Bert and the Infidels: How a puppet joined the jihad.

• Author: Halem, Dann
• Position: Culture & Reviews - Brief Article

THE TRAIN STATION was probably built in the 1940s. Situated between the Elbe and Vitava rivers, somewhere near the border with Poland, the small Czech hub had two sets of tracks and a deserted general store. It was the only stop on an eight-hour train ride from Prague into Krakow. The mode of transport was antiquated conununist coaches. There was no dining car, and I wanted a snack. Deciding to sample some regional pastry, I imagined quaint serving dishes and cuts of fresh cake.

Instead, I found Aerosmith and boxes of Snickers. The song "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" screeched through a radio, just like it had at the Duomo in Italy. I would hear it again in Berlin and Amsterdam. It even topped the charts in sleepy Bohemian hollows that sold Snickers and Coca-Cola. If I learned one thing about the modern world, it's that you can't escape Steven Tyler.

Which is why it didn't surprise me when a picture of the Sesame Street character Bert showed up on Bangladeshi anti-American posters following the attacks of September 11th. It's about 4,300 miles from Prague to Dhaka. But as long as there are televisions and Internet hookups, popular culture will travel the most unexpected roads.

Reportedly, Bangladeshi protesters unwittingly downloaded the image of Bert and Osama bin Laden from one of a number of "Bert Is Evil" Web sites. These sites humorously suggest that the famously taciturn puppet is behind much evil in the world, doctoring photographs to show Bert alongside the likes of Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, and Jeffrey Dahmer. With journalists anxious to report something lighter, pundits were quick to peg ill-tempered Bert as "bin Laden's felt-skinned henchman" and suggest that the puppet had finally abandoned his longtime companion Ernie and joined the Al Qaeda network.

Still, there's a lesson that goes beyond the obvious laughter. It's one about how popular culture gets used, transformed, and circulated by its consumers, with little or no regard for its producers' intentions or interests. Sometimes the result is a chuckle.

Other times it's a revolution.

Dino Ignacio created the first Bert Is

Evil site in 1996, from his parents' home in a suburb of Manila. He says he did it simply to poke fun at an icon he loved as a child. Of course, this didn't stop the Children's Television Workshop, the makers of Sesame Street, from condemning Ignacio for sullying Bert's good name.

But what was Sesame...