 2018
One reason I suppose is because I'm too cheap to buy a cable plan that includes it. Instead, my kids watched YouTube when they were younger, and the specifically consumed Japanese-language content, such as Doraemon or Ultraman (they were both born in Japan and we spend part of the year there, where they also go to school).
So I'd be interested in hearing how many parents these days have kids who watch the Sesame Street show.
posted by JamesBay at 4:13 PM on September 18, 2018
One reason I suppose is because I'm too cheap to buy a cable plan that includes it.
This is heartbreaking to me for some reason; probably because all I ever watched when I was a kid was PBS. I know that HBO gets the first run episodes now, but don't they still end up on PBS eventually?
posted by elsietheeel at 4:18 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
This is heartbreaking to me for some reason; probably because all I ever watched when I was a kid was PBS. I know that HBO gets the first run episodes now, but don't they still end up on PBS eventually?
posted by elsietheeel at 4:18 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
(In fact, my first ever crush [that I can remember] was at age seven; it was Ben Affleck on Voyage of the Mimi, which I saw on PBS.)
posted by elsietheeel at 4:19 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by elsietheeel at 4:19 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
I thought He-Man and She-Ra were star crossed lovers. My Barbie often got in fights with Ken, then her and the non-Barbie Barbie would tie him up, taunt him, and go make out on the other side of my Barbie case/apartment/office thing. Ken and a Barbie would get in a fight at the creek then the other Barbies would throw him into the deep.
We make the stories we need, no matter what cannon says, and some of us grow up and get a chance to work with these properties that we've embedded into our hearts and we write them from where we saw them (I am not suggesting a BDSM bisexual maybe slightly abusive cuck Barbie animated show, but I'm not NOT suggesting that). Just because we thought Bert & Ernie were brothers or cousins or that Gozno is pansexual (this is obviously the truth) or that Big Bird is "obviously" a kid or so&so are "obviously" this or that - we've all made these universes in our heads and I like that the mainstream is allowing different perspectives to shape the characters. This is one thing we mean by diversity and representation - just having other histories in the room creates different types of stories, even if sometimes it's all in subtext and denied by corporate.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 4:27 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
We make the stories we need, no matter what cannon says, and some of us grow up and get a chance to work with these properties that we've embedded into our hearts and we write them from where we saw them (I am not suggesting a BDSM bisexual maybe slightly abusive cuck Barbie animated show, but I'm not NOT suggesting that). Just because we thought Bert & Ernie were brothers or cousins or that Gozno is pansexual (this is obviously the truth) or that Big Bird is "obviously" a kid or so&so are "obviously" this or that - we've all made these universes in our heads and I like that the mainstream is allowing different perspectives to shape the characters. This is one thing we mean by diversity and representation - just having other histories in the room creates different types of stories, even if sometimes it's all in subtext and denied by corporate.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 4:27 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
This is heartbreaking to me for some reason; probably because all I ever watched when I was a kid was PBS. I know that HBO gets the first run episodes now, but don't they still end up on PBS eventually?
Ah, sorry, I'm in Canada. We have CBC, which these days is sort of a bigger, blander version of PBS and NPR. Back when I was a kid, when CBC was so much better, we had "Casey from Mr. Dressup as our first non-binary puppet character."
posted by JamesBay at 4:29 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
Ah, sorry, I'm in Canada. We have CBC, which these days is sort of a bigger, blander version of PBS and NPR. Back when I was a kid, when CBC was so much better, we had "Casey from Mr. Dressup as our first non-binary puppet character."
posted by JamesBay at 4:29 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
At that age children are beginning to have a gender identity. Do they have a sexual orientation at that point?
Before I was old enough to be in junior kindergarten I'd already had two significant crushes that I still remember today. What I don't specifically remember, but my parents won't let me forget, is that I told them one morning, very seriously, that when they didn't need me anymore I was going to leave and marry [name redacted], one of the boys from my daycare. I am unclear whether he was in on this plan or not.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 4:40 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
Before I was old enough to be in junior kindergarten I'd already had two significant crushes that I still remember today. What I don't specifically remember, but my parents won't let me forget, is that I told them one morning, very seriously, that when they didn't need me anymore I was going to leave and marry [name redacted], one of the boys from my daycare. I am unclear whether he was in on this plan or not.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 4:40 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
Ah, sorry, I'm in Canada.
Interesting sidebar data point, since I remember watching both U.S. and Canadian versions of the show as a kid in Canada: the respective versions of Sesame Street had French and Spanish swapped for one another, along with some other tweaks:
Each year, the previous year's production is purchased from the Children's Television Workshop in New York. In Winnipeg, an editor removes content which is unnecessary in Canada, such as references to American coins, the U.S. flag, U.S. national holidays, etc. All segments containing Spanish are deleted along with alphabet segments because they use the American pronunciation (zee) of the letter Z. Programs are then assembled using the original U.S. material and Canadian content.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:46 PM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Interesting sidebar data point, since I remember watching both U.S. and Canadian versions of the show as a kid in Canada: the respective versions of Sesame Street had French and Spanish swapped for one another, along with some other tweaks:
Each year, the previous year's production is purchased from the Children's Television Workshop in New York. In Winnipeg, an editor removes content which is unnecessary in Canada, such as references to American coins, the U.S. flag, U.S. national holidays, etc. All segments containing Spanish are deleted along with alphabet segments because they use the American pronunciation (zee) of the letter Z. Programs are then assembled using the original U.S. material and Canadian content.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:46 PM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
My Barbie often got in fights with Ken, then her and the non-Barbie Barbie would tie him up, taunt him, and go make out on the other side of my Barbie case/apartment/office thing.
