Gay Muppets

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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63 Responses

  1. I’ve always believed that there is a certain % of gays and their supporters who believe that the quickest path to acceptance is to shove their lifestyle into as many people’s faces as possible until society basically taps out. I see no other explanation for efforts like this one.

    I know that sounds cynical but there is a time and a place for everything and this goes sound less like pushing acceptance and more like indoctrination.Report

  2. If they had a straight wedding on the show – sure, I would call it that. But to my knowledge they haven’t done that since the 80s.Report

  3. Jason Kuznicki says:

    Should there be black Muppets?Report

  4. Robert Cheeks says:

    The PBS commie-Muppets are designed to make little democrats. It’s Sponge Bob Square Pants who represents the modern American male.Report

  5. Robert Cheeks says:

    You will ALL learn to love Sponge Bob! On so many occasions he has proven himself the MAN!Report

  6. Ryan B says:

    I think the overall reaction here is fairly strong support for one of the worries I expressed in the Star Trek post. A substantial portion of any pop culture audience will view almost any portrayal of same-sex love as some kind of anomaly, or as Mike says in the first comment “shov[ing] their lifestyle in people’s faces”. These are the same people who never, ever see straight relationships as shoving anything anywhere (ahem), even if they are otherwise completely unnecessary to the plot.

    In other words, no one here seems terribly upset that Grover has a girlfriend or that Miss Piggy’s sexuality is actually in everyone’s face in precisely the way we’re always told Teh Gayz are making everyone pay attention to theirs.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Ryan B says:

      Still, to consciously include a gay couple is to intentionally challenge this very thing, so you can’t really escape this phenomenon either.Report

      • Ryan B in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        Agreed. My thesis is still something like “it’s really hard to get this right”.

        Have you ever watched “Skins” (the British version)? It has one of the least artificial portrayals of a gay character I think I’ve ever seen. (Although it’s arguable the portrayal of every character on the show is so artificial that the gayness of one of them is relatively innocuous.)Report

        • Tod Kelly in reply to Ryan B says:

          “Have you ever watched “Skins” (the British version)? It has one of the least artificial portrayals of a gay character I think I’ve ever seen. ”

          I’d be interested to see that.

          I remember when Will & Grace was on, and the character that always got credit for being authentically gay from straight people I knew (Will’s friend, I think… I’ve only seen it a few times) was the one character on the entire show that was entirely unlike any gay person I had ever met, and was more like the way guys in my high school that were making fun of gay people acted.

          I’d like to see an authentic gay character a decade later, and from outside the US. I’m guessing we’ve come a long way.Report

    • Sam M in reply to Ryan B says:

      I suspect it might make some people happy if the creators of the show were to simply declare that Miss Piggy has been a gay male character all along.

      Although I am not sure who the happy people would be.Report

  7. G.A. Jackson says:

    I can’t say who would be happy.

    But you WILL break Kermit’s heart, I am guessing! Drag Pig!Report