Oh, and had I actually read dorkus’s E-online link, I could have spared myself the trouble of mentioning Randolph Scott, couldn’t I? :smack:
Yeesh, beagledave, you’re quick!
Yes. And I was the one who submitted that quote.
The history of “gay” meaning “homosexual” goes back to the 1890s. A female prostitute was known as a “gay lady” and male prostitutes became known as “gay boys.” By the 1920s (and even earlier), “gay” was a common term for a homosexual – among homosexuals. The straight community was unaware of the meaning, which made it a useful method of determining if another person was gay. If you were gay and met a stranger, you could ask him, say, if there were any places where you could have a gay time. If he was straight, he’d answer one way, but if he was gay, he’d know what you were talking about.
There’s also another, more obscure, gay reference in Bringing Up Baby. At one point, Grant is asked what he’s doing and he says something like, “I’m waiting for a bus on 42nd Street.” In the 20s, this was a common explanation when men loitering on 42nd Street (a gay hangout) were accosted by the police.
This says little about Grant other than he knew something of the gay argot of the time, which made its way from NY to Hollywood.
BTW, some sources say that “I’ve gone gay” line was not in the scripted but was added by Grant during shooting. Make of that what you will.
RealityChuck is correct, the script to Bringing Up Baby did not have the “gay” line in it; Cary Grant ad-libbed it. A book on the history of homosexuality in movies quotes the original script, which had Grant’s character just heming and hawing in embarassment.
I don’t know but I’ve always believed when you’re that hot, it’s only commen courtesy to be bisexual…ya know, to give everyone a fighting chance.
Like Errol Flynn. Mmmmm…Errol Flynn
Allan Sherman once did a parody of the song “Call Me” which ended “And then when you reach Cary Grant/Tell him I’d love to, but I just can’t.”
While speculating, remember one important fact: the current definition of homosexual was not in play back in the 30s. There was a different mindset and a different paradigm.
Thus, having a man having sex with another man did not necessarily mean he was homosexual or bisexual. Some men did it simply because it was less perverted than masturbation.
Homosexuality was defined by certain behavior patterns (such as wearing women’s clothes – which is why Grant joked about it), not by having sex with another man.
This is an area of endless debate, RealityChuck, but it’s widely acknowledged that the current defintion of homosexual as being an essential orientation, and not just a practice, goes back decades earlier than the 1930s. Most place it in the 1890s, with the works of Havellock-Ellis and Freud.
Maybe among some psychologists (and there are many exceptions to that in the 30s), but to the general public and to gays at the time, it was different (for instance, the word “homosexual” was not the common term).
See George Chauncey’s Gay New York, which clearly documents how what we would now call gay sex was not considered such by men of the 1920s. In the terminology of the time, most “normal” men, were not considered a “fairy” unless they “played the woman’s role.” Indeed, most psychologists of the time ignored Havelock-Ellis and went with the paradigm that a homosexual was a “female personality” trapped in a male body.
You’re making the common mistake of assuming people in the past thought like we do.
Oh, I have heard all the arguments, and I remain an essentialist. Most of the anti-essentialist argument lacks convincing evidence, or tortures a case by selective use of evidence. And I do think that in this case, people in the past did think like we do.
Wow - this puts “You’d do it for Randolph Scott” in a whole new light… 
All they really do is deny he was HOMOSEXUAL. I truly believe it is false to say he was.
However, he could have been BISEXUAL.
Either way, he was beyond sexy.
RealtyChuck . Can you give me a cite for the “gay boy” male prostitute statement? Other than a 1903 ambiguous one, I can’t find it anywhere. Certainly not a common term.
Can you give a cite where “even earlier(than the 1920’s)” gay was a common term for a homosexual-among homsexuals?