LGBT culture

The New Yorker cover, in conjunction with the two historic SCOTUS gay rights rulings of 2013 referenced the rumor of Bert and Ernie's relationship.

LGBT culture describes the social paradigm by which lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals sometimes identify. Celebrated in modern culture as "LGBT pride" (sometimes abbreviated simply as "pride") is the celebration and promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a social group. An added I for intersex, A for asexuality, aromanticism, agender, and other LGBT identities that start with A, Q standing both for questioning and queer, or + to encompass spectrums of sexuality and gender can produce an elongated initialisms of LGBTQIA+ or other variations thereof. In the United States, LGBT Pride Month takes place annually in June (coinciding with the commemoration of the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969). Several different flags symbolize LGBT Pride, with the most common and internationally recognized flag being the six-colored rainbow (ironically displayed in "straight" lines).

Sesame Street

Two daddies on Sesame Street.

Producers of Sesame Street have promoted that "Sesame Street has always stood for inclusion and acceptance." The show has denied speculation over the nature of Ernie and Bert's relationship and, like many children's shows, avoided featuring any same-sex couples or references to non-traditional relationships due to social and political pressure throughout the 20th century and early decade of the 21st century. A subtle departure from this appears in the song "We All Sing with the Same Voice," which contains the lyric, "I've got one daddy, I've got two."

Sesame Workshop and Sesame Street have celebrated LGBT Pride Month annually on their social media channels since 2017 with various Pride posts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook throughout the month of June. These posts often use the imagery of the rainbow or pride flag along with messages supporting families and love of "all shapes, sizes and colors."

Also, as early as 2017, the Sesame Street series has shown occasional examples of same-sex couples. In the Elmo's World segment "Father's Day," Smartie demonstrates the different types of fathers one can have, at one point showing a child with two dads. A recurring film segment entitled "F is for Family" (First: Episode 4731) shows a montage of all kinds of families, including a boy with two mothers. In a 2018 video for Sesame Street in Communities, Abby's blended family observes a wall of photos of different families. Rudy acknowledges a picture of a male, homosexual couple, by counting the two daddies in the photo. A 2020 Big Bird's Road Trip segment featured in Episode 5011 showed a girl from Georgia sharing a picture of her two mommies. Foley of The Sesame Street Podcast with Foley & Friends mentions having two dads in the "Nature" and "Family" episodes.

Episode 5132 introduced Nina's brother Dave along with his husband Frank and their daughter Mia. When Rudy notices that all the families on Sesame Street look "so different," Frank explains that "there are all different kinds of families, but what makes us a family is that we love each other." Later in the episode, Kelsea Ballerini performs a song about different kinds of families, which includes a pair of married women.

In June 2021, Bob McGrath (Bob) and Emilio Delgado (Luis) appeared on the Bay Rustin Center for Social Justice's "Virtual Pride 21" event to perform "Welcome!/¡Bienvenidos!" from Sesame Street. McGrath said of the appearance: "This month is a time of celebration and joy for everyone, where we can commemorate all the different types of love and identities that exist in the world. Through this song, I want to let all my friends under the rainbow know that mi casa is tu casa! So to the entire LGBTQ+ community: 'my house is your house' and I’m 'happy I can see you.' 'The world’s a sunshine warming place full of lovin’ when you know the way to live.' So 'hold out your hand' open your hearts and love people for who they are."

June 23, 2017“Sesame Street is proud to support families of all shapes, sizes, and colors. ❤️”

June 23, 2018“Love comes in many colors. Love one another with every shade in your heart.”

June 24, 2018“Today we send our love to families of all different shapes, sizes, and colors. ❤️”

June 22, 2018“Love is kindness, love is happiness, love is respecting differences. Sending lots of love to all of our friends! ❤️”

June 17, 2019“Love is kindness, love is happiness, love is respecting differences. Happy Pride Month! 🌈”

June 26, 2019“Happy #PrideMonth from your friends on Sesame Street!”

June 30, 2019“Today we send our love to families of all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Happy #Pride!”

June 11, 2020“On our street, we accept all, we love all, and we respect all. Happy #PrideMonth!”

June 24, 2020“Today and every day, we send our love to families of all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Happy #PrideMonth!”

June 26, 2020“On our Street, love is love. #PrideMonth❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤🤍🤎”

June 28, 2020Sésamo: “In Sesame, love is love ❤️ #PrideMonth”

June 2, 2022“Everyone is always welcome on Sesame Street. This month, and every month, we want to uplift and celebrate the LGBTQIA+ members of our community. From our family to yours, happy #PrideMonth!”

June 7, 2022“Our street is home to friendship. Our street is home to love. Our street is home to everyone. Happy #PrideMonth! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️”

The Muppets

Miss Piggy's "snout-out to the gays" in Out.

"We're friends of Dorothy!"

