#civility

The illegitimate supreme court is committing violence against women.

Regarding SCOTUS protests, I want everyone to know that civility is a tool of the oppressors.

Go to their house and protest.

Go to their work and protest.

Go to their place of worship and protest.

Because abortion is health care. Period. Without it, people die. And that’s not pro-life no matter what claims these people make.

Have you heard that Elmo has a feud with a pet rock? Yes, Elmo from Sesame Street. If you’re in the same internet circles as me, then you’ve probably seen the viral videos, or at least the memes spawned by those videos.

To summarize, since 2004, Elmo’s friend Zoe has had a pet rock, named Rocco. Zoe maintains that Rocco can talk, move around, and has feelings like a living thing. The Sesame Street cast on the whole plays along with Zoe’s fantasy. But Elmo, a perpetually three-year-old Muppet with a firm sense of reality, is completely baffled by Zoe’s claim that Rocco is alive, and he has zero interest in pretending otherwise.

Clearly Elmo’s frustration with Rocco has built up over the years, because in a viral clip, he finally put his foot down.

After a day of tolerating Zoe’s insistence that Rocco is alive, Elmo and Zoe’s friend Gabi offers them some cookies. Zoe says that Rocco also wants a cookie, and Gabi gives Rocco an oatmeal raisin cookie. Now, oatmeal raisin cookies are Elmo’s favorite, so he asks if he can have an oatmeal raisin cookie instead of his chocolate chip cookie. But this is the last oatmeal raisin cookie! Elmo suggests that he could trade cookies with Rocco – but Zoe says no.

After a brief back-and-forth, Zoe insists that Elmo can’t have the oatmeal raisin cookie, because “Rocco wants to eat it.” And Elmo goes ballistic.

“HOW??? How is Rocco gonna eat that cookie, Zoe? Tell Elmo! Rocco doesn’t even have a mouth! Rocco’s just a rock! Rocco’s not alive!!!”

This clip had me laughing hysterically, and I shared it with my family. We’re all big Muppet fans, and my dad does an excellent Elmo impression, so I thought that they would enjoy it as much as I did. I commented as I shared the clip that I didn’t know why it was so funny.

My mom’s response? “It’s not!”

Okay, then – it was time to put on my thinking cap. Admittedly, I laugh much more easily than my mom, but I trust her judgment. If she didn’t find this clip funny at all, then why did it make me laugh so much? Even now, as I type this blog post and mentally re-play Elmo’s emphatic “ROCCO’S NOT ALIIIIIVE!”, I start to giggle!

I chatted with my mom about it a little more, and she said the clip reminded her of current U.S. politics. Immediately, I knew what she was referring to – the way that certain politicians (frankly, way too many politicians) will say something completely false, and the people around them are expected to treat the lie as a legitimate stance. Rather than turn off the microphone on these lies and shut the liars out of public office, we tune in. We give them screen time and elect them to the highest offices of the nation.

I could be more specific, but frankly, I’d rather talk about Rocco. The fact is that Rocco is not alive. Elmo has an abundance of evidence to support the fact that Rocco is not alive. But Zoe expects Elmo to treat her false statements as legitimate. She tells him he’s wrong, she laughs at him, and she even denies him his favorite cookie.

Before I saw the actual “oatmeal raisin cookie” clip, I heard the audio from the scene in a TikTok video by @angstyace.

As Zoe claimed that Rocco was going to eat the cookie, the video was captioned, “Being aroace doesn’t make you LGBTQ+; it’s basically the same as being straight.” And Elmo’s irate response was re-captioned, “HOW? How is it the same as being straight? Tell me! I’m a woman who’s not attracted to men! That’s literally the only requirement for me to be straight! How am I ‘basically straight’????”

There are many more TikTok videos using this audio and following this format – Zoe’s voice accompanies a false statement, and Elmo’s voice accompanies the TikToker loudly, angrily pointing out the lie and demanding an explanation.

I think my laughter doesn’t come from amusement, exactly, but from a sense of relief.

I feel a lot of pressure to remain calm and polite in the face of nonsense, even harmful and bigoted nonsense. It’s part of being a “nice, professional young woman.” This pressure is all too common, and it’s at least in part why we as a society have allowed the normalization of lies in our political discourse – we don’t want to cause a scene. We would rather maintain civility than promote the truth or combat harmful lies.

It is phenomenally satisfying to see Elmo – adorable Elmo! – so fed up and freely expressing it. Sometimes I want to scream like that, but I don’t let myself! Elmo’s anger provided a kind of catharsis for me. And now I’m thinking, if it’s okay for sweet, lovable Elmo, made famous for his laughter, to scream his head off at the person lying to him… maybe it’s okay for me to gather up the chutzpah to put my foot down, too. Though I probably won’t be speaking in third person when I do it.