RUBBER DUCKIE, YOU'RE THE ONE...

     I don't know. Maybe it was because I had a brother but I never saw Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street as a gay couple and at some level it bothers me that other people do. However, explaining why is no easy feat. And believe me, if someone wants to go around peddling the idea that Bert and Ernie are a gay couple, whatever. I'm not gonna fight it but I just don't know where the association comes from though I guess it's an adult perspective.

     My brother is close enough to my age that I have no memories of not having a brother so he's always been there. We also shared a room all throughout our schooling so the idea of two boys/men sharing a room together didn't exactly strike me as strange. But that's how those two came across to me...just two brothers living together and sharing a room with unseen parents (it's not like you saw the rest of their home - hell, even the bathroom was only implied on a sing-a-long record I remember having as a kid). It didn't occur to me as a kid that they were supposed to be grown-ups. The muppets on Sesame Street never struck me as adults, even the Count, because their behavior was decidedly more childish than even the actual kids on the show. Manifestations of id I suppose if you wanna go psychological here.

     I know now, many years later, that Bert and Ernie were actually based on the Odd Couple so they weren't brothers, they were roommates just like Oscar and Felix on that show and Bert and Ernie roughly paralleled their respective neat & tidy and messy & casual attitudes. One of the many things on Sesame Street intended as nods to the adults they knew were watching along with their children. Perhaps since The Odd Couple has been long off the air that the gay insinuations have come more into play as the original reference is lost to living memory...or perhaps it was always there but I was content with my "they were brothers" interpretation rather than friends living together (in the original television series, they were both divorcés sharing a Manhattan apartment).

     I guess Bert and Ernie are what you need them to be. Roommates to those who remember the original reference; gay for those who find comfort in them being a loving gay couple in an often trying (but forgiving) relationship; and brothers, for people like me...or maybe just me.