"The Queerness of Bob's Burgers" Transcript

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Bob's Burgers, created by Loren Bouchard, made its debut on television on January 9th, 2011, while the American animated sitcom may be popular. There's something about Bob's Burgers that even at a cursory glance, feels slightly different than its animated brethren. Though it may seem standard enough at first. The Belcher's Bob, Linda and their three children are the proud but often beleaguered proprietors of the show's namesake Hamburger restaurant, which they live above in a cramped apartment.

As far as burger joints go, they have the dubious honor of serving burgers and fries next to a crematorium. Talk about existentialism. Owned by Mort, the mortician who is a regular visitor to the restaurant, along with Teddy, a handyman whose cluelessness could pass for Zen detachment. Sometimes they also stand in as Bob's best friends. Sort of.

This is opposed to the genre standard of the husband going off to drink at a bar with his friends after work. The Belcher's have neither the time nor the money for nightly bar visits, though Linda does love her wine.

Directly across from Bob's Burgers is Jimmy Pesto, run by Bob's business rival, Jimmy Pesto. He's a businessman and marketeer before a chef. And even though Bob's daily special eclipses whatever's on Pessoa's menu, from a culinary standpoint, Jimmy Pesto is never short for customers. While Bob is constantly scraping the bottom of his register for cash. Jimmy Pesto is rightfully never depicted in a flattering light, especially since what happened with the former voice actor with a real life plot twist that's almost too bizarre for fiction.

But more about the Belters. Their children are Tina, Jean and Louise, each one unto themselves, operating as a walking, talking meme machine. They balance their lives as students at Wagstaff School with their unpaid labor in the family restaurant. Tina, at the age of 13, rides the turbulent waves of puberty with the grace of a drunken sailor. Her crush on Jimmy Pesto son encapsulates young love, awkward, earnest and doomed.

Jean is 11 years old and a musical maestro in the making. His single minded artistic aspiration, his alien counterprogramming to the mundane hustle culture of burger flipping and bathroom sanitation. The youngest, Louise, is a nine year old technical genius. If there were a God of chaos, she would usurp them. This pint sized Machiavelli orchestrates her plans with a finesse, coordination and merciless brutality that would make Sansa blush, though that shouldn't suggest that she doesn't have her own pint size fears.

Yes, even this small agent of chaos fears the dentist and the loss of her iconic pink bunny ears. One of the most captivating parts about Bob's Burgers is its nonchalant approach to sexuality. Tina's teenage, angst ridden erotic friend fiction and the open inclusion of queer characters are portrayed as being just a part of daily life. At first glance, Bob's Burgers might seem like a run of the mill depiction of the archetypal American family chasing the American Dream.

This motif has been a sitcom staple for generations, like The Simpsons and Griffins before them. This show is a quirky episodic exploration of the Belcher's middle class name. Working class, no working poor family life. However, where Bob's Burgers truly diverges from this format is how it depicts the central family as being above the below but below the middle.

Whereas many other animated family sitcoms have a comfortable livelihood, usually off of a single income, the Belcher's are chronically short for cash and late on rent, animated sitcoms, and in fact, usually sitcoms in general like to keep money out of the conversation. It's hard to make something lighthearted if the focus is about money or not having it. And yet that seems to be exactly what the people of today need.

Solidarity with cartoon characters as that suburban hot pursuit of happiness becomes gate kept by a struggling economy where the rich get richer. Audiences seem to genuinely enjoy seeing comedic sensibilities that reflect their own struggles, and this struggle includes queer people. Bob's Burgers is a restaurant in a commercial district, not expensive subdivisions where groceries require a vehicle. It's much more likely to find queer people walking down the street of these spaces than the suburbs, at least historically.

And it's this key difference which allows a fluid inclusion of queer characters. Everybody eats, and not everybody can afford the bill. For Jimmy Pesto, whose overpriced, bad Italian flavored food in the world of television, queer characters have often had their stories told poorly or been nothing but a part of a message episode. The Belters world, however, is one where queer individuals are not othered or sensationalized.

We're played for laughs, but never at our expense. The humor they depict too. The Bob's Burgers audience is the same we share among ourselves, but as characters, they are just part of the everyday. Stopping in for a burger or just to say hi. This nuanced handling of queer themes is part of the magic that makes Bob's Burgers stand out in my personal pantheon of beloved shows.

It's the kind of series that rewards rewatching not just for the laughs, but for the depth and subtlety with which it handles its characters and themes. I've personally devoured each episode more times than I can count, each viewing revealing new layers and nuances. So let's peel back the layers of Bob's Burgers and explore the intricacies that make it such a captivating watch.

