We talked before about the casting changes in the new Rugrats, which began dropping episodes on Paramount+ on Thursday. The biggest change, however, is with one of the parents.
In the original series, Elizabeth "Betty" Deville was married with her twin toddlers, Phil & Lil. 30 years later, Howard (voiced by Phil Proctor) has been ret-conned out----some say he was killed off----and Betty, now voiced by Natalie Morales (ex-Parks & Recreation) is an openly gay single mom.
Morales, who is gay herself, has given interviews on the subject. It is, of course, another example of an established franchise rebooting a character for cultural or social inclusitivity. We've seen this happen several times in different media in recent years, so this is nothing new.
Online commentators have hinted that maybe the show's creators had meant for Betty to be gay all along, but the standards & practices of the time didn't allow it in an animated series, and thus she was presented as married. Some of those commentators are under the notion, perhaps misguided, that Howard Deville was killed off. We don't know that for sure. I'm leaning toward a creative decision to ret-con Howard off the show.
What do you think?
4 comments:
I'm not enough of a fan of Rugrats to care about any of this (I never cared for the show). However, if the reboot show's producers truly wanted to retcon Betty DeVille as a lesbian, they may as well just have gone the whole nine yards and given her a wife.
A part of me feels like all of this is little more than a cheap ploy to give the show some attention and free publicity. Not unlike the whole "Looney Tunes is taking Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam's guns away!" Non-troversy from last year.
I'd say it's likely just a simple retcon. Howard DeVille was never that major a character, plus they already one soft-spoken neurotic guy in form of Charles Sr., Chuckie's dad, so they didn't really need two.
I'm not privy to what went on behind the scenes of Rugrats (as previously indicated, I'm more of Rocko's Modern Life guy), so I don't know whether or not Betty was intended to be gay all along, but this new declaration doesn't shock me, so make of that what you will.
The thing I question is why did the producers feel the need to make her single now; near as I can figure, perhaps they felt that giving her a wife would've been too blatant; this way they can just say "she's single" and keep the One Million Moms idiot and her ilk at bay, but that's just a guess.
@Silverstar: I hope that's not the case, as that would be a tad hypocritical on Nick's part, seeing as how they seem to have no problem with the character Clyde McBride having two dads on The Loud House. Why would one same sex coupling be OK and not the other?
Guys, I'd sooner see One Million Mom put out of business once and for all, left in a padded cell next to the Human Annoying Orange.
@Silverstar: That makes two votes for a ret-con. Let's chalk up the news release to a slow news day, and leave it at that.
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