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SESAME STREET, NY, August 21, 2011 (MadeitUP)-- The following statement was issued earlier today by representatives of the Childrens Television Workshop:
The producers of Sesame Street are pleased to announce that longtime companions Bert and Ernie were married over the weekend in a small civil ceremony at City Hall in Niagara Falls, New York. Big Bird acted as Best Bird, Kermit served as Muppet of Honor, and Miss Piggy caught the bouquet after gang-tackling 30 other contenders. Bert and Ernie plan a brief honeymoon on the Canadian side before returning to work for the start of the next season of the show.
None of that happened, of course. In the current political climate, we cannot acknowledge that any of our characters are, or even might be, gay. The effects on funding for our show, all of our other projects and indeed all of public broadcasting in the US would be immediately jeopardized by such a possibility. So we are reduced to making non-denial-denial statements such as:
- Bert and Ernie are not sexual beings. They are puppets. This theory is belied by the fact that, for more than 40 years, the Muppet Universe has featured at least two other characters, voiced and performed in this case by the same actors as Bert and Ernie, one of whom has been shamelessly throwing herself at the other in an overtly sexual manner. Worse, that conduct is inter-species sex, of the very kind that the Om NOM NOM crowd promises us will be the consequence of allowing adults of the same sex to marry. But, since Kermit and Piggy have a heterosexual inter-species relationship, it is allowed, even considered comedic by the same trolls who would pitch a fit at the joining of America's Muppety Sweethearts.
- Bert and Ernie cannot marry because they are not adults. We, um, Me call Bullcookiemonsters on that. When have you EVER seen an adult supervising them in their apartment, much less their bedroom? These characters have always operated at a higher-than-the-target-audience level- much higher than, say, Big Bird, who is clearly defined as being a child. Moreover, in their bigscreen adventure Follow That Bird, Our Heroes go searching for their avian friend by flying an airplane. It is plainly denialist to suggest that characters are capable of operating the controls of an aircraft while not being able to operate the controls of.... but no. We cannot go there.
-Sesame Street viewers are too young to understand. The boys do not intend to make a big deal of this at all, much less in the context of the show. We reject the notion of limits on our viewership, however. Our program has always played to different levels of sophistication and comprehension; it is one of the features that made CTW offerings stand apart from, and ultimately outlive, 1960s smarmy talk-down offerings like Romper Room. We trust our audience members, child and adult alike, the former being supervised and counseled by the latter, so that all will be able to cope with our depictions of major life changes. We all did just that when Mr. Hooper died, and again when Jim Henson did. And we have no plans to take our characters into overt themes of sexuality of any kind, despite this proposal that came in for a giant buzzy thing on the remake of the Electric Company....
So, in short, we can neither confirm nor deny the events of the past weekend. But if they were gay, that'd be okay.
The producers of Sesame Street are pleased to announce that longtime companions Bert and Ernie were married over the weekend in a small civil ceremony at City Hall in Niagara Falls, New York. Big Bird acted as Best Bird, Kermit served as Muppet of Honor, and Miss Piggy caught the bouquet after gang-tackling 30 other contenders. Bert and Ernie plan a brief honeymoon on the Canadian side before returning to work for the start of the next season of the show.
None of that happened, of course. In the current political climate, we cannot acknowledge that any of our characters are, or even might be, gay. The effects on funding for our show, all of our other projects and indeed all of public broadcasting in the US would be immediately jeopardized by such a possibility. So we are reduced to making non-denial-denial statements such as:
- Bert and Ernie are not sexual beings. They are puppets. This theory is belied by the fact that, for more than 40 years, the Muppet Universe has featured at least two other characters, voiced and performed in this case by the same actors as Bert and Ernie, one of whom has been shamelessly throwing herself at the other in an overtly sexual manner. Worse, that conduct is inter-species sex, of the very kind that the Om NOM NOM crowd promises us will be the consequence of allowing adults of the same sex to marry. But, since Kermit and Piggy have a heterosexual inter-species relationship, it is allowed, even considered comedic by the same trolls who would pitch a fit at the joining of America's Muppety Sweethearts.
- Bert and Ernie cannot marry because they are not adults. We, um, Me call Bullcookiemonsters on that. When have you EVER seen an adult supervising them in their apartment, much less their bedroom? These characters have always operated at a higher-than-the-target-audience level- much higher than, say, Big Bird, who is clearly defined as being a child. Moreover, in their bigscreen adventure Follow That Bird, Our Heroes go searching for their avian friend by flying an airplane. It is plainly denialist to suggest that characters are capable of operating the controls of an aircraft while not being able to operate the controls of.... but no. We cannot go there.
-Sesame Street viewers are too young to understand. The boys do not intend to make a big deal of this at all, much less in the context of the show. We reject the notion of limits on our viewership, however. Our program has always played to different levels of sophistication and comprehension; it is one of the features that made CTW offerings stand apart from, and ultimately outlive, 1960s smarmy talk-down offerings like Romper Room. We trust our audience members, child and adult alike, the former being supervised and counseled by the latter, so that all will be able to cope with our depictions of major life changes. We all did just that when Mr. Hooper died, and again when Jim Henson did. And we have no plans to take our characters into overt themes of sexuality of any kind, despite this proposal that came in for a giant buzzy thing on the remake of the Electric Company....
So, in short, we can neither confirm nor deny the events of the past weekend. But if they were gay, that'd be okay.
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