Lessons Learned From The Muppets

There are two things that always unite my family: game night and old school Muppet movies. When I was growing up, Muppet Christmas Carol was one of the Christmas movies we watched every year. The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper were also favorites to pop in once in a while. And my brother’s Miss Piggy impression was second to none.

Revisiting the Muppets as an adult, I’m struck by how much they’ve stood the test of time. One of my favorite books–a collection of essays called Jim Henson and Philosophy–highlights how themes of Henson’s work can still speak to us today. Essayists across the internet have released blog posts and videos and podcasts talking about what the Muppets have meant to them, both as children and adults. And for Pride Month, I thought I’d do the same.

The thing is, writing an editorial about the Muppets is tricky. You can’t really talk about what worked in one movie without talking about how it relates to other Muppet works. And it’d be redundant to talk about Jim Henson’s work as a whole because Jim Henson and Philosophy already exists. So I’m going to focus on three things the Muppets have taught me.

  1. Women are Complex, and That’s Beautiful

There’s a handful of female Muppets–Miss Mousy, Hilda, and Wanda, to name a few. And Janice is a recurring character throughout The Muppet Show and Muppet movies alongside the rest of the Electric Mayhem. But no female Muppet has more appearances or character than fan-favorite Miss Piggy.

For as long as children’s entertainment has existed, society has insisted that prominent female characters be role models for girls in some way or another. Even in a world where the Hays code doesn’t exist, we judge them based on what we want to see from them. She must be kind, but not a pushover. She must be strong and smart, but she cannot be a threat to men or overshadow them. And above all, she must not cause discomfort, especially not to male audiences.

On top of that, many female characters tend to be oversimplified, their characters shrunken down to one recognizable trait. Hermione Granger is smart. Captain Marvel is strong. Cinderella is kind. In contrast, male characters get to embody the traits of complex human beings, or they’re more likely to be forgiven for being less than perfect. Batman is an edgelord fantasy. Sherlock Holmes is a drug-addicted master detective who has complicated feelings about human beings in general. Patrick Bateman is a psychopath struggling with all the trappings of yuppie culture. The same is rarely said of female characters. And this doesn’t reflect reality, where people don’t fit into neat little boxes.

“I am who I am. Why can’t you accept that about me?”

Miss Piggy, The Muppets (2011)

In many ways, Miss Piggy is the kind of female character we’re conditioned to like. She’s badass, she’s loyal to her true love, and on occasion she can be very sweet. But she also breaks the mold in a lot of ways. She’s sensitive, dramatic, romantic, and jealous. She’s plus-sized and unapologetically feminine. She’s impulsive and quick-tempered. She doesn’t watch what she eats, and she doesn’t follow anyone’s rules but her own. She doesn’t bend over backwards to make life easier for the men in her life–rather, she caters to her own needs and serves only the people she cares about.

This has led to some debate over whether or not she was a role model for children. In The Muppet Show in particular, her sensitivity and her crush on Kermit leads to her karate chopping anyone who stands in her way. She’s famously possessive of Kermit, to an extent that many would (justifiably) call problematic. She has the makings of both an inspirational icon and a bad influence.

But our complicated feelings on Miss Piggy, as well as how her traits might clash with each other, speaks to what people are really like. She’s never one thing all the time, she can’t be classified into an either/or. Sometimes she’s an ally, and sometimes she’s a threat. Sometimes she’s a love interest, and sometimes she’s a hero. She isn’t perfect, and she never aspires to be. The only thing Miss Piggy strives for is realness, to be true to who she is and what she wants in life. And to me, this is what makes her beautiful.

  1. The Weird Things in Life are Sometimes the Best Things

The funny thing about art is that you can’t always predict how audiences will respond to the work being presented to them. Some popular stories remain popular over time, while others fade into the background. And then you get the weird stories that don’t resonate with audiences at first, but become popular over time. These are the cult classics, the stories that require you to sit down and think about them, perhaps consume them again, in order to fully understand them. As a whole, the Muppets (and indeed, much of Henson’s work) are the embodiment of “the weird thing being the best thing.”

First, there’s resident comedian Fozzie Bear. I’ve found that as Muppet fans get older, we grow to appreciate him more. As it turns out, Fozzie’s not a good comedian. His jokes are hit or miss, though mostly he misses. And yet, he keeps trying. All he wants is to make people laugh, and he tries so hard to make it happen every time he gets up to perform. Even if it doesn’t happen, he’ll get back up and try again anyway.

“If I’m not funny, I won’t be able to live with myself.”

Fozzie Bear, The Muppet Movie (1979)

That’s not to say he’s shameless and fearless like Miss Piggy. He knows he’s not the funniest, and his belief in himself is easily shaken. But Fozzie doesn’t give up because he knows who he wants to be. And if he could never tell another joke in his life–good or bad–he’d be devastated. So the bear dusts himself off and keeps moving right along. He doesn’t always make us laugh, but he always makes us smile.

There’s also Gonzo the Great. Even among a cast of shamelessly weird puppets, Gonzo stands out. Among scores of pigs and bears and rats, he’s classified as a “whatever.” He’s a rebel, always looking to live life the fun way. While others look for a shortcut, he looks for a scenic route. Rather than quitting his corporate job by handing in a letter of resignation, he jumps off a building and blows it up. He lives for excitement and daring do’s, and gives little–if any–thought to the repercussions.

“You don’t go to Bombeii to become a movie star. You go where we’re going–Hollywood!”

“Sure, if you wanna do it the easy way!”

Fozzie and Gonzo, The Muppet Movie (1979)

And while conservative parents and pundits might clutch their pearls over Gonzo wearing a dress that one time, it’s actually not that out of character for him. For more information on that, there’s a more detailed video essay on Gonzo linked below.

