Yet conservative groups like One Million Moms will invariably call out these shows for "pushing an agenda," keeping LGBTQ inclusion in children's entertainment in the middle of the culture wars.īy repeatedly insisting their characters are not gay, like Liberace publicists of yesteryear, Sesame Workshop has inadvertently fallen into these culture wars of politicizing LGBTQ inclusion. Thankfully, more and more kids' shows are introducing explicitly queer characters an upcoming gay character in Disney's Jungle Cruise, despite the casting of a straight actor in the role, is also a sign of change. However, Disney films are also filled with gender-nonconforming characters who have been interpreted as queer by critics and internet memes alike, and some have seen an allegory for the AIDS crisis in Beauty and the Beast. The absence of any clearly gay characters in the Disney canon is a testament to how studios are still reluctant to introduce obviously LGBTQ characters to young viewers - even though new research indicates a "sizable" number of children who identify as queer long before reaching adolescence.
Likewise, The Odd Couple's Oscar and Felix - a precursor to Bert and Ernie - may never have marched hand-in-hand in a Pride parade, yet they were notable for their queer subtext in the closeted '70s era.Ĭhildren's entertainment is arguably still in a hangover from the Production Code era. For example, actor Charlton Heston denied there was a gay subtext in Ben-Hur, despite critical interpretation to the contrary. Their identities were coded - and not always confirmed after-the-fact by the actors who portrayed them. Yet as lovers of film history and Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet know, there were no characters "created queer" in Hollywood for decades, thanks to the Production Code's antigay censorship guidelines. I know what and who he is," stated Oz, in a declaration of his authority over the contributions of the gay Sesame Street writer. Oz's insistence that characters "be accepted" as straight taps into a tension as old as time: Who has authority over art, its creator or its consumers? What complicates this matter is the existence of multiple creators. "It's important for characters to be explicitly declared queer, because the mainstream will code them straight by default," added To which Oz replied, "It is also important when a character who was not created queer, be accepted as such."
"When you’re young and feel like the world doesn’t want you, seeing someone like you on your favorite show. In fact, it's a truism that GLAAD has preached since its inception: Visibility is important, particularly for members of groups who never see themselves represented on television - let alone children's entertainment. Oz's dismissive "They're not, of course" and "Does it really matter?" prompted a pushback from Twitter users, who had to defend why the queer identity of children's puppets - or at least the plausibility of it - does indeed matter. But why that question? Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There's much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness. Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay. Rather than saying the pair "do not have a sexual orientation," he explicitly stated that they were not gay. And Frank Oz, the puppeteer who originated the performances of Bert, also weighed in on Twitter. Saltzman himself said his comments were misinterpreted in the uproar. "Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation," the statement continued. “They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves.” "As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends,” Sesame Workshop, the organization that produces Sesame Street, insisted on Twitter, in a statement almost identical to one released in 2011 after a petition circulated urging the PBS children's show to let the puppets come out. And, as has happened in the past when media speculation on the pair's relationship makes headlines, there came swift denials. The interview generated a flurry of press attention, even in mainstream outlets. I didn’t have any other way to contextualize them," Saltzman said, adding, "I don’t think I’d know how else to write them, but as a loving couple."
“I always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert and Ernie, they were. Saltzman wrote for the children's show in the 1980s and '90s. Former Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman nearly broke the internet this week after he told Queerty that Bert and Ernie were "a loving couple" that was based on his own relationship with his partner Arnold Glassman, who died in 2003.