Between the Lines
There has been a rich tradition of male children’s entertainment duos that the creators insist are “just friends” but that most adults see right through. Frog and Toad don’t spend that much time together just to be friends, though the law in the 70’s made it clear that’s all they could be. With the shifting tone in the United States, Frog and Toad have a few places they could move to if they’d like to take their “friendship” to a new level.
The next book involves them adopting a baby Chinese Fire Belly Toad and moving to Long Island.
There was a time in this country where a frog and a toad had to hide the true nature of their relationship for fear of offending the delicate sensibilities of bigots. Thankfully those times are slowly being put behind us. I am close friends with several gay amphibians and they are good, honest creatures that deserve the same rights and responsiblities as everyone else. Why shouldn’t they be able to swim in the pool and try to avoid getting sucked into that little filter thing like everyone else? Why shouldn’t they be able to hop around together in tall grass where you’re afraid you might step on them because you can’t see them and oh god would that be a hate crime?
What I’m trying to say is that the nature of Frog and Toad’s relationship shouldn’t have to be a secret, it also shouldn’t necessarily define them as people…or frogs…or toads…or whatever. You get what I mean.
People are always wondering, these days, about whether such and such celebrity or literary character might be gay. Sometimes we don’t have to wonder at all. The point is that it really doesn’t matter. Sexual orientation doesn’t define who someone is, it is merely a facet of their personality. Love is love and people are people, gay or straight. This applies to frogs, puppets (I’m looking at you, Bert & Ernie), entertainers, craftsmen, and all the other sorts of beings that might have a sexual orientation.
I mean, Frog & Toad are a shining example of commitment. The two of them spent so much time together. They shared good times and bad. They have led active and productive lives side by side, and it’s clear that Toad, especially, relied on the love and friendship of Frog.
That’s a beautiful thing.
If you’ve never read Frog & Toad, I highly recommend them whether you have kids or not. They’re great books to get children reading and the illustrations are brilliant. Frog and Toad’s stories have a lot of great lessons to teach, however simple they may be.
And whether they’re gay or straight or whatever, they’re cute characters and their stories are meaningful. You’ve got to respect that.
I adore this.
Point blank.
Love.
<3
xxxxxx
Oh my gosh. I loved those books as a child. <3 I wonder where they are? I ought to read them again… I miss them…
Thanks for the comic strip~
Supercool comic and author note again!Reminds me of the speculations over the Felloship diaries.
Get well fast 🙂
I loved those books, but I can’t remember what they were about to save my life…
Haha, I loved those books so much.
I don’t know why it’s fun to joke that characters like that are gay – at least in my circle of friends it’s never malicious, it’s just fun and subversive.
Of course, there are also some characters in fiction that we like to insist are really asexual, so yeah. XD
I’m usually somewhat uncomfortable around gay people (It’s cause of mostly where I’m from, not so much a personal opinion tbh) but you sure can put it into perspective. In the end I guess it’s just the old thing where you’re scared (in varying degrees) of something you don’t quite understand. For me it’s not a religious issue at least.
I can’t relate to the frog and toad books since afaik they aren’t available here (Sweden) but the rest of it, sure 🙂
Great comic as always!
I think the reason people think gay relationships are ‘inappropriate’, mostly for children, is because what defines them is sex. When you ask what makes someone gay, the answer is sex. Sex is very oppressed and stigmatized. Ya kno?
Doesn’t sex, in that line of reasoning, also tend to define straight relationships? (Although, sex doesn’t necessarily define either, in my opinion.)
I think the main reason many people think being gay (or, well, any orientation other than straight) is inappropriate is because the majority of people are straight, and many straight people don’t like thinking about gay sex (or any sort of sex that doesn’t appeal to their selves in particular). It’s really juvenile, in my opinion; ’cause somehow orientation-minority people cope with having to accept the reality and presence of straight people everywhere, even though they themselves aren’t straight, and probably don’t particularly care to think of straight people having sex.
If gay people had happened to be the majority, I bet we’d probably be dealing with the opposite problem, where being straight would be implied to be inappropriate… XD
Definitely, though, the stigmatization of sex contributes… bleah. ~mumbles something under his breath about sex education~
reading this I couldn’t help thinking that if the majority of the population were gay then we’d have a lot lower population…
Maybe we’d have a lot of artificial insemination or artificial wombs.
Sex does not define gay relationships. The anti-gay people would like to think it does, so they can cling to some sort of reasoning for their continued oppression, but they are ultimately wrong.
I actually heard a program on the radio one time about some type of petition to let Burt and Ernie get married that millions of angry parents signed, accusing the producers of being homophobes and not allowing love to flourish. And it was funny because the person they were interviewing–I forget who he was exactly but he was affiliated with the show–was talking about how they’re -not- gay, and that he thinks it’s ridiculous for parents to try to force two characters to be gay just because they are of the same sex and spend a lot of time together or care about one another. He then humorously added that even if they -were- gay it would be a terrible marriage since Ernie is always so cruel to Burt, and that would give kids the wrong idea about love and marriage. It was a good program.
Oh… I was going to mention the Ernie & Bert thing but Natigaro beat me to it. I’ve never heard of the frog & toad books before. My main comic characters are 2 rats, both males. I better introduce them to some lady rats or people may get the wrong idea about them
It’s so stupid how people can’t make a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender character in something without it defining their character. I know there are rare exceptions, but it should be the norm not to overblow it, not the minority. The times it is treated as a minor personality detail are quite precious though.
Also DOMA can go blow itself. (It’s the act that makes states not have to accept Same Sex Marriages from other states, despite the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution which otherwise would force them to accept it). Hopefully it won’t be too hard to get it gone, which would start a whole mess of lawsuits against states not recognizing SSMs from other states and hopefully get the supreme court to force them to allow it, probably by interpreting the 14th amendment to protect LGBT rights.
Ant and Bee was a similar childrens’ duo, which became immensely disturbing to me as I began to learn more about eusocial insects…
NO. STOP THAT.
You forgot that alt text can’t have regular quotation marks(” “) in it again. >_>
My childhood makes sense now.
…This really needs to be a real series 🙂
I had a few of those in Mexico :D. You do one about the infamous Scary Stories to tell in the Dark series. 😀