![]() Hopefully, this all means that future generations will think of Sesame Street as the hotbed for real social discussion and change. That’s not exactly what happened here, but it is worth saying that the official statement from the Sesame Workshop about the gay Bert and Ernie thing reads a little draconian: “They remain puppets and do not have a sexuality.” That claim flies in the face of Oz’s suggestion that Bert and Ernie are more than puppets and less than easy to pin down. Pickles wants to change the gender of an otter, he meets with resistance from the producers. Weirdly, the debate around Bert and Ernie’s sexuality is oddly mirrored in the last episode of the Showtime series Kidding. And in being honest, he managed to demonstrate one thing that doesn’t happen enough online: the ability to have an adult discussion. The point is, Oz clearly isn’t tweeting for the sake of it, nor is he embroiled in the maddening “rules” social media interactions. Oz only joined the platform in 2017, right before the premiere of The Last Jedi (which, funnily enough, accidentally tipped Star Wars fans off to the fact Yoda had secretly returned). It’s notable that Oz is pretty new to Twitter, relative to the avalanche of celebrities who respond to hot-take culture as a manner of reflex. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Oz’s interactions with the people who disagree with him are civil. For several hours, as several detractors of Oz’s statement tweeted at him directly, he calmly, and rationally asked them more questions, apologizing where appropriate. And here’s where the story takes a turn that would be really unusual if this wasn’t Frank Oz: The famous straight white guy listened. In fact, several Twitter users directly called him out on this fact. Still, because Oz is straight, his statement perhaps didn’t consider the default prejudice people who aren’t straight face every day. It’s an ego-free approach to entertainment. He understands, as Henson did, that the muppets need to be defined by their emotions, their presence, and how they make the audience feel. This is all pretty par for the course for Oz, who has elaborate backstories for his characters, including Miss Piggy, that are very adult and not at all muppet canon. He was asserting that muppets are people, which is a fairly wild claim, and that labels shouldn’t define people - especially in the context of those peoples’ interactions with children. ![]() If that statement came from a politician, he or she might rightly be accused of dissembling. “There’s much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness,” Oz said. Basically, he thinks that defining them one way or another belittles their power as friends to children. Late on Tuesday, after news broke that Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman consciously wrote Bert and Ernie as a gay couple one of the original muppeteers, Frank Oz, tweeted his opinions on the whole kerfuffle. But it’s actually consistent with how the creative team behind the muppets thinks and why they’re so successful. For people unfamiliar with Oz, who is a national treasure, this might sound supremely odd. Oz says these people are wrong, but that it’s fine they’re wrong. He understands why people might think that. But he’s cool with the idea that people might think that. Frank Oz, the creator of the Sesame Street character Bert, has politely charged into the gay muppet controversy surrounding Bert and Ernie, albeit with a mixed message.
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