Bert & Ernie - Controversy Imagined
This morning when my alarm clock rang I woke to the television tuned to Bravo. This, for the unaware, is the channel that made famous "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."
Whatever.
Here's what I know. Some idiocy was ongoing and one of those Queer Eyes was talking about how "Of course Bert and Ernie were gay. Two guys living together, sleeping in separate beds in the same bedroom...."
That's when I changed the channel.
Of course, I fumed about it in the shower for 20 minutes and it still hasn't left my brain.
This is what is wrong with people today. They take something completely innocent and make it dirty or suggestive of something. This is just like the UN making that movie of the cartoon Smurfs getting carpet bombed. It is ridiculous for us, as adults, to attribute adult themes to our children's playtime friends. Doing so leads to our children learning about the nasty side of life way too early. Don't kids have enough to be getting on with these days that worrying and wondering about the sexuality of Sesame Street characters?
The Smurfs, as you may recall, were not weak. They were not losers. They frequently outsmarted the larger and stronger Gargamel and Azriel. Portraying them as the victims of a stray daisy cutter is ludicrous in the extreme.
Bert and Ernie, for the record, were not gay. Bert is the yellow one with the unibrow and Ernie is the orange one with the round head. These two characters teach a valuable lesson to tots about dealing with siblings. You see, Bert is almost always portrayed as the older and wiser of the two. He is constantly frustrated by Ernie's ridiculous schemes and plans. Bert rolls his eyes, but Ernie always gets them into trouble anyway. They were like siblings, teaching us that little brothers and sisters can be fun, even if they do sometimes get us into trouble and don't know everything. The next thing you know, certain people will be casting aspersions on Ernie's relationship with his rubber duck.
Get this straight, people: Bert and Ernie didn't leave the Sesame Street set and head off to some gay bar for a night of unbridled debauchery of the gay kind.
Furthermore, Barbie and her friends were not hookers to Ken's pimping. Strawberry Shortcake was not a transexual. Snoopy is not a hermaphrodite. Polly Pocket is not a lesbian. GI Joe was not a murdering rapist for the Empire, but a hero. Holly Hobby was not a crack head, doing blowjobs for smack. Sea Monkeys have nothing to do with condoms or kinky sex. Mr. Potato Head was not into S&M. The Shirt Tales were not a group of like-minded animals that participated in orgies. Stretch Armstrong was not a pron star.
I hope this clears things up for the unenlightened who seem content to find smut everywhere.
