Link (Archive)
I’m gay. Sometimes I’m queer. Sometimes I’m both. I’m also a Muppet fan and creative writing student at Sussex University. As part of my studies recently, I was tasked with creating a zine with a topic of my own choosing. As a gay Muppet fan, I decided to ask the age old question: Why are there no/so few canonically queer Muppets? I called my zine “Below the Waist” – drawing inspiration from the infamous quote about Bert and Ernie from then Sesame Workshop president and CEO, Gary Knell, “They are not gay, they are not straight, they are puppets… they do not exist below the waist.”
I’m inclined to call this statement disingenuous – or at the very least ill-thought out. There are plenty of heterosexual relationships between Muppets on Sesame Street, so how come they exist below the waist (which we know, as they have children) but a potentially homosexual couple doesn’t? Forget ill-thought out, it’s actually offensive and queer erasure hidden in matter of fact sentiment.
That quote dates back to 2007 and I’d be willing to give it the benefit of the doubt if Sesame Street did now have a queer Muppet character. Instead, we have to look to Fraggle Rock to see how queer Muppets can exist in a children’s show. Step forward Pogey (and The Great Glitterini). I’ll admit, at first I struggled with the character of Pogey as I felt the show sometimes made their differences the butt of the joke and it didn’t sit well with me, but the episode “I’m Pogey” gave them some much needed backstory and emotional weight. The episode also introduced us to The Great Glitterini, whose ability to change, morph and grow into who they are at any given moment turned being queer into a superpower. This is how it should be done.
One of the aims of my zine is to look at existing Muppets and explore the queerness that’s already there. The first edition included a piece on Miss Piggy as a literal and imagined drag icon. What if her backstory, as explained by Frank Oz back in the day (small town origins, longing to get away from a difficult family life, etc.), left out one simple fact? What if the pageants she competed in were drag pageants? Many drag queens impersonate celebrities and take pun names – what if that’s the origin of “Miss Piggy Lee”? I realize that’s a lot of ‘what if’s,’ but none of them are huge leaps and Piggy is a drag performance in real life.
A quick look at Muppet Wiki suggests there are characters that are considered queer behind the scenes or are hovering around queerdom. I guess the first one to mention is Howard Tubman. It’s kind of impossible not to just assume Howard is a friend of Dorothy because of how he’s portrayed, but it’s not for us to assume anything (you know what assume makes…) So it’s inferred using stereotypes – a lisp, a job as a choreographer, a love of RuPaul… Is this offensive? I’m happy to leave that for the reader to decide, but I will add that often stereotypes exist for a reason.
Also, fans are quite happy to employ them when it suits what they are looking for…
Let’s take Bert and Ernie, for example. Two best friends, confirmed bachelors, living together in a one bedroom apartment. We all know what that’s code for. And yet, maybe they are just best friends living in an expensive city who want to save money to buy oatmeal and bananas… Just about every same-sex Muppet duo could have a queer interpretation – they’re not hard to find. Statler and Waldorf are aged theater queens who bitch and moan and read the house down boots. They married their wives because they had to in order to follow the conventions of the time they grew up in… Beaker and Bunsen are a sub/dom kink couple. Why else would Beaker stick around? They prefer to keep things on the downlow – if it doesn’t happen at work they don’t owe us an explanation.
So what’s preventing Disney and Sesame Workshop from acknowledging one of these relationships? Let’s be fair, I don’t expect Beaker and Bunsen to be starring in the Disney+ exclusive “The Muppets Take Folsom” anytime soon, but could Sesame Workshop just acknowledge that Bert and Ernie are more than friends? What would actually need to change? They can still have separate beds, Ernie can still antagonize Bert and they can still teach us about the number 3. What does change is queer kids at home getting to see themselves on TV. And this is the crucial thing here. Forget head canon, slash fiction or wish-fulfillment; what we NEED as queer people is to see ourselves in the media – from an early age. Queer kids exist. If anyone needs that explaining I’d suggest going back to kindergarten, and yet I can’t recommend watching Sesame Street to learn that lesson because it’s not part of their remit apparently. A show which prides itself on portraying all types of people, all religions, all colors, all social backgrounds, monsters, people, grouches, fairies, birds, snuffleupaguses… has zero queer Muppets. When I actually sit down and think about that I get sad. And then I get angry. Because a show I love is failing people like me and worse still, it’s failing kids by not letting them see the world for how it really is. Queer kids need role models, and everyone else needs to see that queer kids are the people in your neighborhood.
