Culture

People Are Fighting Over Whether Bert And Ernie Are Gay And Even Their Writer Has Weighed In

"Listen, Bert and Ernie fucking women was part of my childhood and you can't just take that away."

by Max Koslowski  19 September 2018
Bert and Ernie gay Sesame Street

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Sesame Street has halted debate over whether Bert and Ernie are gay, after releasing a statement saying that, no, “they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation”.

Questions over Bert and Ernie’s sexuality are long-standing, but recently captured the world again when Mark Saltzman — one of the Sesame Street writers — said in an interview:

“I always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert and Ernie, they were [gay]. I didn’t have any other way to contextualise them.”

But others denied that the characters were gay.

In a statement (an actual, serious release to media) Sesame Street producers Sesame Workshop said:

And then today, they followed up with another statement:

In 2013, support for the idea that Bert and Ernie were a gay couple was crystallised by a New Yorker cover that depicted the two cuddling on a couch right after the US legalised marriage equality.

And it looks as though people are more than willing to ignore Sesame Workshop and continue to believe that Bert and Ernie are a loving, gay couple.

And that… every Sesame Street character is queer.

Others are just making fun of the fact that anyone would care about denying that Bert and Ernie are gay.