"Sesame Street’ Drops Special ‘Family Day’ Episode Featuring Two Gay Dads." Wait -- why did they drop it? Kowtowing to the pressure from homophobic groups who scream "The homosexual agenda! You can't show two gay men on tv with kids watching!"
Wait -- "drops" is apparently the new word for "broadcasts." The show already aired on June 17th. It's available on youtube.
Elmo introduces Family Day on the Street with a banner and a gaggle of human and muppet characters that I don't recognize. The adult Alan(Alan Muraoka) says that his cousin is coming by bus all the way from California. Another adult, Nina (Suki Lopez), that her brother and his family are driving in. Big Bird is sad because his grandma won't be there -- she's old and doesn't fly, even by airplane.
Whoops -- the moment he leaves, Grandma comes in -- Big Bird in drag, with a Southern accent! She wants her visit to be a surprise.
Next, Nina's brother Dave arrives with his family -- his husband Frank and their daughter Mia. They haven't shown up before, so introductions all around. Then the party is about to start, so they go help set up. On the way, they are introduced to a Muppet named Maggie, who says she has heard a lot about them.
The plot shifts to trying to keep Big Bird from knowing that his Grandma is there before the party begins.
Inside, Dave and Frank unpack the vegetable lasagna they brought, while everyone exclaims about how DELICIOUS!!!! it smells (I guess over-enthusiasm is characteristic of Sesame Street). Mia explains that they make it together, as a family.
Grandma brought birdseed cupcakes. Then Big Bird arrives, and they have to hide her. Strange -- Big Bird was not there when Dave and Frank arrived, but he doesn't ask for an introduction. Plot hole!
Switch to the Arbor, where Dave, Frank, Mia, and Big Bird are arranging flowers for the party. Big Bird is still depressed over his Grandma not being there.
Switch to a lot of new characters: Nuclear families: humans Mary and Victor, muppets Emmett and Mae. A mixed fairy-monster family. Alan's cousin Andy. A child muppet exclaims "Wow, the families look so different." Frank says: "There are all kinds of families." Finally Grandma appears. I'm not sure that the surprise was worth all the stress it caused Big Bird, but you have to have some sort of conflict, or it be lousy story.
We close to photos of various human and muppet families. Looks like some single parents, a lesbian couple, some interracial couples, and Alan and his cousin.
8:43 minutes. I don't know if this was a stand-alone special or a segment from the show, but I missed Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, Ernie and Bert (they'd make a good family photo), and the theme song: "Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away. On my way to where the air is sweet..." And the various uses of the Letter L.
But there was definitely a gay couple on Sesame Street. And on Duck Tales. And Arthur. Can the Marvel Universe be far behind? I'm looking at you, Bucky Barnes.
See also: What's Gay About Sesame Street?
Yeah, everyone seems to bitch about Sesame Street. In the 70s, it was for having black people on.
ReplyDeleteI assume you mean the MCU, because both Big Two companies have well-known gay characters in their main universe. Even if Iceman began as a fandom thing and couldn't have been handled worse with Past Jean just publicly outing Past Bobby.
While on this topic, can we stop retconning away hetero romance? It happened. Your character is bi, and so are a lot of people if we assume a modal distribution. Yeah, in a book about how atomic blasts turn you into a big green walking apocalypse, apparently the idea that a man might be attracted to both men and women is implausible. (Now that I think about it, the Hulk seems to equate Betty and Rick...)