This is probably the single greatest use of Barbie and Ken dolls I've ever read.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:18 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is probably the single greatest use of Barbie and Ken dolls I've ever read.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:18 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
"The case for starting sex education in kindergarten"
A few states -- and many districts -- do require this. Mine did, and I helped pick the curriculum for it. The kindergarten stuff is mostly about body information, names of parts, saying NO, that you always have the right to say no no matter what, and "safe" adults to talk to if something makes you uncomfortable. We had a few parent concerns, but not any actual objections once they saw the curriculum. (A lot of the media frenzy is driven by people who do not actually have kids in schools, plus some media-trained super-evangelicals.) I think in my state explicit sexuality discussion begins in 3rd or 4th grade (but educators are required to be factual, direct, and inclusive if kids have questions younger). Our curricula for older students must include information about sex and relationships for LGBTQIA students or it does not meet state requirements. (When reviewing curricula I learned some stuff I hadn't known! Because I had pretty good sex ed in school, but it was the 80s and early 90s, they definitely didn't discuss "how to have safe gay sex" with us!)
"So I'd be interested in hearing how many parents these days have kids who watch the Sesame Street show."
"This is heartbreaking to me for some reason; probably because all I ever watched when I was a kid was PBS. I know that HBO gets the first run episodes now, but don't they still end up on PBS eventually?"
My kids pretty much exclusively watch PBS because of the lack of advertising-- YouTube is right out because of the terrifying and exploitative content combined with the increasingly aggressive ad model -- so yes, lots of Sesame Street.
PBS gets the episodes like six months after HBO, I think? We haven't really noticed the change. I was concerned when they announced it, but from our perspective as PBS watchers, there's been no change. I sometimes see news stories online about a particular episode with a special focus when they air on HBO and then they show up for us several months later, but it's not a big deal. (Actually it meant that when Julia arrived on PBS, she was already out in stores b/c she'd been on HBO already, and we were able to get a Julia doll.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:23 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
A few states -- and many districts -- do require this. Mine did, and I helped pick the curriculum for it. The kindergarten stuff is mostly about body information, names of parts, saying NO, that you always have the right to say no no matter what, and "safe" adults to talk to if something makes you uncomfortable. We had a few parent concerns, but not any actual objections once they saw the curriculum. (A lot of the media frenzy is driven by people who do not actually have kids in schools, plus some media-trained super-evangelicals.) I think in my state explicit sexuality discussion begins in 3rd or 4th grade (but educators are required to be factual, direct, and inclusive if kids have questions younger). Our curricula for older students must include information about sex and relationships for LGBTQIA students or it does not meet state requirements. (When reviewing curricula I learned some stuff I hadn't known! Because I had pretty good sex ed in school, but it was the 80s and early 90s, they definitely didn't discuss "how to have safe gay sex" with us!)
"So I'd be interested in hearing how many parents these days have kids who watch the Sesame Street show."
"This is heartbreaking to me for some reason; probably because all I ever watched when I was a kid was PBS. I know that HBO gets the first run episodes now, but don't they still end up on PBS eventually?"
My kids pretty much exclusively watch PBS because of the lack of advertising-- YouTube is right out because of the terrifying and exploitative content combined with the increasingly aggressive ad model -- so yes, lots of Sesame Street.
PBS gets the episodes like six months after HBO, I think? We haven't really noticed the change. I was concerned when they announced it, but from our perspective as PBS watchers, there's been no change. I sometimes see news stories online about a particular episode with a special focus when they air on HBO and then they show up for us several months later, but it's not a big deal. (Actually it meant that when Julia arrived on PBS, she was already out in stores b/c she'd been on HBO already, and we were able to get a Julia doll.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:23 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
To be clear, we monitor our kids' YouTube consumption (well not so much at all with a 16-year-old). It's basic competent parenting.
Adblocking helps on desktop, and it's also possible to carefully lock down a YouTube account with parental controls. And then just ensure your kids are watching YouTube where you can keep an eye on them.
It is weird to watch my kids watching "cable television" (i.e., any television that comes out of a cable box) with all of its dumb, insipid ads.
posted by JamesBay at 5:36 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Adblocking helps on desktop, and it's also possible to carefully lock down a YouTube account with parental controls. And then just ensure your kids are watching YouTube where you can keep an eye on them.
It is weird to watch my kids watching "cable television" (i.e., any television that comes out of a cable box) with all of its dumb, insipid ads.
posted by JamesBay at 5:36 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
"is there canonical evidence that muppets fuck"
I couldn't get far into it but didn't the Muppet show that came out a few years ago strongly imply that at least Kermit was sexually active with Miss Piggy. I seem to remember some sexual humour in the little bit of the show I watched.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:46 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
I couldn't get far into it but didn't the Muppet show that came out a few years ago strongly imply that at least Kermit was sexually active with Miss Piggy. I seem to remember some sexual humour in the little bit of the show I watched.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:46 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
YouTube is right out because of the terrifying and exploitative content combined with the increasingly aggressive ad model -- so yes, lots of Sesame Street.
