They’re really camping him up, but the very fact that they created a very overtly gay character in 1931 is interesting.
Manhattan Parade youtube clip
Wiki Manhattan Parade
Was he overtly homosexual, though?
(I’m not kidding. Of course he’s over the top camp, but remember that Liberace was deep in closet with much the same manners and affectations for longer than seems possible for those of us who weren’t there.) Did he have a boyfriend in the film? That would have been remarkable.
I’ve seen characters similar to this in old movies. This one was a little over the top. People used to believed there were ‘fops’ who weren’t gay, just preening, affected heterosexual men. I think there was a stylist like this in *Lady for a Day *(1933), there definitely was in the remake Pocketful of Miracles (1961). I’ve seen this in westerns from the 50s. There was a documentary about gay characters in Hollywood, don’t recall the title. Almost always presented as comic characters. Even into the 60s actors like Paul Lynde were presented as actual homosexuals, just funny girly-men. I assume much of the audience realized what they were portraying, and others were just clueless.
Yeah, he’s very effeminate, and he’s a costume designer, and he wants to go home and re-decorate his little apartment, and Wikipedia refers to him as “gay”.
But there’s no evidence in these clips that he’s interested in having sex with another man.
Can we let this stereotype go, please? It is now 2012, and not only do we know for absolute certain that most gay men are not particularly effeminate, we also know that not all effeminate men are gay. Are you going to post a clip of Stepin Fetchit and say wow, look, they put a black man in a prominent role in a movie?
Also, there’s nothing particularly surprising about this pre-code stereotypical portrayal. May I direct your attention to the well-known documentary “The Celluloid Closet”.
Roddy, sick to death of this.
That’s the documentary I was thinking of.
And, you know, “Fight Ignorance”.
Peter Lorre’s character in The Maltese Falcon (1941) was signalled as gay; Humphrey Bogart smells his handkerchief, his eyebrows shoot up and the sound track does a little whoop-woo to indicate it was perfumed. So they could portray gays unjudgementally, they just had to use these cinematic signals rather than stating it outright.
There was actually dialog later in the film that indicated that Joel Cairo could “get around” a young man in some unspecified manner, like he had done before. The implication was that there was some sort of liaison followed by betrayal. This is more than just the effeminacy of the scented hankie or business card (“Gardenia!” “Quick, darling, in with him!”).
Roddy
In Maltese Falcon, Gutman, played by Greenstreet, had his attendant reffered to by Spade as a gunsel, which is not a gunslinger, but a gay lover. Gutman did not seem offended. It seems there were at least three gay characters, Cairo was the only effeminate one, and then not very effeminate for Hollywood.
Huh! I did not know that. Gunsel
What clues are you going to look for in films from that era? Like it or not, there are behaviors and mannerisms that were designated as indicators that a man was homosexual. Is it fair? Of course not. That doesn’t mean that those kinds of stereotypes weren’t used as a shortcut to present a gay character without actually having the character fool around with members of the same sex.
Recognizing that there is a stereotype is not the same thing as believing the stereotype. However, even today, if you present a male character who dresses, speaks and behaves in a certain way the audience will get the impression that he is gay without the need for any overt evidence of homosexuality.
Remember, we’re not born knowing this kind of stuff. It was surprising to me when I first learned about some of the history behind the motion pictures. I’m sorry you’re sick of this. If it’s that much of a problem maybe you shouldn’t participate in threads on the subject.
Yes, and for a significant number of times, they’ll be wrong. This is why straight people fail at “gaydar.” They pick up on effeminate clues and pat themselves on the back for being so hip as to identify one of us . . . without even considering the possibility that they’re wrong.
And thanks, Roderick, for plugging my late friend Vito Russo’s documentary (and book). He is greatly missed.
Yes this is very common in older films and TV shows, they will feature a crypto gay character that is stereotypically effeminate and assume the audience will “get it”.
But sometimes its hard to know what was intended, I’ve seen it argued that the Cowardly Lion in Wizard Of Oz was intended to be gay. There are some cases where the character is effeminate, but otherwise nothing is implied. Meant to be gay? Decadent? Who knows.
What about Klinger in MASH? A man who dresses in womens clothing exclusively but we are supposed to not read anything into that?
EDIT:I meant Klinger as transgender, not gay.
I feel like we’re talking about two different things. Within the context of this thread, I don’t really care about whether or not the stereotypical mannerisms of homosexual men as depicted in movies is accurate. I realize that in real life homosexual men run the gamut from super study man’s men all the way to full blown Nellie queens. I also recognize that the stereotype exists so when I see a character on screen acting a certain way I can make an interpretation based on that information.
Hey, maybe I’m wrong. As fascinated as I was with the Celluloid Closet there were a lot of scenes I just couldn’t see any homoerotic undertones to. I didn’t get bent out of shape over the interpretation though.
There was an openly pro lesbian film released the same year in Germany called Mädchen in Uniform. In the movie a girl in an all girls school falls in love with her teacher. The film is very explicit with it’s theme. There’s no doubt of the romantic nature of the girl’s feelings.
Klinger is patently crossdressing as a section 8 ploy. He stumps around chewing on a cigar with hairy legs and makes no bones about wanting out of the army throughout the series. If memory serves he does actually have a girlfriend or fiancee back in Toledo that gets mentioned occasionally. There is nothing at all in the show implying he is crossdressing for sexual reasons, just a section 8 attempt.
He was neather. At 1 point Klinger was offered a discharge from the army as a Homosexual - he declined - I’m not Gay - Just Crazy. He wanted out of the army - thats why he wore womens clothing - it was a family tradition…
In the *Al Jolson movie “Wonder Bar (1934),” there’s a very effeminate hair dresser or clothing designer–I don’t recall which–during the “Going to Heaven on a Mule” number.
I can’t access the clip at work–who is playing him? There was a cadre of great nellies in the early ‘30s–Franklin Pangborn, Tyler Brooke, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore, Grady Sutton, Ernest Truex, Tyrell Davis. All of them superb at “going to Maryland” in a way that just got in under the censors’ binoculars.
The stereotype was common in the 30s. In addition to the list Eve mentioned, there was Edward Everett Horton, too.
And Charlie Chaplin had a “gay” stereotype mincing around in the background of the jail scenes in Modern Times (note the guy two places in front of Chaplin).
And, of course, the first instance of the use of “gay” meaning “homosexual” was by Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby. Grant also makes a comment, “I’m just waiting for a bus on 42nd Street” that was sort of a euphemism for gay (In NYC, gays in the 20s would cruise around 42nd Street; if the cops saw they, they’d say they were just waiting for a crosstown bus).
It’s gotta be at least a mile from 20th to 42nd street. That’d never work.