The incriminating Tweet, from July 11, is fairly simple. Bert, the famous Sesame Street character of Bert and Ernie fame, said this on the official Sesame Street Twitter account: “Ever notice how similar my hair is to Mr. T’s? The only difference is mine is a little more ‘mo,’ a little less ‘hawk.'” “Mo” is, of course, slang for “homosexual.” It took a few months for the firestorm to develop, but here it is. People are claiming that Bert and Ernie will be coming out as Sesame Street’s first gay couple.
This is a rumor that’s been going around since I was a kid. Way back in 1993, Sesame Workshop issued a press release that read, in part: “Bert and Ernie, who’ve been on Sesame Street for 25 years, do not portray a gay couple, and there are no plans for them to do so in the future. They are puppets, not humans. Like all the Muppets created for Sesame Street, they were designed to help educate preschoolers. Bert and Ernie are characters who help demonstrate to children that despite their differences, they can be good friends.”
Of course, things can change. Years ago, Elmo was a side dish to the more important Big Bird; now he’s a main course. Years ago, Katy Perry would’ve never been invited on the show to air out her cleavage alongside a Muppet. Bert and Ernie will eventually become gay; you just have to give them time to grow to accept who they really are. Then all your preschool slash fiction will come true.
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