Yes this. I used to have a workaround for my daughter, where I made a Google account that set her age at the bare legal minimum for being on the internet, which she would use for logging in to watch YouTube. That worked for like a week. Then those creepy Elsa and Spiderman videos started seeping in. So now we watch YouTube together not intermittently but rather every second she's on it, which on the plus side encouraged us to do anything else together when possible.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:50 PM on September 18, 2018
Yes this. I used to have a workaround for my daughter, where I made a Google account that set her age at the bare legal minimum for being on the internet, which she would use for logging in to watch YouTube. That worked for like a week. Then those creepy Elsa and Spiderman videos started seeping in. So now we watch YouTube together not intermittently but rather every second she's on it, which on the plus side encouraged us to do anything else together when possible.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:50 PM on September 18, 2018
God, I wish I'd seen textual queer relationships as a kid, but I love this so much. Literal tears, several times today.
posted by hollyholly at 6:17 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by hollyholly at 6:17 PM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
But 3 - 6 is pre-pubescent. At that age children are beginning to have a gender identity. Do they have a sexual orientation at that point?
I was definitely having at least pre-crushes on girls by age 7 or 8, if not that early. But, so, here's the thing. Let's say you don't figure out any interest in anybody in any fashion until you're 13. You then slot those feelings into this idea of human relationships that you've been creating for the last 13 years. If that doesn't include people in stable long-term relationships whose orientation matches yours? That's a huge problem. And that starts with what you learned as a small child.
It doesn't need to be deep, in-depth explorations of these sorts of things. Just a depiction that this is exactly as ordinary as a man and a woman being together would be. Including it continuing to be entirely appropriate for such characters to talk about being best friends, etc, and otherwise the relationship being generally a non-event aside from using appropriate terminology for the other party and so on. It just needs to be normal. So many of the reactions to this imply straight people thinking that same-sex relationships aren't normal, and that's what's so deeply upsetting. This should be such a boringly routine idea.
posted by Sequence at 6:25 PM on September 18, 2018 [16 favorites]
I was definitely having at least pre-crushes on girls by age 7 or 8, if not that early. But, so, here's the thing. Let's say you don't figure out any interest in anybody in any fashion until you're 13. You then slot those feelings into this idea of human relationships that you've been creating for the last 13 years. If that doesn't include people in stable long-term relationships whose orientation matches yours? That's a huge problem. And that starts with what you learned as a small child.
It doesn't need to be deep, in-depth explorations of these sorts of things. Just a depiction that this is exactly as ordinary as a man and a woman being together would be. Including it continuing to be entirely appropriate for such characters to talk about being best friends, etc, and otherwise the relationship being generally a non-event aside from using appropriate terminology for the other party and so on. It just needs to be normal. So many of the reactions to this imply straight people thinking that same-sex relationships aren't normal, and that's what's so deeply upsetting. This should be such a boringly routine idea.
posted by Sequence at 6:25 PM on September 18, 2018 [16 favorites]
I enjoy how the notion that Ernie & Bert could be gay serves so many purposes.
It neatly exposes all the straight self-described allies who still, after all these years, think being gay is, at it's root, all about sex, and the other stuff is just shoes and midcentury decor with a flourish, and the ones who think that "sexualizing" children with this sex (puppets having parents and siblings is, of course, not sex-related). It gives every coolest-post-gay-gay-person-in-the-room an opportunity to loudly demonstrate that they've never read Barthes and to tell us that we were mistaken in our personal experience of observing Ernie & Bert and transforming their subtexts into something warm and optimistic in an era when the whole notion that you, as a little boy, could look forward to some kind of a relationship with another like yourself, and that you could take, from that sense that people like you do indeed belong in the world, some strength when you're really gonna need it, for when you've just turned twelve and the country around you has voted in the guy whose gonna sit around at public events and guffaw at Bob Hope's sniggering AIDS jokes with Nancy and the rest of his genocidal cabal.
Of course it was never overt, because the past is a hellhole for anyone with different instincts and basic human dignity, and still, some of us took the yawning silence foisted on us by the rules of the hellhole and recognized ourselves in the realm of fiction despite that playbook. I was Oliver Hardy in that dynamic, the mannered Jack Benny to the more sensible Rochester, an indeterminate Felix or Oscar, the Laverne, and the Skipper, though I thought maybe, on some level, I was at least a little Gilligan.
I was the Ernie in my first two relationships, and then I was Lou Zealand on my own for twenty years in my monastic agnostic period before another puppet appeared in my life, this time with an even smaller puppet in tow.
"Joe-B," my little puppet asked me one day as we rolled through the endless assortment of dreadful dayglo stupidity on the Roku in search of a little lazy Sunday morning diversion on the projector screen. "Can we watch—"
"No Nature Cat, hon."
"But why!" Instant pouty face, but she is unaware that the forty-eight years of studious faggotry and Sebastian-Cabot-style uncling I had under my belt made me entirely immune to such attacks. I mentally raise my Lynda Carter bracelets, and the pouts go pew-pew in a glamorous richochet.
"That cat gives me a detached retina from eye-rolling. How about Sesame Street?"
The pout turns to a slight sneer.
"I don't like Sesame Street."
"Not even Ernie and Bert?"
"No. They just act like you and daddy and I have that already," she said. I paused the Roku roll.
"Which one am I?"
"Bert."
