#aninimouse

two reasons

1) she’s voiced by jane lynch

2) she looks like this

you know what? i’ve given the current animation studio a rough time but in one (1) episode they gave us A) ratburn’s wedding, B) his lesbian-coded sister, and C) a cake-topper that looks like mr ratburn and his husband

WE STAN A LEGEND 

marc brown after reading this blog full of our True and Correct ratburn gay opinions:

god, as happy as the episode made me, i’m even happier reading about how much this means to everyone else as well :’) 

like not to get too Into Cartoons but like. it really does matter, y’know? being able to see yourself reflected in media, or being able to see that someone like you can exist in the world--that a person like you also gets to be loved and cherished and accepted

it’s an interesting thought! :0 though i’m personally inclined to believe this blog has been existing in its own little bubble out here, away from where anyone of importance might see it hahah

to his credit, marc brown has always placed a lot of importance on creating stories in which children from all backgrounds can see themselves. he’s said before that he wants all children to be able to relate to any of the characters and he understands the importance of representation. 

like, take this statement marc brown made during the postcards from buster controversy: 

I am disappointed by PBS's decision not to distribute the 'Postcards From Buster' 'Sugartime!' episode to public television stations. What we are trying to do in the series is connect kids with other kids by reflecting their lives. In some episodes, as in the Vermont one, we are validating children who are seldom validated. We believe that 'Postcards From Buster' does this in a very natural way -- and, as always, from the point of view of children.

(source)

so even back in 2005, this was something marc brown was willing to speak up about and highlight the fact that children with gay parents don’t exactly see themselves adequately reflected in the media they consume. 

and that also comes up in that one huffpo article, where it talks about how a student asked marc brown if francine is gay and he said “yeah of course she could be”. he doesn’t shy away from it or give a wishy-washy answer or get all “lol she’s a kid why r u sexualising children” or anything. he’s open to the possibility that she could be gay, and to me it seems like he understands why it’s important for people to read francine like that as well 

also like... i mean, i don’t know how much influence marc brown has on the production of the cartoon itself these days but like arthur’s been pretty consistent with regards to upholding marc brown’s vision of creating stories and characters for all children so. whether or not marc brown is directly involved, the team behind arthur have done a great job of keeping the spirit of marc brown’s stories shining through

the arthur folks have addressed so many different issues with nuance and empathy and i can imagine that a story like this, having a gay character on the show, is something they’ve been pondering for a while. like, how to bring it up, is the timing right to air this episode, what’s the best way to address this story, etc etc. it seems like it’s something that a lot of thought goes into, and as much as we have fun on this blog, i don’t wanna be all like “lol yeah we came up w the idea ur welcome 😎” and undermine the amount of care and effort that goes into making episodes like this, y’know? like i can’t say for sure what went on behind the scenes but other cartoon creators have been pretty open about the pushback they recieved from execs when they tried to put gay couples in their shows, so. i’m sure it’s something the arthur team were aware of as well and may or may not have been pushing against for a while

like. I DUNNO it’s hard to say anything definitively. i get where you’re coming from though! it’s interesting to wonder if anything from this blog ever crossed paths with someone on the arthur team and helped sway a decision :0 for me personally though, i feel that a story like this has been in the pipeline in some form or another for a while. representation and inclusivity has always been important to marc brown and arthur in general, so it could have just been a matter of the team waiting until the time was right before they could really go for it