The weird history of treating the Muppets like real people - Washington Post

Last month, during the Television Critics Association press tour, entertainment writer Devin Faraci filed a grumpy brief about how journalists were treating two potential sources during panels: specifically, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, the puppets whose volatile romantic relationship is at the heart of the ABC reality show satire “The Muppets,” which premieres tonight.

“When the newly rebooted Muppet movie came out it was darling to see members of the press interview the Muppets themselves, to talk to these felt puppets as if they were real people. Because in some way they are real people to us; the Muppets have been an integral part of the American cultural fabric since the 1970s, and the characters created by Jim Henson and his team have rightfully ascended into the shared iconography of not just our nation but of much of the Western world,” Faraci wrote of the panel for “The Muppets” at press tour. But “Kermit and Miss Piggy breaking up wasn’t a story on the new show, mind you. This isn’t like when the press reports on the death of Superman or Green Lantern (Earth 2) coming out of the closet. It isn’t a story about the narrative of these characters, it’s a story about the meta-narrative — Miss Piggy and Kermit have broken up behind the scenes of their new show, on which they are playing characters based on themselves.”

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