Well, dang. I loved my Ernie years, but I suppose synthesizers are my bottlecap collection, and my gearhead obsession for elderly French automobiles is as good a pigeon fixation as anything, and hell if can't rock a pair of saddle shoes. Yeah, it's okay. I'm fifty now—I sold my Miata, I'm teaching myself to play the bowed psaltery, and I knit at campfires. Being the Bert ain't bad.
"How 'bout Mr. Rogers?"
"Okay. Can we watch the one with the opera?"
Oh honey. They all have an opera.
"Sure. Do I remind you of Mr. Rogers at all?"
"No."
"Why?"
"You're too fat."
I make a little mental note to embarrass her horribly when her prom date arrives in about ten years or so, but let it go.
The world keeps turning, and she will have her own experience of the media she consumes, as I did, though I hope whatever she needs to see in her media narrative is not so buried in the subtext, but if she needs to find the kind of person she'll be soon hidden in the margins of what's out there, a secret as small and personal to her as what was thrown off the Tallahatchie bridge, she's free to imagine herself into the world that makes sense to her.
posted by sonascope at 6:27 PM on September 18, 2018 [32 favorites]
It neatly exposes all the straight self-described allies who still, after all these years, think being gay is, at it's root, all about sex, and the other stuff is just shoes and midcentury decor with a flourish, and the ones who think that "sexualizing" children with this sex (puppets having parents and siblings is, of course, not sex-related). It gives every coolest-post-gay-gay-person-in-the-room an opportunity to loudly demonstrate that they've never read Barthes and to tell us that we were mistaken in our personal experience of observing Ernie & Bert and transforming their subtexts into something warm and optimistic in an era when the whole notion that you, as a little boy, could look forward to some kind of a relationship with another like yourself, and that you could take, from that sense that people like you do indeed belong in the world, some strength when you're really gonna need it, for when you've just turned twelve and the country around you has voted in the guy whose gonna sit around at public events and guffaw at Bob Hope's sniggering AIDS jokes with Nancy and the rest of his genocidal cabal.
Of course it was never overt, because the past is a hellhole for anyone with different instincts and basic human dignity, and still, some of us took the yawning silence foisted on us by the rules of the hellhole and recognized ourselves in the realm of fiction despite that playbook. I was Oliver Hardy in that dynamic, the mannered Jack Benny to the more sensible Rochester, an indeterminate Felix or Oscar, the Laverne, and the Skipper, though I thought maybe, on some level, I was at least a little Gilligan.
I was the Ernie in my first two relationships, and then I was Lou Zealand on my own for twenty years in my monastic agnostic period before another puppet appeared in my life, this time with an even smaller puppet in tow.
"Joe-B," my little puppet asked me one day as we rolled through the endless assortment of dreadful dayglo stupidity on the Roku in search of a little lazy Sunday morning diversion on the projector screen. "Can we watch—"
"No Nature Cat, hon."
"But why!" Instant pouty face, but she is unaware that the forty-eight years of studious faggotry and Sebastian-Cabot-style uncling I had under my belt made me entirely immune to such attacks. I mentally raise my Lynda Carter bracelets, and the pouts go pew-pew in a glamorous richochet.
"That cat gives me a detached retina from eye-rolling. How about Sesame Street?"
The pout turns to a slight sneer.
"I don't like Sesame Street."
"Not even Ernie and Bert?"
"No. They just act like you and daddy and I have that already," she said. I paused the Roku roll.
"Which one am I?"
"Bert."
Well, dang. I loved my Ernie years, but I suppose synthesizers are my bottlecap collection, and my gearhead obsession for elderly French automobiles is as good a pigeon fixation as anything, and hell if can't rock a pair of saddle shoes. Yeah, it's okay. I'm fifty now—I sold my Miata, I'm teaching myself to play the bowed psaltery, and I knit at campfires. Being the Bert ain't bad.
"How 'bout Mr. Rogers?"
"Okay. Can we watch the one with the opera?"
Oh honey. They all have an opera.
"Sure. Do I remind you of Mr. Rogers at all?"
"No."
"Why?"
"You're too fat."
I make a little mental note to embarrass her horribly when her prom date arrives in about ten years or so, but let it go.
The world keeps turning, and she will have her own experience of the media she consumes, as I did, though I hope whatever she needs to see in her media narrative is not so buried in the subtext, but if she needs to find the kind of person she'll be soon hidden in the margins of what's out there, a secret as small and personal to her as what was thrown off the Tallahatchie bridge, she's free to imagine herself into the world that makes sense to her.
posted by sonascope at 6:27 PM on September 18, 2018 [32 favorites]
re: Sesame Street in Canada
My parents (I was born in 86) bought a TV specifically so that we could watch Sesame Street. Hard to think that it has that kind of cachet today.
posted by quaking fajita at 6:27 PM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
My parents (I was born in 86) bought a TV specifically so that we could watch Sesame Street. Hard to think that it has that kind of cachet today.
posted by quaking fajita at 6:27 PM on September 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
It neatly exposes all the straight self-described allies who still, after all these years, think being gay is, at it's root, all about sex
Yes. WTF straight people?!
posted by medusa at 7:08 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
Yes. WTF straight people?!
posted by medusa at 7:08 PM on September 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
Weird. On CNN Saltzman says they're gay.
FTFY. Reread.
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 7:16 PM on September 18, 2018
FTFY. Reread.
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 7:16 PM on September 18, 2018
When I was a kid we would joke (in what now seems obviously homophobic in the unquestioning fashion of those times) about how obviously gay Bert and Ernie were. I'm not sure any of us knew what "gay" really meant but we were sure that they were, whatever it meant in terms of the details.
