My whole life I’ve heard the name “Bruce” equated with “homosexual,” for reasons that I have absolutely no grasp of. I was reading a joke book which listed “Cartoon Characters that Might Be Gay,” and under “Batman and Robin” it said “Batman’s real name: Bruce.” How does this make him gay? Sometimes I hear people say stuff like “I hope you don’t get stuck with some big burly guy named Bruce,” tacitly implying that “Bruce” would be homosexually amorous towards the subject of the taunt. What the hell is all this about? How does “Bruce” equal “gay?”
It’s easily lisped. Lisping is associated with homosexuality. That’s my best guess.
Moved to IMHO.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
Maybe it’s due to the whole Monty Python aspect. Ever seen the sketch about the characters all named Bruce? I didn’t get a homosexual vibe from that sketch though, but I must say it’s rare to meet any male under 35 here (Australia) who was christened “Bruce.” 
Bruce Wayne.
Can you remind me of the faculty rules, again?
The idea of Bruce as a gay name is rather dated, from a time before we had Bruce Lee, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Jenner, and Bruce Willis.
Among the top 1,000 names for children born in 2003, Bruce ranked 493, or about 246 for boys.
Probably because of Johnny Carson: a stock gay character in the Mighty Carson Art Players was named Bruce. He was dropped after a viewer asked him to, because the viewer’s son was named Bruce.
Me no understand…
I mean that in Australia it’s sort of a jokey tradition that after that sketch was aired (“Hi Bruce”…“Hi Bruce”…) poking fun of Aussies, no-one named their newborn sons Bruce. Sort of like how no-one with the surname “Everage” names their daughter “Edna.” 
You’d think Bruce Springsteen would have reinstated Bruce as a valid hetero name. Can anyone seriously claim that <i>he’s</i> gay?
It was just a bit of a joke based on your understatement of not “getting a homosexual vibe” from the sketch. I guess I’ll remind you of the faculty rules, then.
Rule 1: No pooftahs!
Rule 2: No member of the faculty shall mistreat the abbos in any way – if anyone’s looking.
Rule 3: No pooftahs!
Rule 4: This year, I don’t want to catch anyone not drinking.
Rule 5: No pooftahs!
Rule 6: There’s no… …rule six.
Rule 7: No pooftahs!
That concludes the readin’ of the rules.
Heh - that’s right. It’s been a long time since I saw that sketch…
I believe that they renamed Bruce Banner in the TV series of The Incredible Hulk to David Banner because of the gay association with the name Bruce.
But this may not be the real story, it may just be an urban legend.
In 1954 a psychologist named Fredric Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, an attack on all comic books. In it he had this passage which became famous:
The book caused a furor bigger than the current steroids scandal, with even larger Congressional hearings. Many comic book lines went out of business, the Comics Code was put into place, and comics became a dirty word for years.
I’m pretty sure that the connection of Bruce and gay predates this, but there’s little doubt that the jokes made ever after connected the two in an even wider spectrum of American life.
Still in GQ
I think dnooman hit it first off. The easy lisping quotient of a single syllable name with an “S” sound in it makes it an easy target. Add to it the incongruity (wtf?) of the seemingly masculine name being co-opted by pop culture in the form of the 60s TV version of Batman which, well, really gayed it up a bit ;), and there ya go.
Steve is another name that kind of fits the first part of the above criteria. “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” for example.
I always enjoyed the reverse of this in Mad Max having the totally butch FiFi as his macho boss. Hey, wait a minute! Oh boy, have I ever been whooshed!
MAD Magazine took off on this with their parody of the Hulk TV show. David is asked why he isn’t named “Bruce” and he replies that the producers thought it wasn’t manly enough. Behind him, the TV is broadcasting the Olympics and the announcer is screaming: “He’s done it! Bruce has done it! Bruce Jenner is the world’s greatest athelete!!”
Well done.
I heard an interview with Stan Lee in which he said he always had trouble remembering his characters’ names and that he variously referred to the Hulk as “David Banner” and “Bruce Banner,” finally settling on “David Bruce Banner.”
I’m just picturing Adam West wearing a dressing gown over his Batman costume. If I were a criminal, that’d strike fear in my heart.
It probably dates earlier than that. The song “Big Bad John”, released by Jimmy Dean in 1961, was repeatedly parodied as “Big Bad Bruce”, making the subject of the song flamingly gay. The insinuation based on the name “Bruce” was probably well established when the parody writers chose to exploit it. This lists one of the parody recordings by The Country Gentleman from 1966, and the Chuck Mason version from the 60’s:
http://www.queermusicheritage.com/jun2004bj.html
Carson started hosting the tonight show in 1962. I don’t know when he started the “Mighty Carson Art Players” segment, but I’m guessing he was also drawing on the established insinuation regarding the name.
I just posted about this in another thread before reading your post. I’m pretty sure it’s true. I believe I saw Stan Lee say it during that extended interview he did :Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters, and Marvels.