Literary theorists on homosexual tensions in children's cartoons

"The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught." - Marquis de Vauvenargues

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Deconstruction Zone — Part 1 (Or: Semiotics Means Never Having to Signify You’re Sorry) | AWN | Animation World Network

"The failure is not in the theories themselves. The problems begin when other explanations for a given text that seem to be more valid are ignored or downplayed. At time-s this is done with little knowledge of animation history, and yet the author will carry doggedly on with more faith in semiotics than Timmy has in his Fairly OddParents...

Every male pair of cartoon buddies, then, signifies a gay relationship, if the creators and writers do not embed specific signifiers to the contrary within the text...

Dennis makes much of the fact that Cindy Bear is unable to attract Yogi as a romantic partner (ostensibly because Boo Boo already had Yogi’s heart and will not give Cindy any help), but again, is that what kids really wanted to see? What would that have done to Yogi’s adventures?... Dennis also fails to mention that... Yogi and Boo Boo risk their lives... to rescue Cindy from sadistic circus owners because Yogi comes to realize that the she-bear is his true love. Boo Boo, incidentally, aids rather than obstructs the rescue. I suppose, though, that this can be written off as a hermeneutic shift in Yogi and Boo Boo’s homoerotic reading.

Semiotics means never having to signify you’re sorry"

In Part 2: "In television, economics and profits easily trump nervous assumptions that kids might code The Smurfs as a cheery blue version of Queer Nation. When a highly educated author appears to misinterpret or discount the information found in the very research texts he or she is smurfing, it may be a sign that analytic method driven by subjective viewpoint has taken precedence over the material being analyzed...

If anything can be subjectively coded by anyone, then Yogi Bear cartoons can also be interpreted as fascist, imperialist, hegemonic, antifeminist, pro-ecology — whatever any ideologue wishes to construct out of them. That is, if the “right” signifiers are available and it is claimed that the context is “ambiguous” enough to allow free play"