Sesame Street producers tried to set the record straight this week, asserting that puppet characters Bert and Ernie are not a gay couple. For generations, smirking teens have suggested that the roommates were more than friends, and former Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman seemed to confirm it in an interview posted Sunday on the website Queerty. He said he always imagined Bert and Ernie as a romantically involved couple when he was writing scenes for them.

In the span of two weeks, Geoffrey Owens went from being a B-list actor working at a grocery store to a champion for working people. Owens played Elvin Tibideaux, son-in-law to the Heathcliff Huxtable character played by Bill Cosby, on The Cosby Show from 1985 to 1992. Fast forward 16 years, and he was working at a Trader Joe’s in Clifton, N.J., when a customer recognized him, snapped a photo, and posted it online, mocking Owens. The Daily Mail and Fox News picked up on the story, spreading it far and wide.

As the NFL season begins this weekend, Nike has thrown gasoline on the heated debate over athletes’ national anthem protests with an ad campaign starring Colin Kaepernick.

In a November 2017 statement of regret for his sexual misconduct, comedian Louis C.K. concluded by saying, “I will now step back and take a long time to listen.”

The “long time,” audiences learned this week, lasted about nine months. Louis C.K. returned to the stage Sunday night with a 15-minute stand-up comedy routine at the famed Comedy Cellar in New York, and most critics agree it was a bad idea.

Almost one year into its existence, the #MeToo movement’s leaders are still working to turn outcry into action. They hit a potential setback this week when Italian actress and filmmaker Asia Argento, one of the first public faces of the movement, faced accusations that she sexually assaulted a 17-year-old boy in 2013.

From 1967 to 1972, Aretha Franklin was on fire. She had released her first album, a gospel collection, in 1956 at age 14 and gained popularity as a jazz and blues singer. But it wasn’t until she moved to Atlantic records in ’67 and recorded Otis Redding’s “Respect” that her career burst into full flame, fanned by the winds of the feminist and civil rights movements.

Activists and onlookers are still talking about Scarlett Johansson’s withdrawal last month from a movie about a woman who identifies as a man and wondering what it means for future portrayals of transgender characters.

News broke in July that Johansson would play a transgender person in the new film Rub & Tug. Strong public backlash ensued, especially from activists who said portraying transgender characters was not good enough—transgender actors should play the roles as well.