University of Tulsa professor links Barney's criticism to resistance against alternative masculinity and LGBTQ themes
A University of Tulsa professor, Emily Contois, suggested that Barney the dinosaur faced backlash due to "white masculine" resistance to alternative expressions of masculinity and homosexuality.
Her comments were made on the podcast Generation Barney, where she discussed how the character challenged traditional gender norms and masculinity.
A professor at the University of Tulsa recently asserted that Barney, the purple dinosaur and titular character of the eponymous children’s TV show, has received negative reviews from the public due to the “white masculine” resistance to homosexuality.
“He offered up a different model for masculinity, even as a purple dinosaur and not a human,” said Emily Contois, a professor at the University of Tulsa, about the purple children’s TV character, according to The Daily Wire. “This message about love, about nurturing, about looking after others, that these are emotions and also sort of social practices and responsibilities that in our culture are constructed and understood to be sort of feminine and feminizing.”
The remarks were made on a podcast called “Generation Barney.” The specific episode was entitled “Love 2 Hate.”
“Barney could be understood as resisting that, pushing back against that, offering a different model of sexuality and gender and size all coming together,” Contois continued, according to The Daily Wire. “And so for some of these men who reacted very poorly to him, that could be a piece of their reaction.”
“A part of that white masculine sort of set of authorities is also this incredible resistance to homosexuality,” Contois concluded.
Contois is an associate professor of media studies at the University of Tulsa. Her biography on the school’s website states that she “researches media within consumer culture, focusing on how identities are formed at the vital intersection of food, the body, and ideas about health.”
“A richly interdisciplinary scholar, her academic work has been published in Advertising & Society Quarterly, American Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Gastronomica, and Fat Studies, among others,” the description continues.
This is not the first time that Contois has expressed support for the LGBTQ movement. Last June, she posted to X about visiting “the LGBTQ+ pride flags” outside the University of Tulsa’s Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). “We love and support our LGBTQ+ students, colleagues, and friends,” Contois stated.
Last March, she also advertised journal articles about “women as influencers,” “LGBTQ+ representations,” and “going beyond the gender binary” in a post to X.
Previously, she posted about a course on “Food Media” on her website, writing: “As we learn about food, food media, the food industry, and the global food system, we’ll deeply consider issues of equity, justice, diversity, and inclusion.”
Campus Reform has contacted Professor Emily Contois and the University of Tulsa for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
