I swear, my last post hasn't even been up long enough for the pixels to dry and some jackhole decides to rip into me. Doesn't even have the courage to do it publicly either. And no it's not this Rob chap I've talked about before.
Nope some anonymous dweeb decides to rip into me about being against "outing" Bert and Ernie. Says that I am homophobic, intolerant, and just not a nice person to the LGBT community.
Well Mr. or Mrs. "Person with obviously made up and throwaway email account name", let me address your concerns.
My Homophobia. There is a person who is gay. This man is a brother to me in all but blood. To my wife and I, this man is family. There is nothing we wouldn't do for him if it is within our power so to do. We love him that much. When we hang out, he frequently slips in to "Gay" mode (he is not one who trips "Gaydar" normally) and I will get into the silliness of the moment and join him in acting gay. I frequently disturb my wife by acting gayer than he does. Hell I disturb him and he's the gay one.
Also my wife and I own a pair of "It's ok to be Takei" t-shirts which fundraise for George Takei's favorite Gay Rights charities.
I've even gone as far as to reevaluate my opinion of Lady Gaga. I am still not fond of her songs (apart from Poker Face which is quite catchy in a techno-esq kind of way) and I think that her videos and her stage presence is a little over the top for me...but I can not fault her stance on Gay Rights and I do like the message contained in her "Born this Way" song.
So homophobic is something I'm not.
Intolerant? Get a grip. See the section of homophobia above. I also have a step-daughter who is white and is currently dating a nice black man. They're likely to get married when she gets out of college they're that close. I expect to be corrupting their mixed-blood child when they get around to making me a grandparent. The only thing I am intolerant of is people like you who decide to get up in my face (well as close to it as you can come over the safety of the internet) and call me names for no goddamn reason.
And I am not intolerant or objecting to the concept of having a gay couple on Sesame Street. After seeing what they did about death, I welcome them trying to cover the whole "I have daddies or two mommies" bit. I'd love to see them treat a gay couple as if they were just plain normal folk because they ARE plain normal folk.
Not a nice person? Well that's debatable. When my ire is raised, I can be a mean and vindictive person. I can think of all sorts of things to do to a person that is quite mean and nasty yet still being in the confines of the law. I love posting pictures of douchebag parkers in my facebook. I love posting asshole customers on Customers Suck's website (Check them out and look for Mongo). I'll, in a face to face encounter. even resort to verbally destroying you for my amusement.
So I can be nasty. I can be "Whipping puppies with live rattlesnakes" mean and cruel.
Send me another email from your REAL address and let's see who walks away and who is a quivering puddle of neurotic piss left to fester and rot on the floor.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Bert and Ernie
There is this petition going around about how Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street should come out of the closet and get married.
I'm of two opinions on the matter.
Part of me says "Why?" After all, growing up Bert and Ernie were just two characters who shared an apartment and bickered with each other, largely due to the two radically personalities. Growing up I never put any thought into it as to why they were living together. I just took it as written and laughed at their antics and learned the lessons they taught.
Largely that you can be of two differing personalities and still get along.
But as an adult, now I can think of these things and look at the two of them with another, less innocent eye and I can see where that it is rather odd. Even as simple roommates to share the rent...both of them in the same bedroom is a bit odd. But again there is the flip side that you never see anything resembling affection. Friendship certainly (if not I think Bert would have long since killed Ernie) but not affection like what you'd see in a couple. Not to mention that while Bert as a character seems mature enough to be in a relationship, Ernie seems too immature, too childlike to be in a relationship of that level, homosexual or otherwise.
So again that pert of my brain says "Why bother? Why not just let them continue being what they appear to be on the surface...friends. After all most of the Muppet characters are superficial, surface level personalities that were created to be that way in order to teach a lesson or two."
But there is the other side of my personality. The side that remembers how they dealt with the death of an actor on the show. They did not gloss over Mr. Hooper's death. They didn't replace him, they didn't say "Oh he retired and is living in Florida" or any of that bullshit. They made us kids look death square in the eyes and realize that this is what happens at the other end of our allotted span of years and that it is as much a part of life as seeing a baby born.
Much of my philosophy about death got its start with Mr. Hooper. That early on in my life I understood that death is the end of our existence here on Earth save for the fond memories of those we leave behind.