There is a privileged argument that will say “It’s a preschool show, why does sexuality need to be mentioned at all?” I get it. I really do. But this line of thinking is focusing on the “sex” part of the word and not what it actually encompasses. Many of the characters in Sesame Street have onscreen parents. We don’t see them swinging from the chandelier, but the implication is that they made a baby (or monster) somehow. Their (implied) heterosexuality is already visible. This fact doesn’t turn queer kids straight and Bert and Ernie holding hands isn’t going to turn straight kids queer – but it would teach everyone that love exists in different forms. This is a call for Sesame Street to portray love, not sex.
And I’m not letting Disney off the hook. A company that everyone complains is woke because they cast female heroes might as well be doing the right thing and supporting its queer fans. Am I supposed to be grateful that two men dance together for a couple of seconds in a live action remake? Is that enough to teach our children that it’s okay to be different? Disney can deal with controversy. When was the last time Kermit did anything that didn’t get hateful comments because of his recast? Disney is happy to weather that storm, but won’t let Uncle Deadly be gay in The Muppets sitcom. Or let Scooter, a kid desperate to get on the stage just like his gay originator, be queer. It’s perfectly okay to be a straight cage dancer in tiny shorts, but not a gay/bi/pansexual one.
Which brings us to the “whatever” in the room. In everything other than name, the Muppets already have a queer character. And a hugely popular one at that. Is anyone going to tell me that Gonzo doesn’t fit the literal dictionary definition of queer? Not only is he happy to describe himself as “odd” or “weird”, he goes out of his way to “queer” the norm. Look at his love life. Gonzo and Camilla are a queer couple. Better still, they are a long term, committed, happy couple. One of the Muppets’ most enduring romantic relationships is queer. “So,” I hear the “all lives matter” crowd ask, “why do you need to be told they’re queer if you know they already are?” Because, as I’ve already said, representation does actually matter. Because I want to see myself and others who are underrepresented in the franchise I love. Because, this group of characters that tells me I can be a bear, or a chicken, or a whatever and still be loved has yet to tell me those bears and chickens and whatevers can be loved by anyone. Because the most inclusive group of characters ever created still excludes people. And it’s not okay. If you’re a Muppet fan and don’t get this, I’m sorry, you don’t get the main philosophy of the Muppets.
But while Muppet Babies is ahead of the curve allowing Gonzo to explore his queerness with Gonzorella and they/them pronouns, I suspect if we ever get a queer Muppet on Sesame Street or Disney/Muppets production it will be a new character. I’d like it to be Skeeter (who is new-adjacent). They’re a mostly blank canvas and it would be a really nice tribute to Richard Hunt to have an off-shoot of Scooter be the one to acknowledge that it’s okay to be born different. And now Sesame Street focuses on a core group of characters, a semi-semi-regular Muppet who just so happens to be queer feels like it should be an easy thing to add. They won’t even feature that much anyway. But the lack of screentime wouldn’t diminish the hope it might give the kids watching the show – and who knows, you might have a breakout star to put on lunchboxes.
As for me, I’ll keep reimagining Muppets as queer, writing Beaker/Swedish Chef slash fiction and producing my zine. As the Muppets taught us if we keep believing and keep pretending our dreams might just come true.
And like the Muppets I’d like to share my dream with more people. Although my zine was conceived as a one-off publication I’d like to continue it and am keen to hear from anyone who’d like to read it and/or submit a piece for a future edition – I’m open to all ideas. I’m @ukfantasia on Instagram and would love to hear from you!
