I have to admit, my first reaction was AWWWW-so cute! but I do see the controversy.
Missed edit window. Cover here.
I had to look it up so here is a link: Cover Story: Bert and Ernie’s “Moment of Joy” | The New Yorker
For any of our international readers who may not be familiar with the characters, the cover shows puppets Bert and Ernie from the children’s show Sesame Street. Ernie (the shorter orange puppet) is leaning his head on Bert’s shoulder.
In Sesame Street Bert and Ernie are long term male roommates. The show never explicitly states they are a gay couple, but they are presented as just a normal part of the neighborhood.
I voted random opinion: the idea that Bert and Ernie are a gay couple is audience projection, and it unreasonably annoys me that it’s being perpetuated for no other reason than “two guys living together must be gay LOL”.
I always thought the whole Burt and Ernie dynamic was really about sibling rivalry. They are never called brothers, but they bicker as if they were.
I thought it was interesting that the artist “originally submitted his image, unsolicited, to a Tumblr” and ended up getting it on the cover of The New Yorker. That’s good luck.
And note that Sesame Workshop says that they are just friends.
Both the first ( it is cute ) and the third ( it is just audience projection at the end of the day and and Sesame Street doesn’t need to brought into this discussion except jokingly ).
I always thought of Ernie and Bert as “The Odd Couple” in muppet form.
I think they should leave it out of the debate.
I always thought Bert and Ernie was just friends, and I have a real love for great platonic friendships. I quite liked thinking of them as great friends.
Ditto this here.
if it were bugs and daffy and I would think the same, silly use of cartoon characters. Bert and Ernie sexualized is lost on me.
It’s one of the funniest New Yorker covers ever*. It’s winking at both the gay marriage issue and the jokes about Bert and Ernie being gay. Subtle but brilliant.
I find it hard to believe that people take it seriously. It not cute, either, but it’s very reminiscent of Rod and Nicky from Avenue Q
*The magazine has some very funny cartoons, but it’s rare that they’re on the cover.
When I was a kid I also assumed Bert and Ernie were brothers. Once I was a little older and heard people joking about B&E being gay I was surprised, not because I’d have any objection to them being gay but because I thought it was totally obvious they were siblings.
FWIW Sesame Street has featured a pretty overtly gay puppet character at least once in recent years – they did a skit based on Glee that included a felt version of Kurt.
I always took the “Bert and Ernie are Gay” thing as making fun of people who think that close male friendships are inherently “suspect” and worry about stupid stuff like Bert and Ernie possibly being gay. Like a meta-joke or something.
And now they’re all like “We really are gay! PSYCHE!!! Joke’s on you!”
Okay, they didn’t say that, the cover did. Audience projection all around. But the cover works on so many levels. I love it.
As far as my own view of their relationship–I just thought they were a couple of nice guys who were kind of weird, and they lived together because they were weirdly compatible in their own weird way. In the context of a world where the garbage can next to the stoop is the home of a furry green monster, Bert and Ernie fit right in.
It’s a clever image. Bert and Ernie being gay is just a joke, people realize that.
I would have preferred the Skipper and Gilligan myself. I mean, it’s pretty obvious, little buddy.
ETA: TriPolar nailed it.
Televangelist John Hagee got a LOT of mileage about how the Harry Potter novels were promoting Satanism because they had magic in them. I hate to think what idiots like him will do with The New Yorker implying that Sesame Street characters are gay.
Well, gays quite like appropriating pop culture icons, and even historical figures, for their own purposes. It’s been going on at least since Joan Crawford put on Groucho Marx eyebrows, and obviously is not going to stop now.
People like that have already worked the Bert and Ernie thing to do death for their purposes. Anybody can use the joke, positively or negatively. This magazine cover won’t change any of that.
I guess I’d better come clean (hee). I never really shipped Bernie. Burt was just trying to get Ernie away from his true love, Rubber Ducky. All hail Ernucky, the OTP!
How sad is it that I just realized that Ernie apparently has a thing for guys colored yellow?