-Caveat Lector-
>From www.slate.com
The Cartoon Closet
Jerry Falwell doesn't know the half of it.
By Jacob Weisberg
(Posted Saturday, Feb. 20, 1999)
<Picture>
<Picture: Tinky Winky><Picture>
Tinky Winky The reaction to the Rev. Jerry Falwell's outing of Tinky
Winky, the purple Teletubby, was widespread scorn and hilarity. Comedians
and column writers mercilessly ridiculed Falwell for his paranoia in seeing
gays under the crib.
Three comments in defense of Falwell: First, he didn't write the
article in question, which appeared unsigned in National Liberty Journal, a
magazine he publishes. When asked about the charge, Falwell said he had
never seen Teletubbies and didn't know whether Tinky Winky was homosexual
or not. The notion of Falwell attacking a cartoon character is too
appealing to liberal prejudices to be easily abandoned.
<Picture: S>econd, if you've ever watched Teletubbies, you might well
suspect some kind of subliminal messaging. The four tubbies have aerials
coming out of their spacesuit hoods, which receive programming that's
broadcast on TV screens in their tummies. As they prance out of their
bunker and around the strange, apocalyptic landscape where they live,
periscope speakers pop out of the ground and feed them orders. It's both
cute and creepy.
Third, the folks at Liberty College apparently got their idea about
Tinky Winky not from watching the program but from reading such
publications as the Washington Post and People. On Jan. 1, the Post
included "TINKY WINKY, THE GAY TELETUBBY" in its annual list of what's "in"
for the New Year. No one got excited. The press, including the Post, then
mocked Falwell as a reactionary hick obsessed with the sexuality of
puppets. Seems like a bit of a trap.
<Picture: I>s Tinky Winky gay? He is not the first cartoon character to
be outed. More often than not it is homosexuals who claim a character as
one of their own--which also puts the Falwell fuss in perspective. At the
level of the creators' stated intentions, the Teletubbies have no sexual
orientation. The program tries to recreate the world of toddlers, which
does not involve any level of sexual understanding. But TV programs are
group products, and it's not impossible that references--Tinky Winky's
handbag, his purple triangle antenna, and the tutu he sometimes wears--are
bits of code included for the benefit of adults. If Tinky Winky has a bit
more spring in his step than Dipsy, the other male tubby, it may be because
the actor who originally inhabited his costume added that dimension. Gays
in Britain love Tinky Winky, and some protested outside the BBC when the
actor who played him was fired.
<Picture: Batman & Robin><Picture>
Batman & Robin Sexual signals can be received without being
consciously sent. The first cartoon characters to be accused of aberrant
sexual practices were Batman and Robin. In a 1954 book titled Seduction of
the Innocent, a psychologist named Fred Wertham attacked the sadistic
violence and sexual deviance portrayed in comic books. Batman and Robin, he
noted, were two men living together who liked to wear capes and tights.
Back home at stately Wayne Manor, they lounged about in dressing gowns.
Wertham was a student of Freud who discovered a message that Bob Kane,
Batman's creator, probably never consciously intended. But that doesn't
mean it wasn't there.
<Picture: W>ertham's book led to the adoption of a code of standards by
the comic book industry, which included, among other things, an admonition
that "sex perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden." After
this history, the Batman TV series, which was made in the mid-to-late
1960s, couldn't plead the same innocence. Post-Wertham, the producers were
well aware of the gay take on Batman and Robin. Rather than resist it, they
gave a camp tenor to the whole series. In the 1960s, even most adult
viewers interpreted the program as broad parody. But once the idea of a gay
subtext has been planted, Louie the Lilac (as played by Milton Berle) isn't
just a villain who likes to wear purple.
In a curious way, gays, their friends, and their enemies have all
collaborated in destroying the sexual innocence of cartoon characters by
making an issue out of it. When trying to elude Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam,
Bugs Bunny is liable to dress up as a woman, vamp around, or imitate
Katharine Hepburn. Is this meant to indicate that he likes other boy
bunnies? Many of these antics were borrowed from vaudeville comedy, where a
man dressing up as a woman didn't necessarily imply homosexuality (although
the same questions arise in retrospect). The Warner Bros. studio, where
these cartoons were created in the 1940s and '50s, was an aggressively
heterosexual milieu. Chuck Jones and other illustrators were mocking
stereotyped homosexual behavior, not winking at homosexuals in a friendly
way. But while a man dressing up as a woman may not have "meant" anything
in the 1940s, it does mean something in the late 1990s. What has sexualized
these cartoon characters is the change in the culture, which in the last
few decades has become not just aware of homosexuality but increasingly
open about and tolerant of it.
