Parade features an amputee child crocodile and longhorn, a dolphin using a wheelchair, a blind bird with glasses and a walking stick, a llama with a bandaged leg, and a frog with glasses
Los Angeles, June 24 – Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues & You put out a music video for LGBTQIA+ Pride Month (June) called “The Blue’s Clues Pride Parade Sing-Along Ft. Nina West!” The sing-along video follows a Pride parade full of diverse families who march proudly down the street. This diversity is not exclusive to the LGBTQIA+ community, they also took the opportunity to represent people with disabilities and many other marginalized communities in a profound way.
Representation matters. Pride is not just for one group of people. For a long time, LGTBQ+ cis, white, men have been most widely represented in entertainment and media. This is not exclusive to Pride; cis, white men tend to be seen as most palatable, and so other stories get minimized. However, there are a plethora of intersectional identities across the world, and we should not leave them out. We are at our best when we represent and include everyone, not only the dominant ideas of who a LGBTQIA+ person is. We cannot forget about the 50 million LGBTQIA+ people who have disabilities. Or the 36 percent of women in the LGBTQIA+ community and 30 percent of men in the community who identify as people with disabilities.
This Blue’s Clues song recognized that incorporating diversity within the framework of another marginalized group is a very important endeavor – one that not many children’s shows attempt. Not only does the song include many different queer identities such as trans, nonbinary, ACE and pansexual family members, but it also includes many family members with disabilities. For example, an amputee child crocodile and longhorn, a dolphin using a wheelchair, a blind bird with glasses and a walking stick, a llama with a bandaged leg, and a frog with glasses all on parade floats.
The song is a good example of best practice when it comes to having disabled characters in children’s content. It casually and clearly highlights characters with intersecting LGBTQIA+ and disability identities. This normalizes and destigmatizes these identities and can give children a wider perspective and understanding of these communities and the complexities of intersectional identities. The song is not only impactful for disabled and LGBTQIA+ children, but it is also important for everyone else to experience these stories.