'Sesame Street': Frank Oz Comments On Bert & Ernie Relationship

The debate of Bert and Ernie's sexual orientation has sparked up recently, and Sesame Street [...]

By Matthew Aguilar

The debate of Bert and Ernie's sexual orientation has sparked up recently, and Sesame Street puppeteer Frank Oz recently weighed in on the topic.

This all started when former Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman revealed he wrote Bert and Ernie as a gay couple, saying he "didn't have any other way to contextualize them." Sesame Street recently issued a full statement on that revelation, and Oz also decided to address it.

"It seems Mr. Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay," Oz said. "It's fine that he feels they are. They're not, of course. But why that question? Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There's much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness."

There was some backlash to both the original comments from Saltzman and the new comments from Oz, but Oz went into a bit more detail regarding his statement.

"I hope Mr Saltzman doesn't feel my comment was directed towards him," Oz said. "My comment was directed towards the question. He sounds like a caring person. He never said B & E were gay. But when others took that leap from his interview I felt I had to question the need for the question."

"But I did learn something from @Logainne. Although it doesn't matter to me if someone is gay or viewed as gay, I learned it does matter to a great many people who feel they are not represented enough. The Tweet discussion was worth it for me to just learn that," Oz said.

Oz also addressed one particular comment that rubbed some the wrong way.

"When I wrote "They're not, of course", did you think I was saying something like, "They're straight like everyone else." ? What I was actually saying was "They're not, of course. Jim and I never created them to be gay". Just a misunderstanding. Thanks for for the discussion," Oz said.

"By the way, just another clarification," Oz said. "When I write that I created Bert, I didn't mean I created the physical Bert Muppet. The brilliant workshop people did that. I meant that, with input from the writers, I created the character of Bert."

You can find the official statement from Sesame Street below.

"As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different form themselves. 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."

Do you side with Oz in this? Let us know in the comments.

Sesame Street currently airs new episodes on HBO and reruns on PBS.

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