Well there is always Lyle the effeminate heterosexual.
Only half kidding here. It was unusual enough to have someone so very stereotypically effeminate be straight that Dana Carvey was able to create a recurring character on SNL in the 90’s… Just saying…
The credits say Bobby Watson is the actor in question. And boy does he camp it up.
See, I don’t have any problem believing that. As recently as the 1970s, Paul Linde was making obvious homosexual jokes on television and it was expected that the audience at home wouldn’t get it. And I know several people who, when looking back, were obviously playing into the flaming stereotype, but my grandparents would swear he wasn’t gay. Heck, my late grandfather couldn’t accept that his son was gay even after he told him: he still kept on talking about him finding a woman–and this was before he started having mental problems.
I think there is a large portion of the population that, until recently, was completely in the dark about homosexuality.
Perhaps not sexual reasons, but he is shown to actually enjoy dressing in that manner over time.
My father was under the impression that a body builder could not be gay, I mean look at him he spends hours in the gym! You can’t get more hetero than body building.
I about laughed my ass off.
Just saw another interesting bit, in the 1934 Warner Brothers movie I’ve Got Your Number (*February *1934, pre-Code!). Pat O’Brien tells Allen Jenkins to get a date to bring along with him and Joan Blondell, and Allen says, “No dames for me–I’m a man’s man!” At which Pat gives a limp-wristed pose and goes, “Wooo!”
Presentism. n. The belief that people in the past thought just like people in the present.
Yes, most people in the 30s didn’t know what homosexuality was. Outside of a few big cities (and even then, it was usually underground), most people didn’t even know it existed. You never met any gay people (at least, none that would admit it) and no one talked about them. People would have paid no attention to things that today we would consider obvious signs.
It was considered absolutely shocking when the Kinsey Report said 10% of men had homosexual sex; if people knew about it at all, they would have probably put the number as less than 1%.
Most of the “pansy” stereotypes in the 30s were, to 80% of the audience, just amusing characters. Their sexuality would never be even considered.
Which is probably how Liberace was able to fly under the gaydar for so long.
QUOTE=Bill Door;14752403]It’s gotta be at least a mile from 20th to 42nd street. That’d never work.
[/QUOTE]
He means 1920s! :dubious: BTW, to the person who refered to Klinger as transgendered, the appropriate term is transvestite.
Woosh, or maybe in this thread I should say swish.