Who said anything about holding it against him? If David Bowie should be faulted and reviled for anything, it should be for his music.
Back to the OP. One of my favorite “gay” lines is from the minor Hitchcock film Stage Fright. In reference to Marlene Dietrich’s suspiciously merry widow character, Jane Wyman says “It must be hard to sing and dance and be gay when your husband’s just been murdered.” I should think it would be much easier to be gay without a husband around!
Donna Reed’s “He’s making violent love to me, mother!” from It’s a Wonderful Life plays a bit racier now than it did in 1946.
I’ll second Alphagene on Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I cringe just thinking of it. My sister, on the other hand, took years to realize that she was witnessing a crude ethnic stereotype. I still remember the moment it hit her: “Oh my god, he’s supposed to be Asian! I thought he was just talking that way because he has such bad teeth!”
I suppose it’s possible that there was a double meaning in the line you quoted. But you are aware, aren’t you, that up until about the early sixties “gay” was in common usage meaning lighthearted, carefree, etc.? A lot of straight people were described as gay, having nothing to do with their sexual orientation. Still, you may be right about the film, given the gossip about Dietrich.
One of the Marx Brothers’ movies (the college one with the football game, I think) has a scene in which a woman sitting in bed is having a conversation with a man who’s in a chair at the foot of the bed. After he makes some flattering comment, she responds:
May I jump media and offer this choice quote from the end of Chapter 14 of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds?
“He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms, and
up and down stairs behind him. His landlady came to the
door, loosely wrapped in dressing gown and shawl; her hus-
band followed ejaculating.”
In the movie The Dam Busters, there’s a scene where the main character is calling his dog: “Here Nigger! Come on boy!”. Must have seemed okay in 1954. It was a true story though, so I guess that was probably the real dog’s name, but if they made that movie today I think they would leave out the dog.
I think you’re right. I saw that movie, many years ago, and if there had been a dog named “Nigger” in it, I think it would have been sufficiently shocking to make me remember it. Anyway, it was an English film. Did they use that term?
“Hello, I must be going.” --Groucho Marx