At that age children are beginning to have a gender identity. Do they have a sexual orientation at that point?
I am sure it varies considerably, but I definitely did.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:40 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
At that age children are beginning to have a gender identity. Do they have a sexual orientation at that point?
I am sure it varies considerably, but I definitely did.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:40 PM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
I’m also amused by the mentions in this thread (and in my non-mefi life, as well) of the idea that letting the subtext that E&B might be a couple be more overt is somehow bringing adult themes to children...but giving kids an infant doll in a stroller somehow isn’t. How does that work?
posted by sonascope at 7:42 PM on September 18, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by sonascope at 7:42 PM on September 18, 2018 [15 favorites]
and then I was Lou Zealand on my own for twenty years
One of my dearest friends used the name Lew Zealand on the BBS where we met 23+ years ago. And that just adds to the reasons that I adore you, sonascope.
And even if you're "too fat", you still remind me of Mr. Rogers.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:55 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
One of my dearest friends used the name Lew Zealand on the BBS where we met 23+ years ago. And that just adds to the reasons that I adore you, sonascope.
And even if you're "too fat", you still remind me of Mr. Rogers.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:55 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
there is in fact canonical evidence that teletubbies fuck, and this evidence is the telebabies. telefucking happened and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
Long live the New Felt
Seriously that one teletubby has a teevee in its belly, do the math
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:16 AM on September 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
Long live the New Felt
Seriously that one teletubby has a teevee in its belly, do the math
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:16 AM on September 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
Ordinarily I'm getting pretty critical of "of course those characters were written as LGBTQ" through interviews without the corresponding labor invested in developing that on the page or screen, but whatever I guess.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:24 AM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:24 AM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
I wish you would teach me how to do this too!
In all seriousness, I do not speculate about people's sex lives because:
1. I know that it would embarrass, hurt or offend most people to think that others amused themselves by speculating about what they did with their partners;
2. Speculation about people' sexual practices in our society is pretty much exclusively used to fetishize people or to cut them down. My social circle is mostly people who are already fetishized and cut down by society, so I have no wish to continue the tradition;
3. Speculation of this nature is nearly always based on ignorance and stereotype - you only need to consider how hilariously inaccurate most straight people's ideas about GLBTQ people are for one thing, and for another it's often on the order of "lol one partner is very large and one is very small that means..." or "lol they fight a lot I bet it's foreplay";
And 4, you just don't have the data. If there's one thing that being around humans for many years has taught me, no amount of random observation of personalities or habits tells you any damn thing about what people do sexually.
At this point, many years of habit mean that I really don't think about people's sex lives unless I personally have a plausible expectation of being involved in them.
posted by Frowner at 8:41 AM on September 19, 2018 [9 favorites]
In all seriousness, I do not speculate about people's sex lives because:
1. I know that it would embarrass, hurt or offend most people to think that others amused themselves by speculating about what they did with their partners;
2. Speculation about people' sexual practices in our society is pretty much exclusively used to fetishize people or to cut them down. My social circle is mostly people who are already fetishized and cut down by society, so I have no wish to continue the tradition;
3. Speculation of this nature is nearly always based on ignorance and stereotype - you only need to consider how hilariously inaccurate most straight people's ideas about GLBTQ people are for one thing, and for another it's often on the order of "lol one partner is very large and one is very small that means..." or "lol they fight a lot I bet it's foreplay";
And 4, you just don't have the data. If there's one thing that being around humans for many years has taught me, no amount of random observation of personalities or habits tells you any damn thing about what people do sexually.
At this point, many years of habit mean that I really don't think about people's sex lives unless I personally have a plausible expectation of being involved in them.
posted by Frowner at 8:41 AM on September 19, 2018 [9 favorites]
I really don't know what you mean, GenderNullPoibterException. They were thought of as gay by the creator...not explicitly developed that way for the show.
posted by agregoli at 8:42 AM on September 19, 2018
posted by agregoli at 8:42 AM on September 19, 2018
I think it's so indicative of the internet and our current media that the article states that Mark Saltzman, one of many writers for Sesame Street, and who didn't join until several years into its run, based their relationship on his and his partner's relationship. So that when he was writing for them, he viewed them through the lens of his relationship, which happened to be gay. When any of the many, many others wrote for Bert and Ernie, they could have viewed it through the lens of their siblings, children, pets, hetero relationship, what have you. But the internet takes this pull-quote and determines that this means that Ernie and Bert are definitively a gay couple.
Having said all that, the Sesame Workshop statement confuses and saddens me. It's fine if they don't want to define Bert and Ernie's relationship that way, but to say that it's because they're puppets, they have no sexual orientation. Guess what? Elmo has a Mom and a Dad, Baby Bear has a Mom and a Dad, the Count has a girlfriend, so that response is inaccurate at best. Back in 1969, Sesame Street faced backlash for having an integrated cast and their response was, "Deal with it." Today, their response is unless they're cisgender heterosexuals, our characters have no sexual identity.
posted by cottoncandybeard at 9:03 AM on September 19, 2018 [9 favorites]
Having said all that, the Sesame Workshop statement confuses and saddens me. It's fine if they don't want to define Bert and Ernie's relationship that way, but to say that it's because they're puppets, they have no sexual orientation. Guess what? Elmo has a Mom and a Dad, Baby Bear has a Mom and a Dad, the Count has a girlfriend, so that response is inaccurate at best. Back in 1969, Sesame Street faced backlash for having an integrated cast and their response was, "Deal with it." Today, their response is unless they're cisgender heterosexuals, our characters have no sexual identity.
posted by cottoncandybeard at 9:03 AM on September 19, 2018 [9 favorites]
They were thought of as gay by the creator...not explicitly developed that way for the show.