Miss Piggy gave a "snout-out to the gays" in the November 2011 issue of Out, a popular gay and lesbian lifestyle magazine; Piggy shared ten very brief, personal notes on her connection with the gay community. Additionally, on November 17, 2011, while in New York City to promote The Muppets, Miss Piggy walked the red carpet at the OUT100, an event honoring LGBT visibility, held at the Skylight SOHO.

Miss Piggy also appeared as a guest at a fundraising event in December 2011 for The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization, focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. In a pre-recorded message Piggy remarked "On behalf of moi's self, Kermit, and all of the Muppets — we support you... we believe everyone deserves kindness, respect and decent treatment."

Piggy, herself being a drag performance, has been called a gay icon; the pig commented on the fact in a 2014 interview stating: "I love being anybody's icon. I'm an icon to all who will have me."

Although not acknowledged on screen, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph described her character Darci from Muppets Tonight as an angry rocker lesbian.

When Sam the Eagle (as the gate guard) asks The Cowardly Lion to identify himself before the gates of The Emerald City, the Lion includes The Scarecrow, Tin Thing, and Toto in his response, "We're friends of Dorothy!" (a euphemism for a gay man).

The 2015 television series The Muppets featured several acknowledgements of LGBT culture. In "Pig Girls Don't Cry," Fozzie comments on his dating efforts stating that "when your online profile says 'passionate bear looking for love,' you get a lot of wrong responses." He quickly corrects his wording and says "Uh, not 'wrong.' Uh, just wrong for me." Later, in the episode "Hostile Makeover," Pepe comments that he too gets the feels for Josh Groban and when everyone else acts shocked by the statement, Pepe comments, "What? He's a handsome man, and gender is fluid."

In June 2020, Kermit the Frog appeared on "Can't Cancel Pride," an online special (due to in-person celebrations being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic) which supported diverse LGBT organizations.

“I love green. Ok, I know that is not a big surprise, after all that's who I am and, as the saying goes, I was born this way. But I mostly love green because it can be about so many other things, like the Earth and nature and being naturally who you are. To me it also means loving yourself, loving your family, and loving who you want to love. As you can probably tell I come from a family of frogs and I love 'em but once I dropped my tail and grew up I found another family to love — the Muppets. Yeah, we're all very different — pigs and bears and chickens and whatevers — but what matters is that we love and care about each other and that's what makes us family.”
—Kermit the Frog (YouTube)

In the Muppets Now episode "Due Date," openly gay drag queen RuPaul guest stars, and is referred to with both he/him and genderneutral they/them pronouns by the characters throughout their segment together.

In August 2021, following conservative backlash to the "Gonzo-rella" episode of Muppet Babies (see below), Gonzo tweeted an image saying "Trust me: You are not alone. Each and every one of us is one of a kind. Even if your kind is hard to define, that's okay! -The Great Gonzo". He accompanied this image with the text "Whoever or whatever you want to be is okay by me! (Personally, I prefer to be… whatever.)"

On October 8, 2021, in promotion of Muppets Haunted Mansion, Miss Piggy was interviewed for LGBTQ+ outlet Queerty, talking about Kermit and Piggy doing drag in the film, her huge gay following, and potential body image issues.

On June 6, 2022, at the start of Pride Month, the Muppets official social media accounts posted a Pride message along with a link to download special Muppets & Pride Wallpapers from D23.

“All of us here at The Muppets are proud to celebrate our friends in the LGBTQIA+ community this month and every month! It’s easy to be an ally when you know that what makes each of us different is what makes each of us special. Happy #Pride2022!”

Miss Piggy in a rainbow dress featured in the Cutie Cuff Disney Pride Collection in 2023. That year, Piggy also appeared in two Pride Disney pins.

Kermit Pride Wallpaper

Gonzo Pride Wallpaper

Muppet Babies

The Muppet Babies reboot episode "A Tale of Two Twins," challenges perceived and socially established gender stereotypes. And while the show's regular back-and-forth transitions from the characters' reality to their imagination are usually visualized with a rainbow-colored circle radiating outward, each instance that Scooter and Skeeter switch places (and clothes), these transitions are depicted by a rainbow-colored tornado surrounding the duo.

The twins' rainbow tornado transition

Skeeter as Scooter and Scooter as Skeeter

The episode combo "Gonzo-rella / Summer's Car Trouble," again challenges gender stereotypes, when Gonzo wants to go to Piggy and Summer's royal ball dressed as a princess, and Summer brings a toy car that she made with her grandpa to show-and-tell.

When asked about the idea behind the episode by D23, the show's executive producer Tom Warburton replied: "Very early on, we wanted to do an episode where Gonzo just showed up to the Playroom wearing a skirt. And it was no big deal. No one cared or questioned it because Gonzo is always 200% Gonzo 347% of the time. But then story editor/co-producer Robyn Brown and her team wanted to take it a step further and do a Cinderella story based on the idea. And it was just SO wonderfully Gonzo. We hope he inspires kids watching to be 347% of themselves in their own way, too."

Fraggle Rock

The Great Glitterini celebrates International Transgender Day of Visibility in 2024.

The Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock episode "The Glow" uses Boober Fraggle's discovery that his Baloobius glows as a metaphor for a coming out story. In June 2022 the Jim Henson Company released a Facebook Story Effect with a rainbow striped border, an image of Boober and the hashtag #LoveYourGlow.

The episode "I'm Pogey" reveals that Pogey is non-binary. The episode explores many themes of gender non-conformity and non-binary identity with the plotlines featuring Wembley Fraggle and Junior Gorg. The Great Glitterini who appears in the episode is shown to be genderqueer and appeared in a 2024 social media post from The Jim Henson Company celebrating International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Additional References

The Henson Company's Bobby Vegan (Bill Barretta) and Samson Knight (Brian Henson) from the 2007 pilot for Tinseltown.

• In 1986, Jim Henson was asked by reporter Alan Neff if any of the Muppets were gay. After some hesitation, he affably replied, "I doubt it. Some of them could be. There are questions about some of the guys." More seriously, he added, "But I think it's probably an area that I think we would generally stay out of. We stay non-political. We don't get terribly controversial."

• The Dinosaurs episode "I Never Ate for My Father" serves up an allegory for homosexuality, among other societal issues, when Robbie Sinclair tries to keep his very unorthodox vegetarianism a secret from his family, even sneaking off to a counterculture salad bar, a gay bar stand-in.

• Productions within the Jim Henson Company's Henson Alternative brand have often explored adult themes, sexual relationships, and featured homosexuality. The improv shows Puppet Up! and Stuffed and Unstrung have featured gay jokes and characters. The 2007 television pilot for Tinseltown followed the life of Bobby Vegan, an outspoken and struggling entertainer (and a pig), and his life-partner and manager, Samson Knight (a bull). Additionally the webseries Neil's Puppet Dreams featured Neil Patrick Harris and his husband David Burtka in a central role along with references to their relationship and sexuality. Episodes of the Henson Alternative television series No, You Shut Up! have featured references to homosexuality, including in-depth discussions of gay marriage in episode 102 (YouTube) and episode 318 (YouTube).

Controversies

Daryl Cagle's take on the 2012 Chick-fil-a controversy.

See also: Are Ernie and Bert gay?

• Publicity for the "We Are Family" video featuring the Muppets was largely hijacked by conservative groups, saying the project was a vehicle for "pro-gay propaganda." Focus on the Family (an anti-LGBT organization designated as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center) commented that they "see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids."

• In 2002, conservative groups were outraged over rumors of an HIV-positive Muppet being introduced on Sesame Street. The Traditional Values Coalition stated it would "be another propaganda tool to normalize homosexuality in our culture." The rumors were misguided, with Sesame Workshop having no plans to introduce an HIV-positive character on the American show, nor having any plans to introduce a homosexual character.

• In 2012, due to controversies surrounding the fast food chain's positions on gay rights issues, the Jim Henson Company ceased a promotional partnership with Chick-fil-A. In a statement released by the company: "The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years... Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-Fil-A to GLAAD."

Additional notes

A rather gay Sesame Street on The Simpsons.

• Garth Brooks' song "We Shall Be Free" was performed in Muppets Tonight episode 102. The song contains the line, "when we're free to love anyone we choose ... we shall be free." The lyrics have been interpreted as a reference to supporting gay relationships; Brooks won a 1993 GLAAD Media Award for the song. Brooks, a supporter of gay rights, also performed the song at Equality Rocks, a gay rights march in Washington, D.C. in 2000.

• Theater scholar Jordan Schildcrout published the academic article The Performance of Nonconformity on The Muppet Show -- or, How Kermit Made Me Queer.

• Jessica Max Stein wrote The Rainbow Connection: Richard Hunt, Gay Muppeteer, a zine celebrating Richard Hunt's life and career.

• Frank Oz directed the 1997 film In & Out; the film was one of mainstream Hollywood's first attempts at a comedic "gay movie" and was widely noted at the time for a 10-second kiss between Kevin Kline and Tom Selleck.

• The Simpsons episode "To Surveil With Love" from 2010, features toddler Maggie, watching what she percieves as Sesame Street. The program actually shows a gay bar, complete with men resembling Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, and Oscar the Grouch.

• The LGBT-themed shows "Love, Victor," "Q-Force," and "Queer as Folk" all include minor references to the Muppets or Sesame Street.

Sources

Daryl Cagle's 2003 commentary on marriage equality.

See also

• Are Ernie and Bert gay?
• Are Bunsen and Beaker gay?
• Cross-dressing characters
• Muppet sex

External links

• Tough Pigs: Are Ernie and Bert More Than Just Best Friends?
• Tough Pigs: Weird Science: A Guide to the Romance of Bunsen and Beaker
• Tough Pigs: Gonzo the Great: Nonbinary Icon
• Out: The Divine Miss P
• LGBT+ Advancing: Bill Barretta Chats About the Muppets and Inclusion