From its longevity to its unapologetically queer core. This show isn't just flipping burgers, it's flipping the script on how an animated series can demonstrate modern life. In the season four episode, Turkey in a can. Bob's love of Turkey gets the best of them and leads to a very telling encounter. Someone is sabotaging his favorite meal of the year and to demonstrate that he will not show weakness by surrendering each day for three days leading up to Thanksgiving, he goes to get a new turkey from the local grocery store.

The butcher, however, is reading the wrong signals.

Well, Bob does try to, of course, correct. What in Turkey is finding themselves in toilets is a little strange. The next day, the butcher admits that there's trouble in paradise and wants to give it a go with a daddy like Bob.

Bob has no time for quick flings with mostly anonymous butchers, though he has a turkey to make and a point to prove. We learned that Bob is straight leaning bisexual in very certain terms. And also that the main reason he doesn't act on these feelings is self-image. Linda, isn't the real conflict here, which, granted, doesn't necessarily mean that Bob is going to cheat on Linda.

In fact, Linda seems aware of Bob's various crushes and seems to encourage them. For the most part.

These bi or pansexual leanings. Surface now and again in subtle ways throughout the series. This is just the most apparent in the series to date in conjunction with the show's promotional material for Pride. Bob can occasionally be seen sporting the bisexual colors. That also isn't to say that there aren't any number of instances where Bob acts himself in quiet ways.

Bob is constantly making statements, or he used to make statements before Disney about facts that strongly indicate to those who are aware that he's very much in the know about gay life because someone had to tell Jean about the more popular if unintended use for VCR head cleaner people.

On my initial watch through of Bob's Burgers Gene actually annoyed me after about the third time starting the series over again, though, I actually started listening to him and yeah, fart jokes. But this kid knows way more than he should and it's definitely nothing he learned in school. That's how I want.

Jean's character revolves around self-expression, specifically as he defines it without much or any regard for social norms. Jean's primary objective is fabulousness. Regardless of what gender expressions he is drawing from. Imagining life at school as a 1980s pop musical or channeling Queen Latifah.

When contemplating a new identity, he asks.

Which are far from the only two instances of his gender confusion.

And by gender confusion, I mean, like, confusing to everyone else. He's got to figure it out. It's on everyone else to keep up or shut up. In the season three episode, the kids run the restaurant. Is appointed the director of entertainment in their makeshift casino in the basement by Louise, of course, provided that this is a great opportunity to advance his career in show business.

He takes this dead seriously and assembles the cootie batteries, a girl group trio being girls, being girls. But instead of living up to Jean's vision, they pursue their own interests instead with their two main acts. Jean treats this as an opportunity to put himself in the spotlight.

Bob is less concerned about the why and more the what. Of this. Yet Jean responds to his father's confusion by explaining.

This is the late 20 tens. Being a girl isn't the insult that it used to be. I mean, if given the option to be Liza minnelli, Jean is one of the only honest boys who would take it. And in part throughout the series, everyone kind of just refers to Jean as another sister.

To be honest, I was debating using they them pronouns for Jean and this video, especially because upon Rewatches it's very apparent that Jean's gender is whatever can serve Jean's nostalgic obsession of the time. And it's not limited to just two genders either. But the show still uses him for Jean. Maybe this will change in the future when we get an episode, seeing them 20 years later or something like that.

But as much as Jean feeds into and is fed by Linda's showmanship, there is just as much to say about Louise being her father's daughter. Louise kind of functions almost as the mascot for the show, being a primary selling point for licensed merchandise. I myself have a funko pop and a glow in the dark hoochie kopi, and I make sure to have a mug in the cover with her face on it.

Just to remind myself every morning to thrive on chaos. Her mother may be sad that she doesn't have three daughters, but Bob is happy that someone in his family shares his values and has the self-determination to let their inner anarchist burn across the world. As much as Jean subverts the archetype of the young boy, Louise subverts the archetype of little girl.

Yes, please. She enjoys obscure yet influential Japanese action movies. She's a fan of Shonen Anime and collects toys from pop culture niches, particularly Japanese stuff. And while her character was designed with a green dress and her iconic pink bunny ears, she takes any opportunity to masculinities herself, especially in fantasy episodes. Even as Tina leans into hi femme and Jean leans into whatever Jean wants.