Mark Saltzman didn't create the characters, he was a writer who started working for the show 15 years after Bert and Ernie were first introduced.
Puppeteer Frank Oz, just yesterday, has specifically said that the characters aren't gay: "I created Bert. I know what and who he is." He also said "When a character is created to be queer it is indeed important that the character be known as such. It is also important when a character who was not created queer, be accepted as such."
posted by Umami Dearest at 9:04 AM on September 19, 2018
Mark Saltzman didn't create the characters, he was a writer who started working for the show 15 years after Bert and Ernie were first introduced.
Puppeteer Frank Oz, just yesterday, has specifically said that the characters aren't gay: "I created Bert. I know what and who he is." He also said "When a character is created to be queer it is indeed important that the character be known as such. It is also important when a character who was not created queer, be accepted as such."
posted by Umami Dearest at 9:04 AM on September 19, 2018
"It is also important when a character who was not created queer, be accepted as such."
This is bullshit, and it is deadly, and Frank Oz should know better.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:41 AM on September 19, 2018
This is bullshit, and it is deadly, and Frank Oz should know better.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:41 AM on September 19, 2018
It's become something of a thing in the last decade years for creatives to make statements about how a character was/could be interpreted as LGBTQ safely off-screen. Some recent examples include Donald Glover and Jonathan Kasdan (Solo), Tessa Thompson and possibly now Goldblum (Thor Ragnarok), Mark Hamill (The Force Awakens), Idina Menzel (Frozen), James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy 2), and possibly a few others I don't have on the tip of my fingers right now. I suppose that's a nice thing to throw into the "making of" apocrypha, and it's a big step forward from the knee-jerk denial of previous decades.
Fandom loves to talk about "word of god," but I'm critically interested in the "hand(s) of god." What did "god" actually create using the hundreds, thousands, or even the millions of dollars in labor necessary to bring a media product to the audience? That's the bottom line when I'm critical of representation. (If I'm picking on Disney, it's because they spent last week with a crew of over a hundred doing location shoots a block from my home, also they're getting really obnoxious about this.)
I don't want to pick apart the subtext of any of the films cited above here in this thread. I'm just pointing out that revelations of writer-room thoughts about characters who are ambiguous on screen seem to be a dime a dozen these days.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:44 AM on September 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
Fandom loves to talk about "word of god," but I'm critically interested in the "hand(s) of god." What did "god" actually create using the hundreds, thousands, or even the millions of dollars in labor necessary to bring a media product to the audience? That's the bottom line when I'm critical of representation. (If I'm picking on Disney, it's because they spent last week with a crew of over a hundred doing location shoots a block from my home, also they're getting really obnoxious about this.)
I don't want to pick apart the subtext of any of the films cited above here in this thread. I'm just pointing out that revelations of writer-room thoughts about characters who are ambiguous on screen seem to be a dime a dozen these days.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:44 AM on September 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
Well, I think that this gets into a complicated thing, because characters like Bert and Ernie don't have a single creator. They're characters that are, at this point, collectively created by a number of people whose image of them is influenced and shaped by the perceptions and choices made by other people over the course of the characters' history. This is a show that has been on the air for fifty years, written and performed by different people over that time, and different people's interpretations of the characters have informed the way that they are created and performed.
When there is no Word of God to say what a character "really" is--and I agree, Saltzman quietly writing Bert and Ernie based out of his own life as a gay person isn't the same thing as the characters textually being gay--I think there's a tendency to get very excited about the statements of any one person involved as being "authoritative" truth. But you know, personally I tend to prefer an "author is dead" approach, but that approach gets even more important when there is no single Author.
A character might not be initially created queer, but then later writers might take that character up and add dimensions to the personality such that the character becomes queer both in the minds of the cultural acceptance of the character and also in the text. (For example, you might look at the history of characters like Deadpool--definitely not originally envisioned as queer, and yet later developed as pansexual in ways that are.... pretty enduring and visible in the text.) Particularly given the tendency for queer stories and icons to be inaccessible or invisible to many queer people who are hungry for them, especially young people, there's a long history of people substituting "well, I can read this as a story that resonates for me" for stories that are actually for them.
I'm not particularly wedded to any special interpretation of Bert and Ernie--I frankly can't recall what I thought about them as a child--but I certainly raise my eyebrows at people who insist that their own extra-textual interpretation of a character is the only one, when the textual representation doesn't canonicize that interpretation. Bert and Ernie are simultaneously a pair of characters with a particular affection for many queer people--and who lend themselves well to this particular interpretation--and also a pair of characters who are not a textual, canonical example of queer representation because the show itself does not acknowledge this reading. They can't substitute for true representation without a textual creative decision to commit to that representation. And that matters, too.
