We have all watched the show ‘Sesame Street’ on T.V when we were children. The show has been on since 1969 and has been a part of our childhood ever since then.
The beloved characters of the show has taught us everything from alphabet, math, lessons about friendship and life.
From the Cookie Monster, Elmo or Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, these wonderful characters provided entertainment and as well as life lessons so that we would grow up to be amazing people. We don’t forget these good friends.
Sesame Street has always been brilliant in being both entertaining and not being overboard with the messages it was trying to provide
Mark Saltzman, the Sesame Street writer, recently had an interview with Queerty and in he has confirmed a question that has been pondering in everyone’s mind for quite some time now. The question is about none other than Bert and Ernie.
Answering the question of ‘were you thinking of Bert & Ernie as a gay couple’ during the interview Mark said,
“I remember one time that a column from The San Francisco Chronicle, a preschooler in the city turned to mom and asked “are Bert & Ernie lovers?” And that, coming from a preschooler was fun. And that got passed around, and everyone had their chuckle and went back to it.
“And I always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert & Ernie, they were. I didn’t have any other way to contextualise them. The other thing was, more than one person referred to Arnie [Mark’s partner] & I as “Bert & Ernie.”
“I don’t think I’d know how else to write them, but as a loving couple.”
Mark revealed Bert and Ernie were a reflection of his relationship with his partner Arnie.
He continued to say,
“Yeah. Because how else? That’s what I had in my life, a Bert & Ernie relationship. How could it not permeate? The things that would tick off Arnie would be the things that would tick off Bert. How could it not?”
“I will say that I would never have said to the head writer, “oh, I’m writing this, this is my partner and me.” But those two, Snuffleupagus, because he’s the sort of clinically depressed Muppet…you had characters that appealed to a gay audience.”
Mark says that it wasn’t easy to writing them into the show but he ‘didn’t have any other way to contextualise them’, so his life with Arnie was simply and naturally reflected in the characters’ lives.
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