Sesame Street

I don't know about the American version, but the Dutch version regularly showed them sharing a bed. If that's not queer coding, I don't know what is.

Nowadays, maybe, but fifty years ago, when Ernie and Bert were created, the coding wasn't there for a majority of people. That connotation came later.

Not that they ever did. Every Ernie and Bert sketch I can think of had them in two different beds.

You're right, they DID have two separate beds. That is an easy detail to forget, though, perhaps that is where the connotations come from.

Two men sharing and apartment (sharing a bedroom I think? Been ages since I last saw the show) just screams of 'Confirmed Bachelor'. Which has been a thing for well over a hundred years by now. Even if the coding itself didn't exist in media at the time, it did in the 90s and has affected how we've precieved the characters for years.

And, in my opinion, something like this is really just an opportunity in disguise for the series to address it in a respectful and informed way. They've tackled hard topics dozens of times before this.

Edited by InkDagger on Sep 22nd 2018 at 7:09:58 AM

If they're going to address a topic like that it should be with a human character, not a Muppet. It wouldn't work with a Muppet because, like I said, even the nominally adult Muppets on Sesame Street are essentially children. The humans are the adult presence.

I honestly don't see why they can't have a same-gender relationship even if they are children. Children have opposite-gender relationships in media all the time. If I don't they should come out, it's because they always seemed more like friends or brothers to me, but that's just my feelings and I probably have a biased perspective, being straight.

There was a survey done not too long ago I think, where actual children who watched the show were asked what Bert and Ernie's relationship was. The kids overwhelming answered that they were father and son or brothers. I don't know if suddenly having them be gay is the best way to go for representation when the child audience already thinks they're relatives.

I disagree, those objections are never made when heterosexual muppets have a relationship. Grover has a relationship, as does Kermit. And plenty of other shows have relationships between straight children.

The full context of that interview seems to be more that the writer wanted to affirm that they are a gay couple and was told no, but he still wrote their relationship based off the relationship he had with his own partner. The individual was also a writer on the show for a number of years, but not the only writer and certainly not the creator of the two. So the memetic subtext is confirmed, but that is far from confirmation that everyone on the show operated with that as accepted fact. If anything, this affirms that the production team as a whole sees them as a platonic friendship.

Truth is Sesame Street is targeted towards very young children and romantic relationships in any form are extremely rare, if almost non-existent. While they do go on to explore social concerns, their primary focus is more on scholastic curriculum.

Kermit and Miss Piggy have been explicitly romantic for as long as I can remember. Bert and Ernie were never presented that way on the show. If children think that they're father and son, telling them they're in a romantic relationship could be confusing and harmful.

Edited by Zanthype on Sep 23rd 2018 at 8:02:23 AM

Kids probably think they're father and son because Ernie's kind of childlike.

That's The Muppets. Sesame Street is a different production entirely, The Muppets are now owned and operated solely by Disney and while the Jim Henson Company still works with Sesame Street they are their own separate company. Of course, the Sesame Street characters making cameos in Muppet movies does complicate that line a little, but the point is that Sesame Street shouldn't be confused with all Muppet/Jim Henson productions.

Has the Jim Henson Company collaborated with Children’s Television Workshop since they sold them the Sesame Street characters in 2001?

Looking at the Wikipedia page for The Jim Henson Company it says in the television section that the 2001 deal was properly dividing the rights for the different characters, with Kermit explicitly not part of Sesame Street anymore, but JHC still works with the Sesame Workshop with the "muppet" characters and many employees work between both those companies and the Muppets at Disney's Muppet Studios.

Caroll Spinney (Big Bird & Oscar) is retiring this week.

I mean, he hasn't really been a full-time performer for a while now, but still...

Having said that, I'm glad he was able to get everything in order while he's still alive, and Big Bird and Oscar are definitely in good hands.

Anne Hathaway could star in the upcoming Sesame Street movie.

@Redmess, The Dutch version is known as Sesastratt. I remember seeing it from Sesame Street 20 Years, And Still Counting.

Edited by BuddyBoy600alt on Apr 7th 2019 at 2:15:11 PM

HBO Max is the new home of this series starting in 2020.

There seems to be some confusion over this. HBO has owned it since 2016 IIRC, with new episodes premiering on PBS sometime after HBO. That's still happening, there's just been some changes to the deal regarding HBO Max, I think.

The article says that all episodes will move to HBO Max, which will be its new home starting in 2020 with Season 51. And HBO's run will end after Season 50.

Edited by Andrei_Bondoc on Oct 7th 2019 at 8:06:06 PM

Ah, I understand. Sorry, I've just seen a lot of people not seeming to realise they weren't just bought by HBO.

That's okay. It happens.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this.

Does that mean EVERY episode? Looks like the Wicked Witch episode will no longer be lost media (wonder if they'll keep the Superman,Batman, and Archie short cartoon segments).

Well, the show turns 50 today!