It's just that so many queer folks are so hungry for that representation that they particularly resent being told they can't have the crumbs of the interpretation, and frankly, I am sympathetic to that, too. Feed the hunger, and the subtext becomes so much less important to cling to.
posted by sciatrix at 9:46 AM on September 19, 2018 [10 favorites]
When there is no Word of God to say what a character "really" is--and I agree, Saltzman quietly writing Bert and Ernie based out of his own life as a gay person isn't the same thing as the characters textually being gay--I think there's a tendency to get very excited about the statements of any one person involved as being "authoritative" truth. But you know, personally I tend to prefer an "author is dead" approach, but that approach gets even more important when there is no single Author.
A character might not be initially created queer, but then later writers might take that character up and add dimensions to the personality such that the character becomes queer both in the minds of the cultural acceptance of the character and also in the text. (For example, you might look at the history of characters like Deadpool--definitely not originally envisioned as queer, and yet later developed as pansexual in ways that are.... pretty enduring and visible in the text.) Particularly given the tendency for queer stories and icons to be inaccessible or invisible to many queer people who are hungry for them, especially young people, there's a long history of people substituting "well, I can read this as a story that resonates for me" for stories that are actually for them.
I'm not particularly wedded to any special interpretation of Bert and Ernie--I frankly can't recall what I thought about them as a child--but I certainly raise my eyebrows at people who insist that their own extra-textual interpretation of a character is the only one, when the textual representation doesn't canonicize that interpretation. Bert and Ernie are simultaneously a pair of characters with a particular affection for many queer people--and who lend themselves well to this particular interpretation--and also a pair of characters who are not a textual, canonical example of queer representation because the show itself does not acknowledge this reading. They can't substitute for true representation without a textual creative decision to commit to that representation. And that matters, too.
It's just that so many queer folks are so hungry for that representation that they particularly resent being told they can't have the crumbs of the interpretation, and frankly, I am sympathetic to that, too. Feed the hunger, and the subtext becomes so much less important to cling to.
posted by sciatrix at 9:46 AM on September 19, 2018 [10 favorites]
And to be clear, I'm much more critical of the producers in those cases than any of the individual writers or actors I mentioned.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:50 AM on September 19, 2018
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:50 AM on September 19, 2018
There's probably more I could add about how this is so intensely heightened in this era of infinite reboots and adaptations, and GenderNullPointerException, it's notable that four out of the five properties you mention are adaptations, sequels, or extensions of existing franchises. It's hard to produce rebooted or continuous stories that are really inclusive because the originals are constrained by the prejudices of their day. So what do you do? You either introduce new, diverse characters who aren't so beloved (and are therefore vulnerable to being wiped out of the narrative by future retellings), or you try to update the original by changing and reinterpreting some of the original crew. People who had different original interpretations and attachments to those interpretations usually respond to this with fury, so creators then have to fight through that response.
And all those continuations of the old stories, the ones that left so many of us hungry to start... well, they compete with more diverse newer stories, and they highlight the hunger and the achiness because they look so out of place otherwise. Sometimes, as with sex-swaps like Ocean's 8 or Ghostbusters or race-swaps like (arguably) Hamilton, these continuations can and do feed that hunger for some groups of people. But more often, writers try to half-ass introducing diversity and don't commit--either because their new, diverse characters don't endure and are jettisoned in favor of the original faves, or because their reading of a more diverse aspect of an original character is noncommittal and eventually limited to innuendo.
posted by sciatrix at 9:52 AM on September 19, 2018
And all those continuations of the old stories, the ones that left so many of us hungry to start... well, they compete with more diverse newer stories, and they highlight the hunger and the achiness because they look so out of place otherwise. Sometimes, as with sex-swaps like Ocean's 8 or Ghostbusters or race-swaps like (arguably) Hamilton, these continuations can and do feed that hunger for some groups of people. But more often, writers try to half-ass introducing diversity and don't commit--either because their new, diverse characters don't endure and are jettisoned in favor of the original faves, or because their reading of a more diverse aspect of an original character is noncommittal and eventually limited to innuendo.
posted by sciatrix at 9:52 AM on September 19, 2018
Some recent examples include Donald Glover and Jonathan Kasdan (Solo), Tessa Thompson and possibly now Goldblum (Thor Ragnarok), Mark Hamill (The Force Awakens), Idina Menzel (Frozen), James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy 2)
I don't think it's appropriate to hold actors responsible for the texts not explicitly identifying characters as queer whom they happen to think of that way. This is one of these kneejerk fannish things that just...exhausts me, because, yes, in the present day, for a person with the most creative control like Gunn to say "sure, there were gay characters, that character was gay just off screen" is cowardly and absolutely should be pushed back against, but actors? Are there people who don't understand that actors usually don't have that kind of control over scripts, and that by conceiving of and performing the character as queer (and then saying so in public!) they are doing all that any but the absolute most famous and powerful of their profession can do?
posted by praemunire at 10:04 AM on September 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
I don't think it's appropriate to hold actors responsible for the texts not explicitly identifying characters as queer whom they happen to think of that way. This is one of these kneejerk fannish things that just...exhausts me, because, yes, in the present day, for a person with the most creative control like Gunn to say "sure, there were gay characters, that character was gay just off screen" is cowardly and absolutely should be pushed back against, but actors? Are there people who don't understand that actors usually don't have that kind of control over scripts, and that by conceiving of and performing the character as queer (and then saying so in public!) they are doing all that any but the absolute most famous and powerful of their profession can do?
posted by praemunire at 10:04 AM on September 19, 2018 [4 favorites]
praemunire: I agree, as explained by my followup post. The point isn't to call out those individuals, although news media hasn't been shy about promoting those statements as "word of God," drawing attention away from analysis of what we actually got with our ticket. The point is to call out the systemic gatekeeping between the creative ideas and the screen.