Below the Waist: Where Are the Queer Muppets?
I’m gay. Sometimes I’m queer. Sometimes I’m both. I’m also a Muppet fan and creative writing student at Sussex University. As part of my studies recently, I was tasked with creating a zine with a topic of my own choosing. As a gay Muppet fan, I decided to ask the age old question: Why are there no/so few canonically queer Muppets? I called my zine “Below the Waist” – drawing inspiration from the infamous quote about Bert and Ernie from then Sesame Workshop president and CEO, Gary Knell, “They are not gay, they are not straight, they are puppets… they do not exist below the waist.”
I’m inclined to call this statement disingenuous – or at the very least ill-thought out. There are plenty of heterosexual relationships between Muppets on Sesame Street, so how come they exist below the waist (which we know, as they have children) but a potentially homosexual couple doesn’t? Forget ill-thought out, it’s actually offensive and queer erasure hidden in matter of fact sentiment.
That quote dates back to 2007 and I’d be willing to give it the benefit of the doubt if Sesame Street did now have a queer Muppet character. Instead, we have to look to Fraggle Rock to see how queer Muppets can exist in a children’s show. Step forward Pogey (and The Great Glitterini). I’ll admit, at first I struggled with the character of Pogey as I felt the show sometimes made their differences the butt of the joke and it didn’t sit well with me, but the episode “I’m Pogey” gave them some much needed backstory and emotional weight. The episode also introduced us to The Great Glitterini, whose ability to change, morph and grow into who they are at any given moment turned being queer into a superpower. This is how it should be done.
One of the aims of my zine is to look at existing Muppets and explore the queerness that’s already there. The first edition included a piece on Miss Piggy as a literal and imagined drag icon. What if her backstory, as explained by Frank Oz back in the day (small town origins, longing to get away from a difficult family life, etc.), left out one simple fact? What if the pageants she competed in were drag pageants? Many drag queens impersonate celebrities and take pun names – what if that’s the origin of “Miss Piggy Lee”? I realize that’s a lot of ‘what if’s,’ but none of them are huge leaps and Piggy is a drag performance in real life.
A quick look at Muppet Wiki suggests there are characters that are considered queer behind the scenes or are hovering around queerdom. I guess the first one to mention is Howard Tubman. It’s kind of impossible not to just assume Howard is a friend of Dorothy because of how he’s portrayed, but it’s not for us to assume anything (you know what assume makes…) So it’s inferred using stereotypes – a lisp, a job as a choreographer, a love of RuPaul… Is this offensive? I’m happy to leave that for the reader to decide, but I will add that often stereotypes exist for a reason.
Also, fans are quite happy to employ them when it suits what they are looking for…
Let’s take Bert and Ernie, for example. Two best friends, confirmed bachelors, living together in a one bedroom apartment. We all know what that’s code for. And yet, maybe they are just best friends living in an expensive city who want to save money to buy oatmeal and bananas… Just about every same-sex Muppet duo could have a queer interpretation – they’re not hard to find. Statler and Waldorf are aged theater queens who bitch and moan and read the house down boots. They married their wives because they had to in order to follow the conventions of the time they grew up in… Beaker and Bunsen are a sub/dom kink couple. Why else would Beaker stick around? They prefer to keep things on the downlow – if it doesn’t happen at work they don’t owe us an explanation.
So what’s preventing Disney and Sesame Workshop from acknowledging one of these relationships? Let’s be fair, I don’t expect Beaker and Bunsen to be starring in the Disney+ exclusive “The Muppets Take Folsom” anytime soon, but could Sesame Workshop just acknowledge that Bert and Ernie are more than friends? What would actually need to change? They can still have separate beds, Ernie can still antagonize Bert and they can still teach us about the number 3. What does change is queer kids at home getting to see themselves on TV. And this is the crucial thing here. Forget head canon, slash fiction or wish-fulfillment; what we NEED as queer people is to see ourselves in the media – from an early age. Queer kids exist. If anyone needs that explaining I’d suggest going back to kindergarten, and yet I can’t recommend watching Sesame Street to learn that lesson because it’s not part of their remit apparently. A show which prides itself on portraying all types of people, all religions, all colors, all social backgrounds, monsters, people, grouches, fairies, birds, snuffleupaguses… has zero queer Muppets. When I actually sit down and think about that I get sad. And then I get angry. Because a show I love is failing people like me and worse still, it’s failing kids by not letting them see the world for how it really is. Queer kids need role models, and everyone else needs to see that queer kids are the people in your neighborhood.
