Moment of joy
| Moment of joy |
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| Jack Hunter , 2013 |
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Link to the picture |
Moment of Joy ( German "moment of joy" ) is a graph of the artist Jack Hunter, on the cover of dated 8 and 15 July 2013 issue of the New Yorker appeared. It shows the two characters Bert and Ernie from the children's television show Sesame Street , how they look, arm in arm watching TV, and was a response to two decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States that the marriage between homosexuals in the US strengthened. In addition to great praise, the cover also generated criticism from both opponents and supporters of the court decisions.
background
Ernie and Bert
Ernie and Bert are two characters from the children's television series Sesame Street , who are represented by hand puppets. The two friends live together and also share the bedroom. This led to the rumor that they might be a couple. As early as 1980, the author Kurt Andersen, in his humorous book The Real Thing , compared them to other homosexual couples who lived together discreetly. In 1993, letters from worried viewers resulted in Sesame Street producers making it clear that Ernie and Bert were not a gay couple. Instead, they should show children that people who are very different from one another could also be good friends. In January 1994, a clergyman attempted an anti-gay law to ban the two of them from television in North Carolina .
The rumors about Bert and Ernie were also picked up in Germany. In 1997 they were featured on the cover of the Süddeutsche Zeitung magazine with the title “100 Years of the Gay Movement”. In addition, the RTL broadcast Friday Night News portrayed the two as homosexuals in their categories Bernie and Ert and Popo Club .
In 2011, gay rights activists launched an online petition on Change.org demanding that the two characters get married. The petition, which found almost 11,000 supporters, got a response from the Sesame Workshop, the organization behind Sesame Street that Ernie and Bert are best friends and, as dolls, have no sexual orientation.
In 2018, five years after the appearance of Moment of Joy , former Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman gave an interview to LGBT online magazine Queerty , in which he implied that he thought Ernie and Bert were gay. The Sesame Workshop then repeated its denial statement from 2011. A few days later, Saltzman made it clear in an interview with the New York Times that he had been misunderstood and only wanted to express that he and his deceased life partner were like Ernie and Bert.
Defense of Marriage Act
The law, known as the Defense of Marriage Act , was passed by the US Congress in 1996 during the reign of Bill Clinton . Among other things, marriage was defined as a connection between a man and a woman. As a result, same-sex marriages, which were allowed in various states in the United States, were not recognized by federal agencies and the spouses were denied certain legal, financial, and social benefits. Edith Windsor appealed against this ruling to the Supreme Court. She married her long-time partner Thea Spyer in Canada in 2007. The marriage was later recognized by New York State , where the two of them lived. After her death, Spyer left her entire fortune to her wife, who was supposed to pay over $ 360,000 in inheritance tax. However, if she had been married to a man, she would have been exempt from the sum. For this reason, from their point of view, the regulation violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution .
On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court ruled five to four that the law was unconstitutional. The reasoning stated that it violated the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution , in which every US citizen is guaranteed the same freedoms. On the same day the Court declared itself in favor of an action in the Hollingsworth v. Perry did not have jurisdiction over the repeal of the 2008 referendum ban on gay marriage in California . The two decisions were seen as successes on the road to equal rights for homosexuals. However, there was still no nationwide right to same-sex marriage, and states were not required to recognize gay marriages that had taken place in other states. It was not until two years later that the decision of the Supreme Court in the Obergefell v. Hodges legalized gay marriage across the United States.
description
On the colored graphic you can see Ernie and Bert sitting on a couch from behind. Bert, who is sitting to the right of the viewer, has put his left arm around Ernie's shoulders. Ernie's head is on Bert's shoulder. The lighting conditions are dark, the only light seems to come from the old-fashioned, antenna-equipped television that stands in front of the couch and is being watched by Bert and Ernie. The screen shows the official group photo of the Supreme Court in black and white and poor image quality. In the lower right corner is Jack Hunter's signature.
publication
The illustrator Jack Hunter first published The Moment of Joy in a blog on the blogging platform Tumblr . The New Yorker selected it for its July 8th and 15th edition. The graphic appeared on the magazine's website on June 27, 2013. In a short post, Hunter is quoted as saying that for him the court's decision is a moment that everyone can celebrate.
reception
The release of Moment of Joy on the cover of the New Yorker generated a variety of very different reactions. For one, there was great praise. The Huffington Post called it one of the greatest covers in New Yorker's history . The Atlantic's Rebecca Greenfield thought the cover was cute and saw it as the perfect symbol for gay marriage. For Sarah Dunant , it is instantly captivating and its atmosphere makes you smile while you are still trying to decipher its meaning. Anne Zeiser praised the courage that the New Yorker had shown with the publication compared to other magazines, whose covers were usually based on photos of famous people. The cover is a strong work of art that tells a relevant cultural story.
