[Mb-civic] EDITORIAL And as for the Seven Dwarfs ...

[Michael Butler]

latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-seuss5feb05.story
And as for the Seven Dwarfs ...

February 5, 2005

Readers of this page may recall our cynicism at recent reports that
SpongeBob SquarePants, who we thought was just a treacly cartoon
sponge-person, actually has lurid designs on young children. Last month,
James Dobson, Focus on the Family's thoughtmeister, declared that
SpongeBob's penchant for holding hands with his male starfish pal and his
soft and swishy, er, squishy demeanor signals that he is really a homosexual
cartoon sponge. Bob, he suggested, is an unsuitable, if not alarming, role
model for kids.

Although we were initially skeptical, the more we thought about it, the more
a subterranean world of deviance became evident in what parents long assumed
were harmless children's classics. Dobson and the other family-values
monitors who defend his SpongeBob "outing" are clearly on to something, and
as a public service, we'd like to point out some of the more obvious
examples:

€  Bert and Ernie. Two guys, Sesame Street pals, longtime roommates, but who
really buys those twin beds?



€  Nancy Drew and her loyal sidekicks, Bess and the aptly named George. No
wonder Ned Nickerson never gets to first base.

€  The Cowardly Lion from "The Wizard of Oz." He wears a red hair bow,
carries Dorothy's basket on occasion, sobs and faints and generally carries
on ‹ unmanly in the extreme.

€  Superman and Spider-Man have proper girlfriends. But Batman and Robin the
Boy Wonder? Come on.

€  Staying with the men-in-tights-and-capes theme, Hamelin parents should
have known that the Pied Piper was trouble from the moment he pranced into
town promising to clear up a severe vermin infestation. Soon after the rats
danced their way into the river, lured to their deaths by his pipe music,
the guy goes after the local kids. An obvious pedophile.

€  Peter Pan may be straight ‹ he seems to have a thing for Wendy ‹ but his
relationship with the fairy worries us. Captain Hook is another concern. The
lacy shirts and tight pants may be a tipoff, and his fixation on Peter Pan
has not been sufficiently explored.

€  There is no doubt that Horton the elephant exhibits some serious gender
confusion. When Mayzie flies off in search of adventure, Horton takes over,
sitting on the feckless bird's nest for 51 long weeks. So responsible (read,
female) is he that when the eggs finally hatch, Dr. Seuss draws them as
little winged elephants.

€  Peppermint Patty is another one with evident gender issues. She mostly
pals around with the girls in "Peanuts," and her best friend, Marcie, often
calls her "Sir." Hmm.

It's no surprise that millions of Americans are worried sick about eroding
family values and gay marriage. But abstinence-only education and a
constitutional amendment won't begin to untangle the twisted messages our
children ‹ and those of generations past ‹ imbibed with their bedtime
bottles.

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