<Picture: Bugs Bunny><Picture>
Bugs Bunny<Picture: Ernie and Bert><Picture>
Ernie and Bert<Picture: E>rnie and Bert are another good example of this
process. When Sesame Street was created in the early 1970s, no one meant
for them to be taken as lovers. But consider two men living together,
sleeping in the same room, and taking great interest in each other's baths.
Predictably, the "urban legend" that Ernie and Bert were gay began to
spread. In 1994, a Southern preacher named Joseph Chambers tried to get
them banned under an old North Carolina anti-sodomy law. (He said they had
"blatantly effeminate characteristics.") The Children's Television Workshop
eventually had to deny the rumors, which have included an impending
same-sex union. But the gay read on Ernie and Bert isn't wrong because the
creators don't endorse it. The same goes for the Peanuts characters
Peppermint Patty and her tomboy friend Marcie, who always refers to her as
"Sir." When Charles M. Schulz created the strip, he never imagined that
Patty and Marcie would be claimed as protolesbians.
In recent years, children's entertainment has contained an
increasing number of apparently intentional or even obviously intentional
gay references. In The Lion King, Simba leaves home and is more or less
adopted by Timon and Pumbaa, a male warthog and a male meerkat who live
together as a couple in the jungle. In the 1994 Disney film, the actor
Nathan Lane supplied the voice of Pumbaa in much the same style as his
flamboyantly gay character in The Birdcage. When I saw the Broadway version
of the musical, the audience roared at Pumbaa's even more exaggerated gay
mannerisms.
<Picture: O>r consider Pee-wee's Playhouse. Pee-wee Herman minces about
and becomes obviously infatuated with other male characters who conform to
gay archetypes. While parents may pick up this gay semaphore, kids aren't
likely to. To them, Timon, Pumbaa, and Pee-wee are just goofy characters.
Elsewhere, the implicit has become explicit. On The Simpsons,
Smithers, the bow tie wearing toady who trails around after Mr. Burns, has
become increasingly gay. According to Larry Doyle, who writes for the show,
Smithers was originally just a sycophant in love with the boss. But lately
he has taken to cruising college campuses in his Miata, looking for
"recruits." In last week's episode, Apu, the Indian convenience store
owner, goes down to the docks to donate porno magazines to sailors. The sea
captain calls out to thank him: "Thank you for the Jugs magazines. They'll
keep my men from resorting to homosexuality ... for about 10 minutes!" The
sailors all laugh, and one calls out, "Look who's talking!"
<Picture: Pee-wee Herman><Picture>
Pee-wee Herman <Picture: I>t isn't absurd for anyone, including Falwell, to
notice these hints, inferences, and references. But it is ridiculous to
object to them. There's no scientific or psychological basis for believing
that children are affected in their sexual development or eventual sexual
orientation by exposure to homosexuality--on television or in real life. If
the creators of cartoons are intentionally or unintentionally giving
children the idea that gay people are part of the big, happy human family,
that's a good thing, not a bad one. (If it weren't for gay people, there
would be no Lion King--or much else on the all-American cultural front.)
The conservative paranoia about recruiting, which leads them to think that
gay school teachers and Boy Scout leaders present a hazard to the young is
pure prejudice.
Anyway, for the religious right, this battle is pointless because
the war is already lost. Gay themes are everywhere. Pee-wee's Playhouse
runs every day on the Fox Family Channel, the cable network Pat Robertson
recently sold to Rupert Murdoch. It's just a couple of hours ahead of The
700 Club.
<Picture> Links
For the source of the recent ruckus, check out Tinky Winky's picture
(complete with magic bag) on the Teletubbies home page, the National
Liberty Journal "Parents Alert" piece on the tubbies, and Falwell's
statement in response to the "devious article" that implied Falwell was
launching an anti-Teletubbies movement. Click here to read the apology to
Tinky Winky written by the Washington Post writer who first outed him. This
Web page includes a New York Times Magazine article exploring the gayness
of Bert and Ernie and the Children's Television Workshop's response to
criticism from parents, and this page includes a list of gay TV characters.
For more on The Lion King's Timon and Pumbaa, this article called "Sex in
the Lion King" explains the various phases Simba goes through, including
the homosexual phase while in the care of said warthog and meerkat. This
article on Fred Wertham discusses Seduction of the Innocent as well as his
subsequent career. One can only wonder what Wertham would have thought of
such goofy (and possibly gay) comic heroes such as The Tick.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
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