Beliefs Barney the Dinosaur Was Feminine or Queer-Coded Fueled 1993 Hate Campaign Against the Character

'Barney & Friends' aired beginning in 1992, and is the topic of a new podcast

Barney had love for everyone, but the same couldn't be said for the big, purple dinosaur.

As the Barney phenomenon continued to dominate in the 1990s, a culture of hate around the character by adults, particularly men, emerged.

Dr. Emily Contois, who teaches media studies at the University of Tulsa and has studied anti-fandom, appears on the Nov. 19 episode of Generation Barney, a podcast that looks back at the show and character, to discuss the backlash.

"Understanding particularly why adult men didn't like Barney reveals a lot about gender and power in our current society. There were women who didn't like Barney, but the high-profile hate was really coming from men," host Sabrina Herrera explains.

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Related: Stars Who Were on 'Barney & Friends' as Kids

"He offered up a different model for masculinity, even as a purple dinosaur and not a human. This message about love, about nurturing, about looking after others, that these are emotions and also sort of social practices and responsibilities that in our culture are constructed and understood to be sort of feminine and feminizing," Contois says.

Barney's appearance, which made him approachable to kids, was seen as a way of trying to trick or victimize them by some who felt the character balked at the image of traditional masculinity, per the podcast.

"Barney could be understood as resisting that, pushing back against that, offering a different model of sexuality and gender and size all coming together. And so for some of these men who reacted very poorly to him, that could be a piece of their reaction," Contois notes.

Related: Barney & Friends Voice Actor Recalls Getting Death Threats for Playing the Purple Dinosaur

"A part of that White masculine sort of set of authorities is also this incredible resistance to homosexuality," she adds.

Barney & Friends followed the lovable purple Tyrannosaurus rex and his friends beginning in 1992. The series is beloved by many millennials who grew up as Barney kids.

Learn more about what Barney meant to the world by checking out Connecticut Public's brand new narrative podcast Generation Barney, hosted by lifelong journalist Sabrina Herrera. The first episodes are available now wherever you get your podcasts.