Nickelodeon Taps Drag Queen To Teach Kids About The Pride Flag

Nickelodeon, the children’s network, debuted a video over the weekend featuring drag queen Nina West explaining the colors of the LGBTQ Pride flag, the latest in a series of materials aimed at explaining Pride month to Nickelodeon viewers, most of whom are children.

The video, “The Meaning of Pride,” dropped on Nickelodeon’s YouTube page over the weekend, and clips of the three-minute-long music video, which features an original song by West (the drag persona of Andrew Levitt) explaining why the Pride flag uses the colors of the rainbow, have made their way onto Nickelodeon’s official TikTok profile.

In the music video, West goes through each color of the flag and explains the more recent additions of pink, white, light blue, black, and brown stripes, meant to signify solidarity with the transgender rights and Black Lives Matter movements.

An official description for the video on Nickelodeon’s YouTube profile trumpets, “Drag queen Nina West performs an original song about the meaning of the rainbow Pride flag. June is Pride Month, so let’s celebrate by lifting up voices in the LGBTQIA+ community!”

If West looks familiar, it’s because the drag queen appeared in cartoon form in a video for Nick Jr.’s “Blues Clues & You” program aimed at preschoolers. As the Daily Wire noted last week, in that video, West narrates a Pride parade featuring families with LGBTQ+ parents and parental figures: “First is a lesbian gator family, followed by a gay bear family; after them come non-binary dolphins, transgender beavers, as well various other asexual, bisexual, and pansexual animals.”

“Love is love is love, you see, and everyone should love proudly and we’ll all go marching in the big parade!” West’s cartoon avatar sings.

That video was aimed at the toddler set. Nickelodeon’s more recent partnership with West appears aimed at older children and young teenagers — those of age to use social media.

“With the pride flag up high, be true to you,” West sings in the YouTube video. “Blue means harmony, working together. Purple means spirit, believing you have the power of strength within yourself to do whatever you dream. Baby blue, pink and white represent transgender people because every letter in LGBTQ plus is equal. And Black and Brown represent the queer and trans people of color.”

Nickelodeon, like other networks aimed at children, launched a significant effort to celebrate Pride month on most of its online and on-screen properties, featuring many of the network’s beloved characters. As Yahoo News noted about the “Blue’s Clues & You” episode, the effort is aimed at fostering “inclusion” among young children.

“Lindz Amer of the great kids’ video series Queer Kid Stuff consulted on the Blue’s Clues video, which takes us marching along the Pride route one by one, then two by two, etc., showcasing different families along the way,” the outlet reported, citing a press release. “It’s a terrific celebration of families and goes further than many kids’ shows in its range of queer inclusion.”

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