On the other hand, the cover aroused sharp criticism from conservative circles. The National Review magazine initially only commented on the cover with the heading Innocence. Lost. (German: innocence. Lost.), with which she suggested a sexual indoctrination of children. A few days later, an article by Dennis Prager followed , who saw the cover only as one of many examples that the left sexualized children at an early age and thus robbed them of their innocence.
However, criticism also came from proponents of equal rights for homosexuals. So, while June Thomas described the picture as cute, he saw it as a terrible way to celebrate such an important victory. Tyler Coates saw it similarly, describing the cover as infantilizing and insulting. In his opinion, by sexualizing two dolls it belittles the decades-long struggle of homosexuals for their equality. Instead of Ernie and Bert, he would have wanted a real homosexual couple, for example Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, on the cover.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Susan Reimer: Believe this: Muppet Bert isn't dead, isn't dying. In: The Baltimore Sun . December 7, 1997, accessed on April 20, 2019 (English, not available from the EU).
- ↑ Oliver Kaever: Are Ernie and Bert gay now - or flatmates? In: Spiegel Online . September 19, 2018, accessed April 20, 2019 .
- ↑ Let Bert & Ernie Get Married On Sesame Street. In: change.org. Retrieved April 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Ernie and Bert are not allowed to marry. In: Spiegel Online. August 12, 2011, accessed April 18, 2019 .
- ↑ David Reddish: EXCLUSIVE: Are Bert & Ernie a couple? We finally have an answer ... In: Queerty. September 16, 2018, accessed April 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Sarah Mervosh: Are Bert and Ernie Gay? 'Sesame Street' Writer Says His Comments Were Misinterpreted. In: The New York Times. September 18, 2018, accessed April 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Lila Shapiro: Edie Windsor vs. DOMA: 83-Year-Old Lesbian Petitions US Supreme Court To Hear Case. In: The Huffington Post . July 16, 2012, accessed April 20, 2019 .
- ↑ Thorsten Schröder: Judgment on gay marriage: Being gay is becoming a little more American. In: time online . June 26, 2013, accessed April 20, 2019 .
- ↑ Marc Pitzke: Love wins. In: Spiegel Online. June 26, 2015, accessed April 20, 2019 .
- ^ Françoise Mouly, Mina Kaneko: Cover Story: Bert and Ernie's “Moment of Joy”. In: The New Yorker. June 27, 2013, accessed April 17, 2019 .
- ↑ New Yorker's DOMA Cover Features Bert And Ernie, Is Amazing (PHOTO). In: The Huffington Post. June 28, 2013, accessed April 20, 2019 .
- ↑ Rebecca Greenfield: Bert and Ernie's New Yorker Cover Is a Picture Perfect Symbol for Gay Marriage. In: The Atlantic. June 28, 2013, accessed April 20, 2019 .
- ^ Sarah Dunant: A Point of View: Bert, Ernie and the power of cartoons. In: BBC . July 19, 2013, accessed April 20, 2019 .
- ^ Anne Zeiser: Transmedia Marketing. From Film and TV to Games and Digital Media . Focal Press, New York 2015, pp. 375 (English, limited preview in Google Book search).
- ↑ Kathryn Jean Lopez: Innocence. Lost. In: The National Review. June 28, 2013, archived from the original on July 1, 2013 ; accessed on May 3, 2019 .
- ^ Dennis Prager: The Left, Bert and Ernie, and Lost Innocence. In: The National Review. July 2, 2013, accessed April 20, 2019 .
- ↑ June Thomas: This Is a Terrible Way to Commemorate a Major Civil Rights Victory. In: Slate . June 28, 2013, accessed April 20, 2019 .
- ^ Tyler Coates: 'The New Yorker's' Bert and Ernie DOMA Cover Is Infantilizing and Offensive. In: Flavorwire. June 28, 2013, accessed April 20, 2019 .