I always assumed they were a couple, even as a kid. I don’t care if they get married though, they’ve been living “in sin” all these years so what does it change?
this is just weird to me. they’re puppets first and foremost. friends second. children to an extent. i can see innuendo that the two might be gay if one is so inclined to look for it and convince themselves but to have it established as full blown canon? it’d be a more believable storyline to establish that wesley was the lovechild of picard and crusher. (more feasible to institute retroactively as well).
I think I do want a gay couple with kids to be on Sesame Street in some form, just because the show makes a point to include muppets that children can relate to. For example, Kami, an HIV positive muppet on the South African version. It doesn’t matter to me if they are recurring characters, but just to make a point that it’s okay to have 2 mommies or 2 daddies.
I think Sesame Street will eventually have gay characters but in the form of either humans or new, obviously-adult puppets.
I always assumed Bert & Ernie were children. Big Bird is a child and he lives alone, so Bert & Ernie can live without adults too.
As for married puppets…I believe Baby Bear has parents. Elmo has a dad but I’m not sure if we’ve ever seen his mom (thus making dad married).
I, for one, am opposed to legalizing puppet marriages.
I mostly agree here, and I remember hearing rumors when the LotR movies were coming out that Frodo and Sam were secretly gay. Why does sexuality have to enter at any sort? I like the idea that they can teach that two people, regardless of gender, can be friends without having to have any sexual undertones. If two guys are close, people think they’re gay, similiarly, if a guy and a girl are close, people often assume there’s something more there. It’s as if society thinks men are completely unable to have strong platonic relationships with anyone.
So, with Bert and Ernie, leave it ambiguous because it just plain doesn’t matter and, in fact, I think any sort of overt clarification, whether that they’re gay or that they’re definitely not gay, is just politicizing a show that it intended for kids. And, really, to a kid in the age range that it’s aimed for, is there really any meaningful way for them to understand romantic relationships? That is, for a 4-year-old, other than maybe some subtle behavioral cues, as I hope there’s no heavy sexual behavior in front of a kid that age, how would they tell the difference between two guys that are best friends and two guys that are lovers? For that matter, assuming their parents are together, what makes their relationship perceived as much different from boy and girl best friends?
Regardless, I think it adds unnecessary complication and would ultimately lead to alienating people. Show kids examples of loving relationships and they can identify them as such whether they’re friends or lovers. Besides, younger generations are already more and more accepting of gays, so I think doing so to gain further acceptance is not only unnecessary, but possibly counter-productive.. If anything, I think the best way to gain acceptance isn’t to point out examples of how people are different, but rather emphasize how we’re the same. And so, I actually think leaving it ambiguous would probably do more to further gay acceptance than having them be explicitly gay and get married.
Because it compromises the sanctity of marriage or because it’s just icky?
I don’t want them to get married because they are canonically not gay. BUT…
the puppeteer’s argument that they’re not sexual beings because they’re puppets is just so much bullshit. Why? Miss Piggy, that’s why. Same people (I know, Muppets vs Sesame Street but same people ultimately)
Unless you count Animal and his obvious lust for “Woman! Woman! Woman!”
Back To The OP
Bert and Ernie are just friends. Jim Henson and Frank Oz have both said many times that the pair represent them and their lifelong friendship. IIRC Oz even had a stained glass window of Bert and Ernie in his library.
Now Beaker and Dr Honeydew Bunsen, they were gay.
When I was a kid, I thought they were brothers. Bert is maybe 11, Ernie is his 5-year-old brother.
No?
Several of the Sesame Street Muppets have had their parents shown - Snuffy’s folks, in particular come to mind because they kicked around the idea of having them divorce, but nothing ever came of it. There are at least one set who are strictly a family, never showing up individually (the Doodlebugs?) - a full ‘typical’ family: mother, father, son, and daughter.
