Earlier this summer, in advance of the fall premiere of a new Muppets TV show on the ABC network, fictional characters Kermit the Frog and longtime partner Miss Piggy – who told MSNBC’s Irin Carmon she is a pro-choice feminist -- announced their separation to the public via Facebook, with the porcine half of the famous couplet kicking her beloved Kermie to the curb.
Now, in a fresh ploy to goose viewership for The Muppets, it’s been announced that Kermit has a new love interest, a younger, red-headed pig puppet named Denise. This, I kid you not, was enough to enrage online feminist activists with nothing better to do in their spare time.
Denise, the red-haired ABC marketing executive rumored to be Kermit’s new main squeeze, has been called everything from a “home wrecking hog” by Jezebel, to a "younger, thinner and blander" version when compared to Miss Piggy. Megan Carpentier of The Guardian clearly has anger issues with Kermit’s dating life. She writes:
Well, apparently Kermit can’t get enough of women like his ex – as long as they’re younger and thinner than her and less successful than him (but still work at ABC, so he can rub her in Miss Piggy’s face…
Carpentier also went on to describe Denise as "…a representation of the ‘audience of the 1980s,’ one “filled with fear of powerful women” who “understand and supported men’s urge to date their exes’ younger, dumber Plasticine lookalikes."
Kermit denies any romance, insisting he and Denise are just friends.
It’s interesting to note these same feminist writers who are giving Kermit the Frog all sorts of grief for dating aren’t using the same standards on Miss Piggy, who been seen flirting with both William Shatner and action-movie star Liam Hemsworth.
Poor Kermit. It’s not easy being green, and as he’s finding out, it’s not easy being single either.
