More than 20 years ago, Teletubbi were at the center of a so-lled gay ntroversy surroundg [...]
Contents:
- YEP, THE PURPLE TELETUBBY WAS GAY
- THE TELETUBBI EMBRACE PRI, MORE THAN TWO S AFTER 'GAY' TKY WKY SNDAL
- THE WHOLLY UNSURPRISG STORY BEHD TKY WKY’S ELEVATN AS A GAY IN
- TELETUBBY IS SECRET GAY, SAYS EVANGELIST
YEP, THE PURPLE TELETUBBY WAS GAY
Once h by gay mors, the popular children's TV characters have embraced their role as queer ins. * red teletubby gay *
Jerry Falwell ma his livg fdg gay people where they didn’t belong. “Remember … homosexuals do not reproduce, ” the televangelist and activist warned his followers 1981.
” He claimed to have nonted Print Carter about why he employed “practicg homosexuals” the Whe Hoe 1980.
So when Falwell claimed 1999 to have disvered that one of the Teletubbi was gay, seemed like yet another example of his proprietary blend of vicns and absurdy. “He is purple—the gay pri lor, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle—the gay pri symbol, ” Falwell wrote an issue of his own magaze. To have “ltle boys nng around wh purs and actg effemate and leavg the ia that the mascule male, the feme female is out, and gay is OK” is somethg “Christians do not agree wh, ” he told Katie Couric.
THE TELETUBBI EMBRACE PRI, MORE THAN TWO S AFTER 'GAY' TKY WKY SNDAL
How uld they be gay? In the years precedg his supposed exposé, many publitns had wrten about the gay muny’s adoptn of Tky Wky as one of their own.
THE WHOLLY UNSURPRISG STORY BEHD TKY WKY’S ELEVATN AS A GAY IN
When the show buted England 1997, s hypnotic, wkg weirdns had almost immediately bee popular wh club kids and the gay muny. The Inpennt referred to his “mp, handbag-rryg antics, ” and the Guardian lled him a “gay in” who “pranc around. Proment gay gossip lumnist Michael Mto told Entertament Weekly (“only half tongue--cheek”) that the character offered a great msage: “not only that ’s okay to be gay, but the importance of beg well-accsorized.
At the time, many enlightened mastream crics took the attu that Falwell and the gay prs were equally perverse for foistg sexual preferenc on bunch of preverbal stuffed animals. For one thg, to ll Tky Wky “gay” do not mean that Tky Wky has sex, and the mere prence of queer characters is not self “sexual nuendo.
TELETUBBY IS SECRET GAY, SAYS EVANGELIST
In the years sce then, subtext has bee text, and children’s televisn producers have gone om wkg at their characters’ private liv to creatg openly gay adult and kid characters. Des after gay mors rocked Tky Wky -- the purple one wh the triangle antenna -- the beloved kids' TV characters have released their first le of Pri merchandise.
When to pearl-clutchg gay sndals volvg children's TV characters, the story of the Teletubbi — particularly of the handbag-holdg Tky Wky — is right up there wh that of Bert and now looks like the seri is embracg the 22-year-old ntroversy a most rabow-hued way: by lnchg the official Teletubbi Pri Collectn, jt ahead of June. Om 1998 to 2008 and had a reboot 2015 — all started 22 years ago, when Baptist televangelist and noted homophobe Jerry Falwell penned "Parents Alert: Tky Wky Com Out of the Closet, " the Natnal Liberty Journal, a promotnal publitn for his evangelil Liberty Universy, notg, "He is purple — the gay pri lor, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle — the gay pri symbol.