In the context of the Muppets being unconventional, it’s worth discussing the unconventional leadership of their mascot, Kermit the Frog. We’re used to thinking of leaders as people in charge of the whole operation. Individuals among communities who give inspiring speeches, tell everyone what to do, and make the biggest decisions for everyone. But Kermit doesn’t do any of that. He occasionally gives directions from backstage and offers suggestions, but besides that he mostly does his own thing. In fact, the idea of being leader to the Muppets only stresses him out, if the number of times he’s snapped at them is any indication.

“I don’t know! How should I know! Why are you always asking me, anyway? Can’t you take care of yourselves?!”

Kermit the Frog, Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)

The funny thing is, it works.

In The Muppet Movie, the origin story for how the Muppets got together, Kermit is encouraged to travel to Hollywood and pursue a dream of becoming a rich and famous performer. When he bumps into other Muppets with similar dreams along the way, it doesn’t take more than an invitation for them to come along for the ride. They’re so inspired by Kermit’s pursuit of happiness that they want to see his dream become a reality. And it inspires them to follow their dreams, too. And if Kermit ever got stuck along the way–either by circumstance or a relentless restaurant chain owner–the others are there to bail him out of trouble.

We see something similar happen in Muppets Take Manhattan. The Muppets want to take their show to Broadway, but they’re turned down again and again. Eventually, they run out of funds. Everyone turns to Kermit and asks what they’re going to do next, and he snaps. By far not the first time he’s done so (and I do not recommend this as a problem solver), but this time around, it’s different. They’re all genuinely at the end of their rope, and they have no idea what to do next. In this moment, the other Muppets realize each has to find their own way to make the dream come true. To quote Amanda Cawston in her essay Kermit and Leadership, “such outbursts help them realize they are placing too much responsibility on Kermit–he isn’t solely responsible for realizing their dreams. They are.”

So each Muppet decides to hit the road and find jobs to fund the dream. Everyone returns in the third act after a producer expresses interest in the show, only to find out Kermit has gone missing. They spend the majority of Act III trying to find him, refusing to do the show without him even upon discovering he has amnesia. Because, even if Kermit doesn’t see himself as anyone’s leader, the Muppets would fall apart without him. And it’s not because he always has answers or he’s the best of them. It’s simply because of their shared dream.

  1. Difference Doesn’t Have To Be Scary

Few people today understand how revolutionary and weird the Muppets were in their early days. For as long as people told stories, monsters existed as cautionary tales. Inhuman creatures that either turned into handsome princes or threatened to harm people. Hollywood even made at least three decades’ worth of monster movies, including–but not limited to–King Kong, Nosferatu, and Creature from the Black Lagoon. Earth’s millenia-long mythology of monsters led to societal fears of monsters in general. From a young age, children fear the creatures hiding in closets or under the bed. And there are theories that monsters are allegorical of what society deems the “other”–queer people, people of color, disabled people, and so on. And there are many in those communities who find such monsters relatable for that reason. For more on this, see Lindsay Ellis’s video essay linked below.

With this context, Jim Henson wanted to take a different approach to monsters. From Cookie Monster to Elmo to Uncle Deadly, the monster puppets we see are no longer terrifying or bloodthirsty. They are not broken objects that need to be fixed, nor are they threats to be destroyed. These monsters are all sorts of things. Quirky. Sweet. Funny. They might be neighbors who live down the street. Or performers who dance and tell jokes. Or friends who have a serious addiction to cookies.

It’s also worth noting that no two Muppets are completely identical to each other. There may be a ton of pigs and bears and frogs, but there’s only one Miss Piggy, only one Fozzie Bear, only one Kermit the Frog. Everyone has a distinct personality, a distinct appearance, a distinct voice (even if they share a puppeteer). The only thing every Muppet has in common is a dream, summarized best by Kermit himself: “Making people happy.” In a community like this, everyone has a place to belong. Everyone gets a say, everyone has a place at the table.

“You’ve got every kind of critter,”

“You’ve got every kind of pest!”

“But we treat ‘em all as equals, just like any other guest!”

Fozzie, Gonzo, and Pops, The Great Muppet Caper (1981)

In recent years, there’s been a lot of fear mongering. Queer people are typecast as perverts and pedophiles for no other reason except for being who they are. Publicized murders of black people by police–combined with the rise in hate crimes against Asians no thanks to Trump–show us how far we really have to go in the fight against racism. We’re told to fear Democrats or Republicans, or people who want gun control, or who want to instate mask mandates, all in the name of freedom. It seems like everyone is screaming, louder and louder, that there’s only one way to live. Only one way to be. And if you can’t meet those standards–or don’t want to–then you must be some kind of threat.

In such times, the Muppets remind me that there’s a better way to live than fear. That you don’t need to have a lot in common with someone else in order to care about them. That our differences aren’t things to fix or push away, but to understand and make space for. That we can create a world where everyone has a voice, a place to belong, a seat at the table.

“The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Me”

It’d be a stretch–especially as someone who never met Jim Henson–to say that he specifically created the Muppets as an act of protest against racism or queerphobia. But it’s safe to say that the Muppets have (mostly) gotten better with time, in part due to how much it resonates with us and how many people it speaks to. And these are the kinds of stories we need to see more of today: women sticking up for themselves and lifting each other up, people pursuing their dreams despite the odds, misfits finding a place to belong. If you haven’t seen the older Muppet movies yet (or it’s been a while), give them a shot and see if you can find the rainbow connection.

Sources:

Amanda Cawston, Cawston-Kermit and Leadership-chp.docx (stir.ac.uk)

Further research:

Aidan Elizabeth, GONZO: A Queer Analysis: Why GONZORELLA makes sense (Video Essay) | aidan elizabeth – YouTube

Lindsay Ellis My Monster Boyfriend – YouTube

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