'Bert and Ernie are best friends,' so Sesame Workshop says in response to Bert and Ernie's gay marriage petition, noting that the two characters are puppets and don't have a sexual orientation.
- August 12, 2011
AceShowbiz -
There won't be a wedding for Bert and Ernie from "Sesame Street" despite an online petition urging producers to let the two characters get married. Sesame Workshop has stated that Bert and Ernie are not gay, insisting that they are only "best friends".
"They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves," so the workshop said in a statement. "Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation."
Jimmy Kimmel, meanwhile, had his own way to explain why Bert and Ernie would not get married. Wearing a cowboy costume during his "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" show, he got on his high horse to tell people that Bert and Ernie, as puppets, do not have genitals.
Giving another evidence that they are not gay, Kimmel pointed out about Burt's distinctive eyebrow, "No self-respecting homosexual would leave a unibrow like that unplucked." When addressing Bert and Ernie bathing together, he joked, "What roommates don't?... It's okay to wash your friends." In a more serious note, the funnyman reminded people that the characters are still six years old.
The online petition, which has been signed by more than 3,000 people, ask producers to let Bert and Ernie marry "in a tasteful way" to teach tolerance to young children. However, some others argue that to identify the characters with a sexual orientation serves only to infuse "the passions of adults" into what is a show for young children.
