Avenue Q/Headscratchers

• In the opening for the song "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" Kate Monster accuses Princeton for being racist when he asked if Kate is related to Trekkie, namely asking him whether if Princeton thought that all Monsters looked alike. Wouldn't the fact that Kate Monster and Trekkie Monster have the same last name be more of a reason why he would think of such a thing? But then again the purpose of the whole song was to go against Political Correctness Gone Mad so that was probably the point.
  • Presumably all members of the Monster ethnic group have the same last name, so Princeton assuming that two random monsters are probably related is at least somewhat ignorant. The line about monsters looking alike struck me as Kate Monster saying, "If you think we're all related, you're probably also racist enough to say things like, 'They all look alike,' right?"
    • That's like saying that all white people should have the last name White in the world of Avenue Q, or that Gary Coleman's last name should be 'Black'... though, since our only real polling group for the 'Monster' race are Kate and Trekkie, and Lucy the Slut, whose last name we really don't know...
      • Of course we do. Its "Slut". Middle name "The".
      • And she's not a monster. I'm pretty sure she makes anti-monster insinuations to Kate on multiple occasions.
      • She's a Puppet-American.
      • Wait, I thought that Nicky was Monster?
  • Maybe Monster is a common surname for Monsters, though not the only one. It'd be like assuming that everyone with the last name Smith or Nguyen are related or something.
  • She's probably experienced someone saying that all monsters are related in a racist way. Monster-racism is implied to not be all that uncommon of a thing in this musical, what with Trekkie's backstory and Kate's determination to make a Monster school.
• The same song, "Everyone's a little bit racist", has another Just Bugs Me line, when they accuse Brian of being racist for calling Christmas Eve "Oriental". Brian's use of the term stems not from racism, but from ignorance -- I mean, I didn't know that "Oriental" was racist, until a Japanese-American supervisor told me a couple years ago. Calling Brian "racist" is harsh.
  • Brian is being both ignorant and racist. It's possible to mean well and be racist at the same time.
    • It is possible to be well meaning and racist (which will often be manifested in paternalistic behavior toward the other race), but that is not the case here. Racism must indicate a belief that one race is superior to another, or deferential treatment based on race, neither of which is happening here. Ignorance that it is now correct to call people from Asia "Asian" no more means you think other people are superior/inferior than ignorance that you should now call Brontosaurus "Apatosaurus" means you consider other dinosaurs superior/inferior. By your meaning the NCAAP would be racist!
      • NAACP is racist due to their actions against whites and condemning level playing fields in favor of affirmative action (which creates more long-term problems than it solves), and the Brontosaurus hasn't existed since 1905, but that's neither here nor there.
  • A lot of that song is about how ridiculously sensitive people can be about race. There are people who will get incredibly pissed off about being called Oriental. Then there are people like my father, who didn't know that he should be offended by the term Oriental until I told him so, after he called himself that. Some of the reasons why everyone's a little bit racist is that there are people who will call racism for any tiny little thing.
• I don't know why, but "Glenn Beck is only for now" seems more mean-spirited than "George Bush is only for now". I think it's because Glenn Beck is just a journalist and is therefore a smaller target... but in any case it makes me uncomfortable, while the previous line didn't.
  • He's not a journalist, he's a talk show host. His job isn't to inform, but to discuss, not to avoid opinion, but to give nothing but. He may be a smaller target, but he's not a journalist, and lacks the ironclad "people's right to know" armor that accompanies that title.
  • "G-B-" is only for now. "Easy right-wing target for left-wingers" is only for now. George Bush and Glenn Beck both fit that pattern.
  • There's also the fact that Glenn Beck, like George Bush, is two syllables and easy to fit in to that part of the song. Some productions keep George Bush but just change tense: "George Bush! Was only for now~"
  • Probably because George Bush being gone probably means his presidency is over, but Glenn Beck being gone is more likely to mean he is dead.
    • Or, you know, out of the public eye.
  • In the UK version, this is changed to Jedward, an X Factor act who are almost forgotten again already.
    • And on the 2012 UK tour, it was Justin Bieber.
  • I was shocked that they changed it to "Glenn Beck". I had assumed that it would be "Barrack", and keep changing to refer to the current President/PM depending on which side of the pond you were on.
  • The creators of Avenue Q are left-wing. It stands to reason that they might be more likely to pick right-wing targets instead of left. They have a right to pick who their targets are; it's their show. Just like Chris Rock has a right to criticize his fellow black people, for example, since it's his comedy act.
• So, there's racism in that world against Monster puppets, which just happen to be fuzzier than the other puppets. In that case, if humans also exist in that world (Gary, Brian, Christmas Eve), wouldn't there also be some sort of racism between humans and puppets? What about between the non-monster puppets based on their Amazing Technicolor Population?
  • Well, in Avenue Jew (which is not canon, but darned amusing), and in it there is definitely stated tensions between humans and puppets.
  • There's clearly a known difference in-universe between humans and puppets (Christmas Eve complains about green hairs on the soap. Nicky's hair isn't green, but his skin-fuzz is!). It's possible that, assuming that puppets are also a "race," they just got accepted sooner than monsters. Like how marriage between whites and blacks became legal before gay marriage did, or blacks got the right to vote before women did. It doesn't all happen at once.
  • This troper always thought the use of puppets for non-monsters was to make some scenes more feasible or make some sense. For instance, the puppet-sex scene wouldn't have worked if Princeton was played by a human, or how it would have been hard to ensure look-alikes-with-subtle-differences to play Nicky and Ricky (hence the need for Rod to be a puppet so the pairing up didn't seem weird).
• How is porn a stable investment when most porn is available for free on the internet?
  • Because there's still many many people who pay for it. There's quite a bit of porn that's not free, especially for certain niche fetishes. Those who run the porn pay-sites will tell you they're very profitable.
• Okay, different song-- "The Internet is for Porn." Among the "normal people" who sit at home and look at porn on the Internet is Rod. This is what drives me batty: since Rod is gay, his porn choices will... reflect that, to put it as nicely as we can. Why is he being so straight-forward about it...?
  • They never actually talk about the porn that they watch, just that they watch it. Maybe they were all watching bizarre fetish porn involving some serious use of Rule34; we don't know.
• If Rod is an investment banker, why is he living on such a bad part of town as Avenue Q? Even entry-level investment bankers make enough cash for something a little more upscale.
  • Major debt? Gambling addiction? The terrible economy?
    • Fridge Brilliance: To be closer to Nicky, because he is terribly in love with him, even though he denies it to all and sundry. Nicky possibly couldn't afford living anywhere else, and Rod is most surely NOT going to move somewhere better and take Nicky along, because then Tongues Would Wag Like Whoa. And Rod (before accepting himself) would most definitely NOT want that.