Are Same Street’s Bert & Ernie gay? A ntroversial history, explaed. - Vox

Contents:

• BERT AND ERNIE ARE ED A GAY UPLE, 'SAME STREET' WRER CLAIMS
• SAME STREET SAYS BERT AND ERNIE 'DON'T HAVE A SEXUAL ORIENTATN' AFTER LONGTIME WRER CLAIMS THEY'RE GAY
• FRANK OZ WEIGHS ON 'SAME STREET' WRER SAYG BERT AND ERNIE ARE GAY
• THE FIGHT OVER SAME STREET’S BERT AND ERNIE AS A GAY UPLE, EXPLAED
• ARE BERT AND ERNIE A GAY UPLE? FALLY, THE ANSWER
• BERT & ERNIE ARE NOT GAY, SAME STREET SAYS STATEMENT
• BERT AND ERNIE WERE GAY (AT LEAST THE MD OF ONE SAME STREET WRER)
• ARE BERT AND ERNIE GAY? ‘SAME STREET’ WRER SAYS HIS COMMENTS WERE MISTERPRETED
• NO, BERT AND ERNIE AREN'T GAY — THEY'RE 'BT IENDS,' SAYS 'SAME STREET'
• SAME STREET PROV BERT AND ERNIE AREN’T GAY—PROV IT—BY POSTG “THE DG ALONG SONG”
• SAME STREET SHOULD HAVE LET BERT AND ERNIE BE GAY, AND HERE’S WHY
• SAME STREET DISPUT WRER'S CLAIM THAT BERT AND ERNIE ARE GAY
• BERT AND ERNIE ARE A GAY COUPLE SAYS 'SAME STREET' WRER, BUT DENIED BY SHOW
• EX-SAME STREET WRER SAYS BERT AND ERNIE ARE GAY AS SHOW INSISTS THEY'RE JT 'BT FRIENDS'

BERT AND ERNIE ARE ED A GAY UPLE, 'SAME STREET' WRER CLAIMS

A former wrer for Same Street said a recent terview that he nsired Bert and Ernie to be gay — but the show rebutted this claim, sayg the puppets “do not have a sexual orientatn. “I always felt that whout a huge agenda, when I was wrg Bert & Ernie, they were [gay], ” Saltzman said. ’ But those two… you had characters that appealed to a gay dience.

Frank Oz is voice of dozens of puppets and muppets as one of Jim Henson's earlit llaborators — and now the storied puppeteer is lendg his voice to the bate over whether or not "Same Street" characters Bert and Ernie are gay. Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay.

SAME STREET SAYS BERT AND ERNIE 'DON'T HAVE A SEXUAL ORIENTATN' AFTER LONGTIME WRER CLAIMS THEY'RE GAY

Why the need to fe people as only gay?

There's much more to a human beg than jt straightns or gayns. "Director/producer/puppeteer Frank Oz pos for a portra at the "Muppet Guys Talkg - Secrets Behd the Show the Whole World Watched" at the 2017 SXSW Wkelmeyer / Getty Imag for SXSW fileOz ntued to go back-and-forth wh people rpondg to his tweet who asked why the lorful puppets uldn't be gay.

Bert and Ernie were created to be bt iends, and to teach young children that people n get along wh those who are very different om themselv, " the workshop said a statement emailed to NBC ntued to take to Twter, tellg followers he felt he uldn't ll Bert and Ernie gay bee his md wasn't asked why he felt the need to intify the puppets as "not gay, " Oz replied: "The same need I would feel if Bert were intified as a lebacker for the Colts. Next time I would be very terted to know: If Bert and Ernie were ed gay, would they be different than they are now? Are Bert and Ernie gay?

FRANK OZ WEIGHS ON 'SAME STREET' WRER SAYG BERT AND ERNIE ARE GAY

Same Street has always had one nsistent official answer (no, they’re not), but that hasn’t stopped the two famo felt roommat om beg gay ins and occupyg a unique role the queer rights movement. Controversy over their perceived homosexualy has raged termtently for s, spearhead by both alli and adversari — and a new flare-up shows that ’s not gog away anytime soon.

