Disconnecting the rainbow connection?

September 3, 2025
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Montrose Star
Posted in WHAT A WORLD
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By Nancy Ford

You’re probably aware that President Donald Trump, that bastion of good taste and refinement, has mandated significant changes to arts and culture that will long impact the way history looks at America. Earlier this year, he wrested control of Washington D.C.’s revered John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, whose annual Honors awards program lauds the work of geniuses like Aaron Copeland, Martha Graham, Aretha Franklin, Sally Field, David Letterman, Sesame Street and many others.

But it wasn’t enough for Trump to minimize and MAGA-fy this sacred institution. He also ordered the redesign of the Honors’ actual medal to no long be hung on a rainbow ribbon. Because rainbow bad.

In other bombastic arts news, Trump has pulled funding from Corporation for Public Broadcasting — you know, PBS — and not just because Miss Piggy won’t let him fondle her ham hocks.

Trump’s fight with PBS likely started in 2005 when Sesame Street introduced Donald Grump, a new Muppet who is “a Grouch who has more trash than any other Grouch in the world and often brags to others about it.” The likeness is astonishing. And hilarious.

Trump is also mad because Sesame Street has received 221 Emmy Awards for their programming that launched millions of children on the path to literacy. That’s 221 more Emmys than he’s won. Sesame Street also taught children about diversity and dignity for all: Kermit is green, Miss Piggy is pink, Bert and Ernie are probably gay and Big Bird is as tall as Barron, but they all love and respect each other. Valuable lessons.

Trump missed these valuable lessons about literacy and humanity because, in 1969 when Sesame Street first aired, he was busy polishing his bone spurs.

I was in my teens in 1969 and already knew how to read and count, so Sesame Street did not directly impact me. But PBS sure did.

In 1976, PBS produced Visions, a weekly dramatic anthology show. It focused on subjects like challenges faced by war veterans, the exploitation of undocumented immigrants, and racism, sexism and classism. Heavy stuff, still relevant 50 years later.

One of Visions’ presentations was The War Widow, a quiet teleplay telling the story of Amy, a proper but lonely American housewife whose husband is in Europe, fighting World War I.

Amy’s upper class, pampered existence contradicts her inner turmoil. She grapples with guilt because she is unable to even remember what her husband looks like, let alone miss him. She’s miserable but doesn’t know why; she wants for nothing. She engages in benign conversation with her fastidious mother. Her gray, muted clothing reflects her gray, muted spirit. She plays the piano to pass the time but doesn’t hear her own music. She is suffocating.

In her growing despair, Amy finds solace in a friendship with Jenny, a worldly, unmarried photographer. Eventually, something far more meaningful than just Jenny’s photographs develops between the two women.

The War Widow allowed me to see myself represented on television for the first time, and it hit me like a sledgehammer. Like Amy, I was properly married and wanted for nothing. I played my guitar to pass the time. I was suffocating.

No spoilers here about its climax, but suffice to say The War Widow showed me a path to a future that didn’t suffocate me with shame. Within a year of that viewing, my already-deep friendship with my own best friend developed into something more. A year later, I was divorced. A couple years after that, I began a new life in Houston and never looked back.

There’s no way to be certain, but chances are if I hadn’t seen The War Widow on PBS that night in 1976, I might very well still be suffocating in Ohio, wearing muted clothing and playing music I didn’t hear. Thanks, PBS.

Of course, 21st century media doesn’t shy away from telling LGBTQ stories. Queer kids today have a plethora of sources they can turn to as they come of age and begin to define themselves. Hell, these days the TV show that doesn’t feature an openly LGBTQ character is as rare as a conservative applauding Stephen Colbert.

But queer kids today are also growing up in a political climate that is effectively and systematically erasing our LGBTQ history and culture like never before. Trump has already purged LGBTQ content from government websites. He’s issued executive orders eliminating DEI policy from public health data, HIV research and information on our mental health. He’s terminated funding for the Trevor Project’s 988 suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth. No more rainbow sash for the Kennedy Center award.

Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie, confirmed bachelors, have slept in the same bedroom for 56 years. There’s no way Trump could continue funding that rainbow connection.

So what’s next?