Also why mainstream sources use these statements to deliver headlines like "characters are gay!" Behind the scenes statements are sometimes used to say we're being too critical of ambiguity and subtext.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 10:28 AM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Also why mainstream sources use these statements to deliver headlines like "characters are gay!" Behind the scenes statements are sometimes used to say we're being too critical of ambiguity and subtext.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 10:28 AM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Couldn't we (ah, I mean, our kids) just use our imaginations, and interpret Bert and Ernie how we see fit?
As a parent I would never have told my kids "Bert and Ernie are NOT gay! They're just friends!" or "You see, Ernie and Bert ARE gay!"
(If my kid was "gender non-conforming", which is not unusual at age 5 or 6, I would definitely be seeking out examples to help reassure them)
It's up to the audience to interpret the characters. And a bunch of other "signals" at home are going to influence how are children think about gender.
I would have enjoyed watching them on Sesame Street while sitting on a couch with my kids, though.
posted by JamesBay at 10:53 AM on September 19, 2018
As a parent I would never have told my kids "Bert and Ernie are NOT gay! They're just friends!" or "You see, Ernie and Bert ARE gay!"
(If my kid was "gender non-conforming", which is not unusual at age 5 or 6, I would definitely be seeking out examples to help reassure them)
It's up to the audience to interpret the characters. And a bunch of other "signals" at home are going to influence how are children think about gender.
I would have enjoyed watching them on Sesame Street while sitting on a couch with my kids, though.
posted by JamesBay at 10:53 AM on September 19, 2018
When I was a kid, back in the long long ago, I had a black and white television set, and I was positive that Ernie was black and Bert was white. And so, as a silly little black boy, I very much identified with Ernie, who despite his ethnicity was unburdened with poverty, crime or some other mark of shame. Plus he and Ernie helped teach me that interracial friendships were great!!
Of course Ernie's not really black at all, but orange, and those lessons I learned were due to the ambiguity of black and white tv and my imagination. So I agree with James Bay that Ernie and Bert's ambiguous relationship can be a strength, in that whether they are gay, or roommates, or siblings or asexual, any child can hopefully identify with and learn from them. On the other hand, Sesame Street is sadly passing on an opportunity to make a statement that it's okay for two little boys to be gay together, and good friends, and happy, and role models to all children. And puppets.
posted by xigxag at 11:19 AM on September 19, 2018 [22 favorites]
Of course Ernie's not really black at all, but orange, and those lessons I learned were due to the ambiguity of black and white tv and my imagination. So I agree with James Bay that Ernie and Bert's ambiguous relationship can be a strength, in that whether they are gay, or roommates, or siblings or asexual, any child can hopefully identify with and learn from them. On the other hand, Sesame Street is sadly passing on an opportunity to make a statement that it's okay for two little boys to be gay together, and good friends, and happy, and role models to all children. And puppets.
posted by xigxag at 11:19 AM on September 19, 2018 [22 favorites]
Of course Ernie's not really black at all, but orange, and those lessons I learned were due to the ambiguity of black and white tv and my imagination.
For the first several years of Sesame Street's existence, they did not refer to any character's color (by which I mean their literal color, not race or ethnicity). They didn't want kids watching on black-and-white TV sets to think they were missing out on anything. Imagine the empathy it took for someone to realize that not saying something could be more inclusive.
posted by Etrigan at 12:09 PM on September 19, 2018 [15 favorites]
For the first several years of Sesame Street's existence, they did not refer to any character's color (by which I mean their literal color, not race or ethnicity). They didn't want kids watching on black-and-white TV sets to think they were missing out on anything. Imagine the empathy it took for someone to realize that not saying something could be more inclusive.
posted by Etrigan at 12:09 PM on September 19, 2018 [15 favorites]
My fandom queen Jenny Nicholson just wrote an oped for Playboy(!!!) about Muppet Sexuality. What universe am I living in right now?
posted by muddgirl at 3:42 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 3:42 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Charlotte Clymer talks about what “Drops of Jupiter” meant to her, and what Bert and Ernie can mean.
posted by Etrigan at 6:08 PM on September 19, 2018
posted by Etrigan at 6:08 PM on September 19, 2018
"Teenage Dirtbag" is about a girl loving another girl who loves a shitass dude. forever and ever amen (which is also a line in a very nice George Strait song).
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 6:50 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 6:50 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Oh man, my (male, gay) roommate was so disappointed when he found out Wheatus was a dude.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:54 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by uncleozzy at 6:54 PM on September 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Gonzo is Pansexual.
Bullshit! He only has eyes for Camilla!
...so is gonzo a rooster? no? so actually way way beyond pan, well into, cough cough, well u know...
posted by sammyo at 7:36 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Bullshit! He only has eyes for Camilla!
...so is gonzo a rooster? no? so actually way way beyond pan, well into, cough cough, well u know...
posted by sammyo at 7:36 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Gonzo is a non-Terran muppet, his people are from space, so he is absolutely pansexual.
posted by FritoKAL at 1:44 PM on September 24, 2018
posted by FritoKAL at 1:44 PM on September 24, 2018
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posted by seanmpuckett at 7:13 AM on September 18, 2018 [4 favorites]