Bert and Ernie Urged to Marry
August 12, 2011
AN ONLINE petition by homosexual activists to convince PBS to marry Sesame Street’s famous characters Bert and Ernie (yes, folks this is no joke) has attracted so much attention that Sesame Street Workshop has issued a statement on the pair’s sexual orientation, declaring in a clever evasion that Bert and Ernie are not male at all. They have male voices, male names, male clothing and male mannerisms, but Bert and Ernie could just as well be Gladys and Ethel. And, even if they were Gladys and Ethel they would possess no capacity to love the opposite sex. According to SeattlePi.com, the statement says:
Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics, they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.
Before you dissolve into laughter, note what a victory this is for those who wish to acclimate children to perversity and confusion. Sesame Street has declared that Bert and Ernie are just puppets. In other words, the world of child play has no connection, no link whatsoever, to reality. When you see a male character he is not necessarily male. That’s all in your mind. Sesame Street was not communicating to children after all, but just playing along with them. Ert and Bernie, I mean, Bert and Ernie, are nothing more than sacks of cloth. Imagination is all a pointless misinterpretation of the obvious.
— Comments —
Eric writes:
Considering that Bert and Ernie are aimed at four-year-olds, don’t you think it appropriate that they be sort of sexless? Children have no understanding of sexual relationships at that age. They do register people as boy-people and girl-people but those designations have little meaning at that age.
Laura writes:
I’m not saying Bert and Ernie should have love interests. They are boy-men of ambiguous age. They shouldn’t be getting married to anyone because they are childlike and, yes, because it’s not really important to their story. (Heterosexuals haven’t been campaigning to see Bert and Ernie married to women.) But that’s not the same as saying they’re sexless. And, it’s not true that children that age have no understanding of sexual relationships. They have no understanding of sex. But they are highly conscious of the differences between the sexes and interested in the dynamic between them. Snow White is a woman and the prince is a man. The dwarves couldn’t possibly be girls without changing the meaning of Snow White. Fairy tales are filled with stories of marriage and romance. The sexes are highly differentiated in children’s literature, much more so than in adult literature, and that meets the sensibility of children, as well as the effort by adults to transmit traditions and build identity to conform to nature.