THE FIGHT OVER SAME STREET’S BERT AND ERNIE AS A GAY UPLE, EXPLAED

The official negatn was echoed by puppetmaster Frank Oz, who origally performed Bert oppose Jim Henson as Ernie, and who stated on Twter that “They’re not [gay], of urse. For those queer fans lookg for narrative subtext, there’s plenty to be found the personas of Bert and Ernie; after all, there’s a reason we as a culture have been discsg their relatnship for s, a reason that they ntue to be held up as gay ins across generatns — and a reason people have spent s beg hoppg mad about .

ARE BERT AND ERNIE A GAY UPLE? FALLY, THE ANSWER

It’s all pretty gay! Among homosexuals, Bert and Ernie of Same Street are the real thg.

BERT & ERNIE ARE NOT GAY, SAME STREET SAYS STATEMENT

Bert and Ernie nduct themselv the same lovg, discreet way that lns of gay men, women and hand puppets do. “I don’t believe there was much public discsn, ser or otherwise, about the crypto-gayns of The Odd Couple the 1960s and ’70s, ” he wrote an email.

“That kd of disurse only appeared ncerng work about straight characters by gay wrers — most famoly, whether Who’s Aaid of Virgia Woolf was somehow ‘really’ about a gay uple, ” he add. “In 1980, when I published my Bert & Ernie thg, there were still no out gay characters mass media.

BERT AND ERNIE WERE GAY (AT LEAST THE MD OF ONE SAME STREET WRER)

The piece of the zegeist I was rpondg to was, jt a after Stonewall (which BTW occurred a few months before Same Street premiered) and the first pri march, the hly ‘normalized’ nature of out gayns plac like New York. The nversatn between Saltzman and terviewer Reddish is illumatg and poignant, equently returng to Saltzman’s experience as a young gay man the early ’80s, one fdg his way out of the closet jt as the AIDS epimic was begng to be wily unrstood. “I n remember pchg to the tn partment, the gatekeepers of the curriculum, gay ntent, jt to get off my nscience.

But there was one place Saltzman was able to sert his own lived experience as a gay man to his wrg, and that was through the personas of Bert and Ernie. “There is a difference, ” he told the Tim, between “brg[g] what you know to your work” and “Bert and Ernie beg gay.

ARE BERT AND ERNIE GAY? ‘SAME STREET’ WRER SAYS HIS COMMENTS WERE MISTERPRETED

But ’s also important to note that if Saltzman’s origal ment to Queerty that “when I was wrg Bert & Ernie, they were” lovers was te, seems to have been an impulse born out of the ep existential crisis of beg gay durg the AIDS epimic. It was an era when an entire culture was unr attack — if not om the disease directly, then om the many homophobic parameters that arguably worsened the spe of the tragedy.

In that era, primarily due to homophobic agators, Bert and Ernie beme perpetually discsed parts of the so-lled “gay agenda. In the ’90s, Bert and Ernie were drafted to the “homosexual agenda. In the ’90s, Bert and Ernie beme viewed by some as threateng elements of a homosexual liftyle that was perceived as encroachg upon a mastream heteronormative culture.

NO, BERT AND ERNIE AREN'T GAY — THEY'RE 'BT IENDS,' SAYS 'SAME STREET'

In 1993, the New Voice, a regnal gay newspaper, reported that Tupelo, Mississippi, gay panic had spng up over the appearance of Bert and Ernie as part of a Same Street tour stop at a lol arena. “Tupelo lism officials say they’ve been bombard wh ncerned parents wantg to know if two of the fictnal characters are gay, ” the newspaper noted.

“Officials say mors that Same Street’s Bert and Ernie characters are supposedly portrayg a homosexual uple have circulated across the untry.

If this isn’t meant to reprent a homosexual unn, I n’t image what ’s supposed to reprent.

SAME STREET PROV BERT AND ERNIE AREN’T GAY—PROV IT—BY POSTG “THE DG ALONG SONG”

“Bert and Ernie, who’ve been on Same Street for 25 years, do not portray a gay uple, and there are no plans for them to do so the future, ” reads a statement om 1993 llected by Snop. In 2000, one wrer displayed Bert and Ernie dolls at his same-sex weddg as a repudiatn of the homophobic enzy around the characters; 2002, the Same Street Workshop stopped circulatn of a cult die film lled Ernt and Bertram that rest the characters as gay.