Or Linda. There was a deaf woman who was striving to exist in the world of the hearing. A woman with an obvious disability who was still as much a part of the Street's life as Gordon and the rest of them. Again my perceptions of the disabled came from seeing that just because they have something malfunctioning doesn't mean that they are different from the rest of us in their wants, desires, and ambitions in life.
Hell in South Africa where HIV is prevalent, they have a Muppet that is HIV positive. Granted this is a little silly, but you have to give credit where credit is due for the attempt at showing that an HIV infected person is not some evil plague carrier that much be killed with fire (or at the very least...shunned).
So the other side of my personality says that having Bert and Ernie coming out and revealing that they are partners would not be that bad of a thing. That it would help children understand that homosexuality is not the collection of baby-buggering bastards that the religious right (which is often neither) make them out to be.
Funny thing about blogging. As one collects one's thoughts, often times another possibility comes to mind.
My new honest opinion is that they need to keep Bert and Ernie as they are. What they ought to do is to get a homosexual couple to "move in" to the Street and have an adopted child or a child that is biologically the offspring of one half of the couple. That way you can have the whole "I have two Mom's or two Dad's and I'm as loved as if I had one of each" thing going there.
Some may think I'm putting too much thought into it. But in my defense...the people who originated this petition must have done so as well.
Which of us is more disturbed? I'll leave that to the rest of ya.
I'm of two opinions on the matter.
Part of me says "Why?" After all, growing up Bert and Ernie were just two characters who shared an apartment and bickered with each other, largely due to the two radically personalities. Growing up I never put any thought into it as to why they were living together. I just took it as written and laughed at their antics and learned the lessons they taught.
Largely that you can be of two differing personalities and still get along.
But as an adult, now I can think of these things and look at the two of them with another, less innocent eye and I can see where that it is rather odd. Even as simple roommates to share the rent...both of them in the same bedroom is a bit odd. But again there is the flip side that you never see anything resembling affection. Friendship certainly (if not I think Bert would have long since killed Ernie) but not affection like what you'd see in a couple. Not to mention that while Bert as a character seems mature enough to be in a relationship, Ernie seems too immature, too childlike to be in a relationship of that level, homosexual or otherwise.
So again that pert of my brain says "Why bother? Why not just let them continue being what they appear to be on the surface...friends. After all most of the Muppet characters are superficial, surface level personalities that were created to be that way in order to teach a lesson or two."
But there is the other side of my personality. The side that remembers how they dealt with the death of an actor on the show. They did not gloss over Mr. Hooper's death. They didn't replace him, they didn't say "Oh he retired and is living in Florida" or any of that bullshit. They made us kids look death square in the eyes and realize that this is what happens at the other end of our allotted span of years and that it is as much a part of life as seeing a baby born.
Much of my philosophy about death got its start with Mr. Hooper. That early on in my life I understood that death is the end of our existence here on Earth save for the fond memories of those we leave behind.
Or Linda. There was a deaf woman who was striving to exist in the world of the hearing. A woman with an obvious disability who was still as much a part of the Street's life as Gordon and the rest of them. Again my perceptions of the disabled came from seeing that just because they have something malfunctioning doesn't mean that they are different from the rest of us in their wants, desires, and ambitions in life.
Hell in South Africa where HIV is prevalent, they have a Muppet that is HIV positive. Granted this is a little silly, but you have to give credit where credit is due for the attempt at showing that an HIV infected person is not some evil plague carrier that much be killed with fire (or at the very least...shunned).
So the other side of my personality says that having Bert and Ernie coming out and revealing that they are partners would not be that bad of a thing. That it would help children understand that homosexuality is not the collection of baby-buggering bastards that the religious right (which is often neither) make them out to be.
Funny thing about blogging. As one collects one's thoughts, often times another possibility comes to mind.
My new honest opinion is that they need to keep Bert and Ernie as they are. What they ought to do is to get a homosexual couple to "move in" to the Street and have an adopted child or a child that is biologically the offspring of one half of the couple. That way you can have the whole "I have two Mom's or two Dad's and I'm as loved as if I had one of each" thing going there.
Some may think I'm putting too much thought into it. But in my defense...the people who originated this petition must have done so as well.
Which of us is more disturbed? I'll leave that to the rest of ya.
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