If Jean's objective is to live deliciously in any and all genders, Lewis doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with any of them. Idle gender is a waste of energy that could be dedicated to her plans for world domination. Attempts to feminize her do not go well in the most major instance. Linda desperately bribes Louise into attending a mother daughter bonding workshop, braiding hair and doing stereotypical girly things.

Louise keeps trying to extort more money out of her mother. Eventually, Linda does get the heart to heart that she wanted all along, but only in a match of laser tag that Louise had to stage a mutiny to escape to. In another episode, Louise is confronted with her own gender identity. She is coerced by her mortal enemy, Millie, who has an unhealthy obsession with Louise into joining a Pixie Princess event for girly girls.

It's an afternoon of twirling magic pixie wings and whimsy. And Louise is dying inside and out. Millie was banned from the event for biting a gnome, so she needs Louise there to be her inside agent so that she can get some magic wand. Louise, who has nothing but contempt for any of this, nearly convinces all the other girls to throw away their wands that they've also stolen.

It's a long story. Tina intervenes, though, to stop this symbolic rejection of girlhood conformity and clarifies that there is no wrong or right way to be a girl. Louise has no right to impose her vision on others, and in the same way there is no right for others to impose theirs on her.

Tina, is the gender conforming foil to Louise's rejection of girly things. This moment isn't just a resolution to an episode. It's a subtle, touching ode to the journey of finding one's place in the world, especially when that place doesn't neatly align with the expected norms of rounding up the Belcher clan. Linda and Tina are characters who arguably are the straightest, but their queerness is in the meta of the show.

Both of these high femme characters are voiced by men. John Roberts, a gay man, got the role to voice Linda because of character skits that he did on YouTube that were based on his mother.

And Tina famously is a bit of a trans icon for a similar reason. This character was originally conceived as a teenage boy. This was back when the Belcher sourced their meat from the funeral home next door. Fox made the showrunners change. Tina, though, okay. She can't be a boy. We're going to make you even more uncomfortable. A teenage girl with sexuality.

There are, however, a slew of other frequently occurring queer and queer coded characters on the show. Tina's classmate, Zeke, has an obsession with wrestling. However, he only seems to like wrestling one specific person, Jimmy Jr. As someone who grew up gay and also obsessed with wrestling. I too wrestled with my straight best friend a lot. The difference is he clued into my ulterior motives pretty quickly, but he played along because he felt bad for me.

Jimmy Junior just seems dumb and Zeke blissfully unaware of what puberty has in the cards for him. And let's not even start on Zeke's unwavering support for Jimmy Jr's. Oh, let's be honest. Objectively. Terrible dancing. The level of enthusiasm Zeke shows for those dance moves. That's not just friendly encouragement. That's the kind of adoration you'd expect from someone harboring a not so secret crush.

And also from aggressively horny teenage girls. It's less about cheering on the dance and more about cheering on the dancers. But another character, Nat King Cole, is a no nonsense limo driver. Like all characters on the show, she's unconventional but stands out in a sea of unique and distinct personalities. Nat is the quintessential ally in times of need, swooping in to aid the Belcher's in their various predicaments.

She validates Tina's feminine side, as well as captures Louise's imagination with exotic tales of a life lived outside the lines. One of those lines is heteronormativity, for which she is only ever depicted being interested in women. And it would be wrong to have a brunch episode without sticking a gay in there somewhere. Dalton Cressman, also known by his social media handle Dame Judi Brunch, is a character that's a symphony of flamboyance and culinary passion.

A food blogger whose effeminacy is as rich as the dishes he adores. His bond with Linda is more than just a meeting of the minds. It's a delightful dance of personalities, a convergence of kindred spirits. And it makes me happy that Linda has a gay best friend. Even the Wild Life joins the Parade of nonconformity. The raccoons, those nocturnal denizens of the alleyway behind the restaurant become unwitting participants in a delightful farce of anthropomorphism.

Are they gay? Well, that's a question shrouded in the mysteries of raccoon romance. But Linda, ever the matriarch of imagination, Kristin's one of these little trash connoisseurs, little king trash mouth. And in a stroke of matrimonial fantasy, she declares that he has a husband, another raccoon named Gary. Linda, in her boundless enthusiasm, keeps her friends updated with the raccoons marital status.

She shares updates, musings and even speculates on the renewal of their vows and more.

Wow. There's also characters who flicker in throughout the series. There's the cruise line chef Duval, a character who not once but twice, asks Barb to kiss him.