In 2010, discsn of the queerg of the Same Street characters was fully mastream, prompted part by a tweet om the official Same Street acunt that read to some as nfirmatn of Bert’s homosexualy. The ke had been orred, ironilly, as a way to memorate the Internatnal Day Agast Homophobia. Given that Bert and Ernie have been repeatedly drafted to the gay agenda by homophob, ’s a matter of, well, pri, for queer fans to subversively view them as a joyo reprentatn of a posive queer relatnship — which is why Same Street’s nial on Tuday stck many people as homophobic.

SAME STREET SHOULD HAVE LET BERT AND ERNIE BE GAY, AND HERE’S WHY

As long as Bert and Ernie uld be queer, they will ntue to enrage homophob who seek to e them to imply a gay nspiracy to filtrate mastream pop culture. For years, dienc have bated whether Bert and Ernie are Same Street's rint gay uple. But their iendship has been the subject of much bate over the years and many speculated that the two are fact a gay uple.

Why People Thk Bert and Ernie Are a Gay Couple.

The mors led to a number of public sentments om Same Workshop statg that they are not a gay uple, but are simply bt iends. Mark Saltzman, ex-wrer for Same Street, alleged that Bert and Ernie were based on his timate gay relatnship wh a worker — but should be noted that Saltzman is not the creator of Bert and Ernie. Another reason the bate has gone on so long is om the unrlyg homophobia that l our society and, up until recently, domated the media.

SAME STREET DISPUT WRER'S CLAIM THAT BERT AND ERNIE ARE GAY

People fear what they don't unrstand, and many the LGBTQ+ muny believe that those who ny that Bert and Ernie may be a uple are beg homophobic, takg issue wh the implied queerns. Speakg wh Queerty, Saltzman says, “I always felt that whout a huge agenda, when I was wrg Bert and Ernie, they were [gay]. Discsg The New Yorker‘s inic 2013 ver, which featured Bert and Ernie cuddlg on the uch as they watched the Supreme Court legalize gay marriage the Uned Stat, Saltzman says was a form of “vditn, ” though he lamented that we’ve yet to see a Bert and Ernie float a gay pri para.

BERT AND ERNIE ARE A GAY COUPLE SAYS 'SAME STREET' WRER, BUT DENIED BY SHOW

“I always felt that whout a huge agenda, when I was wrg Bert and Ernie, they were [gay], ” Mark Saltzman, who worked for the prchooler program for 15 years, told Queerty an terview. There’s much more to a human beg than jt straightns or gayns. In 2013, the New Yorker suggted the nature of their relatnship might be romantic by g a silhouette of characters their likens on the ver about the Supreme Court lg on gay marriage.

EX-SAME STREET WRER SAYS BERT AND ERNIE ARE GAY AS SHOW INSISTS THEY'RE JT 'BT FRIENDS'

For s, we’ve wonred: Are Bert and Ernie gay? The inic “Same Street” duo live together, share a bedroom and don’t seem shy about takg a bath ont of each other, so …The recurrg qutn shot back to our nscns this week after a former “Same Street” wrer who is gay said an terview that he wrote Bert and Ernie as a “lovg uple, ” takg spiratn om his own relatnship wh his longtime partner. “I always felt that whout a huge agenda, when I was wrg Bert and Ernie, they were” gay, the wrer, Mark Saltzman, said an terview wh Queerty, a gay news and entertament se.

“Somehow, the uproar, that turned to Bert and Ernie beg gay, ” he said.

While he believ that “Same Street” should clu a gay uple s programmg, he said should be done wh human characters, not for Bert and Ernie, “they are two guys who love each other, ” Mr. ”Frank Oz, who helped create Bert and Ernie nearly a half century ago, said on Twter on Tuday that the characters were not ments received phback om those who shared the importance of havg gay and lbian reprentatn on televisn.