On the non-Sesame Street Muppets - the ones who performed on Saturday Night Live for a season or two included a married couple. They occasionally joke about Piggy and Kermit being married (ie, they have a wedding in the show-within-a-show in The Muppets Take Manhattan, which Kermit insists is fictional, but Piggy claims otherwise). The King and Queen of the Universe (ie, the adult Gorgs) in Fraggle Rock are, obviously, married - there was even an episode about it! [Edit - and there’s at least one named pair of married Doozers - Flange and Wingnut, the parents of Cotterpin.]
So…ah…yeah, bunches.
I totally agree. I think Bert and Ernie are far more unique and helpful for boys by showing that it’s okay for them to have close non-sexual relationships than they could ever be by being explicitly gay.
I’m not surprised to say this, but Sesame Street seems to be handling this perfectly. Sesame Street’s always been about diversity- I doubt they need to get as specific as something like same-sex couples. But regardless, the idea of Bert and Ernie being gay came to life as a joke. It’s not a tribute to same-sex marriage if Sesame Street goes along with the joke because it’s still ultimately a joke. “They’re two guys who are always together and live together, so they must be gay.”
The Simpsons dealt with the same thing, in a way: early on, Lenny and Carl were Homer’s coworkers who were always seen together. Later in the series the writers started hinting that they were a couple, or at least that they had a thing for each other even if they weren’t in a relationship. Now they’re intentionally inconsistent about it as part of the joke. It does reflect the fact that society is more comfortable with depictions of gay relationships, but nobody said this is a victory for same-sex couples because it isn’t.
wouldn’t this just raise more questions than it answers amongst the youngsters?
Not Lenny!
BTW, Bert and Ernie are clearly not siblings, since Bert has a nephew, who is not also Ernie’s nephew, or son, Brad. Also a brother, Bart, who may or may not be Brad’s dad. (The title used for Brad’s first appearance on the Sesame Street website is…highly unfortunate.) Brad and Bart’s appearances also clearly demonstrate that Bert and Ernie aren’t kids - since a) they’re put in charge of Brad, and b) Bert and Bart are twins, and Bart is known to be employed as a travelling salesman.
Oh, and, hey, while I’m noodling around the Muppet Wiki, here’s an extensive list of married characters - though not all of them are Muppets (although at a quick runthru, there’s only one human couple, several Creatures are listed).
Linked in your link:
[QUOTE=entertainment weekly]
Last Friday, Louisiana Rep. W.J. ‘‘Billy’’ Tauzin and five other Republicans on the House Commerce Committee wrote a letter to Mitchell expressing concern that the new character would be inappropriate for young ‘‘Sesame Street’’ viewers in the U.S., and noted that their committee controls PBS’ funding. Mitchell’s letter in response read in part, ‘‘There are no plans to incorporate this character or curriculum into ‘Sesame Street’ on PBS,’’ Variety reports.
Starting Sept. 30, the HIV-positive character, a female Muppet whose name and design haven’t been disclosed, will be a full-time character on ‘‘Takalani Sesame,’’ the South African show, where she’ll be ‘‘lively, friendly and an active participant,’’ the show’s producers tell Variety. They say her presence is intended not to teach kids about sexuality but to de-stigmatize HIV-infected people in a country where an estimated one in nine people carries the AIDS virus. An aide to Rep. Tauzin tells Variety that, while the congressman found the Muppet questionable for U.S. youngsters, Tauzin doesn’t object to U.S. funding going toward developing the character for South African audiences.
[/QUOTE]
I was going to start a Pit thread about this, but the last line just boggles me.
So what about the whole Kermit & Miss Piggy thing?
Are they trying to promote interspecies breeding?
Judging by the decades long love affair of Gonzo and Camilla, yes they are.
Oh, for crying out loud - it’s like they’re doing this on purpose. 
As a Sesame Street viewer I never got the impression that Bert and Ernie were children (they do have their own apartment) or that they were brothers. Their relationship is dictated by kid logic, really. It’s not meant to stand up to Internet nerd scrutiny.