In a book I’m reading, a (straight male) character has recently pretended to be gay, for reasons that made sense at the time. His friends (who know his orientation) have just found out about this, and are teasing him about it. One of them says something about getting him a Les Miserablis poster for Christmas. OK, I understand that part. But then another says that she’s getting him an autographed photo of Julie Newmar that she found on eBay, whereupon he gets embarrassed.
I don’t get it. I can understand perfectly well why a straight guy would want a picture of her. But that reason presumably wouldn’t apply to a gay man. Is there some special significance she holds to the gay community, like Judy Garland?
FWIW, in the movie she’s presented as an icon for drag queens, not gay men in general. I don’t know if real drag queens consider Newmar a big deal, but the book you’re reading is presumably referencing the movie. The main characters steal an autographed photo of Newmar off the wall in a bar and take it with them as a good luck charm when they travel to a drag competition.
That rather begs the question, though. Did that movie choose to reference her, rather than some other actress, more or less at random, and thereby turn her into a gay/drag icon, or (as seems more likely) was she referenced by the movie because she was already a gay/drag icon? If the latter, then why was she?
Icon may not be the right word, but Julie Newmar has had the sort of career that attracts a certain sort of movie trivia fan. She was always in on the joke - you couldn’t take her seriously as a sex bomb, not when she was Stupfyin’ Jones in Li’l Abner, Rhoda (a robot) in My Living Doll (a failed sitcom that I watched anyway when I was eight, because it was about a robot), or Catwoman.
She was a delicate flower that was too good for this world! It chewed her up, then spit her out! The good ones always die young!
She’s still alive and pretty active on the Comic Con circuit, and looks pretty good for an octogenarian. “Camp” is considered a subset of gay culture, and anything to do with the Batman TV show is campy. Catwoman, the main female character on that show*, is a pretty easy costume for a female impersonator to throw together.
*Madge Blake, as Aunt Harriet, was in more episodes but was rarely the focus of any of them. Yvonne Crag’s Batgirl was in 24 episodes, same number as Catwoman (though Julie Newmar only appeared in 19) and I couldn’t tell you why she’s less popular for drag purposes; I imagine a black catsuit is more slimming than a purple one, or has something to do with the mask.
You’re assuming that Newmar is in fact regarded as a drag icon. Maybe she is, but I have never heard any reference to her as such other than in To Wong Foo… and that movie wasn’t exactly a realistic depiction of drag queens. While Newmar-as-Catwoman seems plausible as a drag icon for reasons others have mentioned (5’11" campy femme fatale character), I don’t know that she is or ever was particularly admired by real drag queens.
Julie was my favorite part about Batman. I’d always be thrilled when I read the TV Guide and see that she’d be in an upcoming episode.
You beat me to it! I love that movie. I cringe like hell at the sentiments (it glorifies kidnapping and rape!) but I grew up with it and I can’t not love it anyway. That barnraising scene is one of the many reasons why.
If she’s a gay icon at all, she’s a very minor one. Even among drag queens, there are more relevant icons. When a drag queen is depiction a star, it helps if people can tell who the star is. I don’t think many people would recognize Newmar.
Poor Julie. She was a head taller than any other female dancer, as well as most of the males. She was kept in the rear throughout that entire scene, and looked like the director’s attempt at forced perspective.
