Well, for instance, the reason that so many cases of Catholic priests molesting children, often as long ago as the 1950’s, only became known in the past ten years, is that child molestation, while it was considered somewhat shameful in the 1950’s, was not considered the sort of thing that you prosecuted a respected member of the community for. Oh, you moved the perpetrator to some other position, repeatedly if necessary, and perhaps you eventually made sure that he wasn’t in a position to do it again, but you didn’t presecute him if at all possible. After all, the child might have to testify in court, and people would (back then) often consider the child just as responsible. Now such cases are nearly always prosecuted, and nobody blames the child.
The same thing was true of teenagers who had sex with adults. In my high school, about 1969 or 1970, one of the woman teachers had sex with a 17-year-old male student. She was fired as soon as the school found out about it, but she wasn’t prosecuted. Nowdays she definitely would be prosecuted, and she might well end up with her name and face all over the TV tabloid shows.
Also, “tolerance” or “tolerated” is probably not the right word to use in this context. If people during the 50’s did seem more “tolerant” about child molestation it was only because they were considerably more naive about the true nature of sexual abuse than they are now. The average man or woman were aware child molestation existed but, to them, the typical molester was some creepy Peter Lorre-lookalike handing out candy to little girls or accosting boys in a public restroom. It wasn’t some trusted authority figure like Father Kelly or the junior high gym coach.
Also, a lot of problems in the 50s were handled “informally.” Someone who was caught molesting a child (and no, I don’t want to conflate gays and pedophiles) might be roughed up (either by police or by the child’s father and a few friends) and advised to leave town quickly and quietly.
I think the personality this man projected, his showman ship, and talent caused these people to admire him almost instantly. Once they admired him, some people kept blinders on, and didn’t look to close at the man. He also started as a teen and these older people first saw him as a child star like the Osmonds, or Micheal Jackson.
In “Good Night and Good Luck”, George Clooney’s movie about Edward R Murrow, they recreated one of his Person to Person interviews with Liberace, using the actual footage of the Liberace side of the interview. Since we were watching Murrow conduct the interview, the actor playing Murrow gave this great performance where he was having to ask Liberace all these softball questions about women/marriage/dating and you could clearly see on Murrow’s face that he understood exactly how inane and ridiculous these questions were as he was asking them.
Also here is a good site for understanding the public perception of Liberace at the time, including links to the text of various articles written about him at the time: http://www.bobsliberace.com/decades/1950s/1950s.html
You mean he drank Blatz? (That was a shout-out to the folks of a certain age who remember the days of “Don’t tell and God knows I wouldn’t know how to ask! And wouldn’t if I did. Just pop another couple Blatz, okay?”)
I should investigate his recordings because my wife says nobody could play Chopin as well as Liberace. That Polish thing and all, which could also explain a predilection for PBR and blackberry brandy, though that could be from being born in West Allis.
My recollection (and I’m old enough) is that he had a tremendous appeal to women. He knew how to not only entertain them, but to flirt with them (wink-wink-nudge-nudge). He was the world’s greatest showman, not to mention that he was very talented at what he did. If there were any doubts about his sexuality, they were brushed aside with “Oh, that’s just part of his act.”
Plus the fact that there were no gay people in the '50s. Well, at least none who weren’t molesting little boys in dark alleys.
[QUOTE=critter42]
In “Good Night and Good Luck”, George Clooney’s movie about Edward R Murrow, they recreated one of his Person to Person interviews with Liberace, using the actual footage of the Liberace side of the interview. Since we were watching Murrow conduct the interview, the actor playing Murrow gave this great performance where he was having to ask Liberace all these softball questions about women/marriage/dating and you could clearly see on Murrow’s face that he understood exactly how inane and ridiculous these questions were as he was asking them.
Question: was that portrayal accurate? In the actual interview, is that the way Murrow acted or is it just a modern assumption that Murrow could not have been asking those questions seriously?
That’s the idea I got from the movie. Here’s a man interested in exposing an extremely dangerous politician, and he’s being forced to ask this, this … celebrity about his dating plans. A celebrity who then proceeds to – apparently seriously – suggest that Princess Margaret would be an attainable mate!
Why, then, was he so accepted by the core of his audience? We’re talking grandmothers and mothers and all that warned me of the dangers of having gay friends (“be careful or you could be painted with the same brush”, warned Mom).
Have you ever seen how that show was done? Several times in each show while he was performing the camera would break away to a shot of his very proud Mother sitting there beaming at her son. The show was marketed to those middle-age Mothers.