There is a privileged argument that will say “It’s a preschool show, why does sexuality need to be mentioned at all?” I get it. I really do. But this line of thinking is focusing on the “sex” part of the word and not what it actually encompasses. Many of the characters in Sesame Street have onscreen parents. We don’t see them swinging from the chandelier, but the implication is that they made a baby (or monster) somehow. Their (implied) heterosexuality is already visible. This fact doesn’t turn queer kids straight and Bert and Ernie holding hands isn’t going to turn straight kids queer – but it would teach everyone that love exists in different forms. This is a call for Sesame Street to portray love, not sex.
And I’m not letting Disney off the hook. A company that everyone complains is woke because they cast female heroes might as well be doing the right thing and supporting its queer fans. Am I supposed to be grateful that two men dance together for a couple of seconds in a live action remake? Is that enough to teach our children that it’s okay to be different? Disney can deal with controversy. When was the last time Kermit did anything that didn’t get hateful comments because of his recast? Disney is happy to weather that storm, but won’t let Uncle Deadly be gay in The Muppets sitcom. Or let Scooter, a kid desperate to get on the stage just like his gay originator, be queer. It’s perfectly okay to be a straight cage dancer in tiny shorts, but not a gay/bi/pansexual one.
Which brings us to the “whatever” in the room. In everything other than name, the Muppets already have a queer character. And a hugely popular one at that. Is anyone going to tell me that Gonzo doesn’t fit the literal dictionary definition of queer? Not only is he happy to describe himself as “odd” or “weird”, he goes out of his way to “queer” the norm. Look at his love life. Gonzo and Camilla are a queer couple. Better still, they are a long term, committed, happy couple. One of the Muppets’ most enduring romantic relationships is queer. “So,” I hear the “all lives matter” crowd ask, “why do you need to be told they’re queer if you know they already are?” Because, as I’ve already said, representation does actually matter. Because I want to see myself and others who are underrepresented in the franchise I love. Because, this group of characters that tells me I can be a bear, or a chicken, or a whatever and still be loved has yet to tell me those bears and chickens and whatevers can be loved by anyone. Because the most inclusive group of characters ever created still excludes people. And it’s not okay. If you’re a Muppet fan and don’t get this, I’m sorry, you don’t get the main philosophy of the Muppets.
But while Muppet Babies is ahead of the curve allowing Gonzo to explore his queerness with Gonzorella and they/them pronouns, I suspect if we ever get a queer Muppet on Sesame Street or Disney/Muppets production it will be a new character. I’d like it to be Skeeter (who is new-adjacent). They’re a mostly blank canvas and it would be a really nice tribute to Richard Hunt to have an off-shoot of Scooter be the one to acknowledge that it’s okay to be born different. And now Sesame Street focuses on a core group of characters, a semi-semi-regular Muppet who just so happens to be queer feels like it should be an easy thing to add. They won’t even feature that much anyway. But the lack of screentime wouldn’t diminish the hope it might give the kids watching the show – and who knows, you might have a breakout star to put on lunchboxes.
As for me, I’ll keep reimagining Muppets as queer, writing Beaker/Swedish Chef slash fiction and producing my zine. As the Muppets taught us if we keep believing and keep pretending our dreams might just come true.
And like the Muppets I’d like to share my dream with more people. Although my zine was conceived as a one-off publication I’d like to continue it and am keen to hear from anyone who’d like to read it and/or submit a piece for a future edition – I’m open to all ideas. I’m @ukfantasia on Instagram and would love to hear from you!