Barb eventually agrees, even to more than kissing. But for Duvall, the moment has passed. The series does have a gay episode as well. A two part Christmas episode where Linda longs to bring a little bit of Christmas cheer to the community, especially as the gays have lost their iconic gay bar that hosted Christmas parties every year. While Linda's Christmas cheer doesn't make the impact that she wants, she gets hit by a wave of gay Christmas brought to her by Miss Triple Xmas.

There's also Art. The artist featured in this episode who is also gay and voiced by Adam Driver of all people. There's also Douglas best friends with Tina's one off boyfriend. Josh Douglas is obviously gay and much like Zeek, obviously in love with his clueless best friend. And of all the rotating cast of queer faces, Marshmallow is one of the more frequent customers at Bob's Burgers.

Though she's not really a three dimensional character, she establishes a strong presence as a memorable side character on the show. She's a tall girl with a deep voice and it's never really justified. And the important thing about her is that the show never really feels the need to justify her. But she, out of everyone who shows up at Bob's, is probably one of Bob's best friends in town.

He may even have a bit of a crush on her.

Marshmallow, jean gnat and all manner of expressive, self-assured characters are depicted heroically in the light of open self-expression, whereas the antagonists, even those alluded to, be queer themselves are those who keep their identities hidden from polite society, or who conform to the bureaucratic or clerical patterns of expected living. In the end, these characters, whether subtly or overtly queer, enrich the narrative landscape of Bob's Burgers.

They are not merely tokens of diversity. They are vibrant, nuanced characters who challenge the viewer to consider humanity as a spectrum in this world. The abnormal is normal. There is a sentiment in queer culture that once you come out, you're never done coming out, and it's not wrong, and it's not nearly as glamorous and celebratory as coming out moments in fiction.

First, it's scary, then liberating. From then on, it just becomes annoying seeing and then exhausting. We have a whole community of support and a network of information about how to handle bigotry socially and emotionally. But there's no real solution to having to perpetually explain that you're not what society still accepts as the norm. And of course, that beats the alternative of air, of bigotry and intolerance.

But the struggle comes from existing in a world where we have to come out at all. And this is where Bob's Burgers and other newer animated sitcoms fit in modern times. I can't recall a single instance where any character comes out or professes a secret love that dare not speak its name or declares their gender. And yet nobody's closeted either.

Characters simply exist and are allowed to exist without question. The writing on Bob's Burgers, in combination with clearly communicated voice talent, allows characters to present as queer through their actions and feelings rather than what they articulate. The closest we come to queer outing is when Bob, while driving a cab, picks up three drag queens and or transgender sex workers and noticed some masculine features in the rearview mirror.

This was in the sixth episode of the first season and sets the expectation for the rest of the series that nobody needs to really justify anything about who they are and that everything can just be taken for granted. What makes Bob's Burgers special is not inclusion. In fact, it's the opposite. Nobody is particularly included in this show because identities themselves are not included.

Characters are added to the show, sometimes for an episode. Sometimes for more. Occasionally they are queer, though they are not a part of the plot to be queer. Their role in the story is to offer unique skills and showcase outrageous personalities. For this reason, I, as a gay person, feel so much more at home with the vultures. There's no pressure for me to either accentuate or repress my queerness to engage with this media.

And for this reason, perhaps the language of inclusion is flawed because queer people did not need to be included in queer as folk or pose. The language for that is existence. Those were our stories. We belong there. Inclusion is a deliberate effort to bring an outsider into the group. Think of an elementary school teacher during gym class, trying to make sure that all the kids are sorted on to a team fairly.

Perhaps the reason we feel so alienated all the time, ironically, is because we see media making an effort to be inclusive when all we want to do is exist in the spaces we occupy in our daily lives. Queer people have been known to occasionally, oftentimes get a hamburger. It would feel out of place to omit us entirely from a series about making hamburgers.

Despite what many Instagram gays would tell you. We do eat as a queer person. There's a special feeling when you're just included. You're not just a part of the scene. It's not about your queerness or your trauma or what other people think of you or who you're dating. You're just there. It sounds counterintuitive, right? People keep telling us we demand so much attention, but we really don't.

We just want to be acknowledged in the places that we already exist in our schools jobs, families and favorite TV shows. We're left out of so much in life, deliberately. And incidentally, whether it's the invitation to a family function that gets lost in the mail or the holiday party at your job, that just so happens to invite you with no plus one.

So hearing that little bell ring over the entrance to Bob's Burgers and being invited in, no matter who you are, what you look like or who you love feels revolutionary, even if it shouldn't. Bob's Burgers is a place where everyone is welcome and nobody can do anything about it.