Berenice A. Fernandez's portFOLIO

Animation, Illustration, Graphic Design

[lizardsfromspace]

In the early 70s Sesame Street was created with an eye towards educating poor, inner-city children for free, and became a massive hit with all children. In 2016, faced with going off the air forever after facing conservative efforts to destroy public broadcasting since basically its beginning, new episodes became a timed exclusive for premium cable network HBO. In 2022 HBO Max, newly merged with and taken over by reality TV channel Discovery, removed Sesame Street episodes and spin-offs from streaming as a tax write-off and scheme to avoid paying residuals.

[saintofpride201]

Sesame Street's official YouTube channel is uploading the episodes for free, btw. A lot of creators are rebelling against this bullshit.

[amy-vic]

Sesame Street on PBS KIDS. Play games with Elmo, Big Bird, Abby and all of your Sesame Street friends. Watch videos and print coloring pages

As always, America, PBS has you and your kids' backs.

[scifigrl47]

I also want to put in a plug for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, spearheaded by GBH in Boston to preserve and make available public funded programming from around the country.  More than 7000 public television and radio programs are available to stream through the website, with more than 40000 hours of programming archived and available to researchers and educators through the Library of Congress and GBH itself.

https://americanarchive.org/

[nickyandmikey]

when two musicians sing into the same microphone and lean in very close to each other… like omg are you guys gonna kiss now to relieve the homoerotic tension?😳

[nickyandmikey]

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ONE DIRECTION I DON’T KNOW WHO THIS “HARRY” PERSON IS GO WATCH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND CLARENCE CLEMONS KISS ON STAGE RIGHT NOW

[irrelevantlyvalid]

op is the only valid person i’ve ever met. everyone else needs to come to the light

[chokolattejedi]

Okay, but this is really important: Bruce Springsteen occupied this really weird place in music history. His songs were all from this pessimistic, nihilistic view of an America that had let him down:

Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn’t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.

Politicians used his music to promote their ‘Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He’s over here asking when we’re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren’t helping the people.

It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson’s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.

Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.

So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.

Passages from American Popular Music by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman

[executeness]

I used to think that Bruce and Clarence kissing onstage was exuberance, showmanship, and telling racist homophobes to fuck off. Like, they picked up a certain kind of audience and went “Racist homophobes? Not in our house!” And started the kissing then but then I actually looked it up and

https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons

It was a story where… we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn’t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen

It wasn’t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage

It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he’s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence’s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own

Clemons said in one interview. “Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.” In another version of the story, Clemons says “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.”

I’m having some emotions about it!

“He was elemental in my life,“ Springsteen adds, “and losing him was like losing the rain.”

Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!

We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!

God I’m not okay about it

[ramshacklefey]

Now I’m mad that this is not among any of the things I was ever told about this artist.

[jbbartram-illu]

I knew about this in general (& via all those fabulous photos), but this just adds even more beautiful context <3

[eregyrn-falls]

Just to add to the pile: this was the cover of Springsteen’s break-through album Born to Run, in 1975:

I mean, will you LOOK at this:

This was the pic chosen for the album cover from an extensive photoshoot, too. A few others:

There’s a lot more online if you search. They’re all pretty amazing. But the photographer is right, the one chosen for the album cover just pops.

[bafolio]

[bafolio]

Family Wedding Portrait

[songsandfairytales]

[songsandfairytales]

Happy Pride from Doctor Who’s Pansexual Gods

[songsandfairytales]

River Song and her space hair.

[songsandfairytales]

WIP. I think she’s coming along quite nicely.

[songsandfairytales]

Morning River Song sketches

[songsandfairytales]

Quick 11 sketch

[songsandfairytales]

Happy mother’s day River.

[songsandfairytales]

Oh hey look I drew some doggos

[bafolio]

[songsandfairytales]

Eleventh Doctor Portrait

[songsandfairytales]

River Song in 4 parts

[songsandfairytales]

It wasn’t often that they had moments like this. Just the two of them sitting alone in on the couch. No parents, no alien invasions to thwart, no little timelords running around demanding bedtime stories or shooting lessons from mum. No there was nothing except the feel of River’s curls tickling her face. The hum of the Doctor’s double heartbeats against River’s ear. The little tingles that ran through each of their fingers as their hands curled around each other. There was nothing except the peace and contentment that came with a life with one another.

[songsandfairytales]

12 just casually checking out some “cat” pictures in his free time.

click that link if you want to see those “cat” pictures

[songsandfairytales]

Birthday Portraits