# No Tennesee Williams for you!!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 2, 2004, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693 "2004-12-02T14:28:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/21 "2004-12-02T17:55:39Z")
Neely, you know it’s bad to take liquor with those pills. ---
**Author:** ![Aries28](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Aries28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aries28)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/22 "2004-12-02T18:07:25Z")
Speaking as someone who lives in the what was it? asshole in the buttcrack of America there are a lot of us who think this guy is nuts and don’t agree with him whatsoever. But pay no mind to that…carry on lumping the entire population of the state along with the Rep. Allens and the Roy Moores here. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/23 "2004-12-02T18:18:10Z")
> [@Aries28](#): > > Speaking as someone who lives in the what was it? asshole in the buttcrack of America there are a lot of us who think this guy is nuts and don’t agree with him whatsoever. But pay no mind to that…carry on lumping the entire population of the state along with the Rep. Allens and the Roy Moores here. I know there are nice and reasonable people there, you just wouldn’t know it from reading the news. In your opinion, what’s the ratio of enlightened people to knuckledraggers there? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/24 "2004-12-02T18:18:55Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > This country is regressing so quickly you can see it before your eyes. Within a few years all science will be condemned as “magic” and all machines as “witchcraft.” Except cars. Everyone must drive a car. And non-birth-control pharmaceuticals. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/25 "2004-12-02T18:21:06Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > Neely, you know it’s bad to take liquor with those pills. It makes 'em _work_ faster. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/26 "2004-12-02T18:22:07Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > I’m all for the banning of _The Color Purple_. Quite possibly the worst piece of crap I’ve ever had to read in school (and I just had to read one of the _Left Behind_ books.) Sorry I can’t approve of banning a book even if it is total crap. We need some examples of bad literature, although I’m not sure why. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/27 "2004-12-02T18:23:49Z")
> [@Aries28](#): > > Speaking as someone who lives in the what was it? asshole in the buttcrack of America there are a lot of us who think this guy is nuts and don’t agree with him whatsoever. But pay no mind to that…carry on lumping the entire population of the state along with the Rep. Allens and the Roy Moores here. **Aries** , you know I think you’re the bee’s knees. And that hubby of yours, the incredibly erudite and witty **Sauron**. And I think the redoubtable **Ogre** lives in Alabama as well. So yes…there are a goodly number of good people living there. So why the heck is it that it’s only the unibrowed, gritty-knuckled, I’m-my-own-nephew troglodytes who get airtime? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Aries28](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Aries28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aries28)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/28 "2004-12-02T18:24:45Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I know there are nice and reasonable people there, you just wouldn’t know it from reading the news. > > In your opinion, what’s the ratio of enlightened people to knuckledraggers there? That’s exactly my point…I could find something stupid or someone suggesting a stupid bill/law in any state. Being an idiot isn’t limited to a certain state. When I read stupid news I don’t automatically say, “Oh…well…then…Insert state name here is the asshole in the buttcrack of America.” Actually, tdn I should have probably not even brought this up. I’ve been away from the boards for months due to this very same kind of thing and when I popped back in today I see the same stuff. Rep. Allen is a moron of the highest degree but I still take offense at the state I love being classified as the asshole in the buttcrack of America. ---
**Author:** ![Aries28](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Aries28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aries28)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/29 "2004-12-02T18:28:35Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > So why the heck is it that it’s only the unibrowed, gritty-knuckled, I’m-my-own-nephew troglodytes who get airtime? ☹ Because that gives more credence to the everyone in the South is backwards and marry their sisters and live in trailers and love NASCAR and beat people over the heads with their Bibles they have on the ready at all times stereotype. A person in Alabama doing something good isn’t going to make the national news because nobody cares about that. That wouldn’t fit into the image. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/30 "2004-12-02T18:30:38Z")
> [@The Devil's Grandmother](#): > > Except cars. Everyone must drive a car. And non-birth-control pharmaceuticals. But only pharmaceuticals made and sold in the good ol’ USA. Slipping across the border to Canada to buy them helps the terrorists win. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/31 "2004-12-02T19:28:49Z")
Given the number of revisionist interpretations of various works of literature, I’m wondering what sort of standards this guy might have for deciding if a character is or is not homosexual. Consider: it is not exactly a leap of great distances to claim that Professor Henry Higgins and the Colonel from My Fair Lady may be living in a homosexual relationship. Certainly, given that interpretation of their relationship, it makes Higgins’ reluctance towards any relationship with Eliza much more understandable, in my mind. Likewise, how many of Shakespeare’s characters have been accused of having homoerotic overtones? I honestly can’t think of a single text that would be completely innocent of homosexual characters or figures from the latest romance novel to history (Especially not any history written by Winston “Buggery and the Lash” Churchill.) to the Bible. Hell’s bells, I’ve heard someone accuse Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things as being homosexual predators in disguise! ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/32 "2004-12-02T19:42:26Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > Consider: it is not exactly a leap of great distances to claim that Professor Henry Higgins and the Colonel from My Fair Lady may be living in a homosexual relationship. Certainly, given that interpretation of their relationship, it makes Higgins’ reluctance towards any relationship with Eliza much more understandable, in my mind. Heh. Yeah, that’s subtext that all but stands up on a table and waves its arms around to get your attention. “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” indeed… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/33 "2004-12-02T19:45:10Z")
That’s Winston “Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash” Churchill, to be precise. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/34 "2004-12-02T19:56:32Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > Consider: it is not exactly a leap of great distances to claim that Professor Henry Higgins and the Colonel from My Fair Lady may be living in a homosexual relationship. Certainly, given that interpretation of their relationship, it makes Higgins’ reluctance towards any relationship with Eliza much more understandable, in my mind. _I’d_ consider it a leap, since the characters meet at the beginning of the play, when they have a chance encounter with each other and Eliza, the flower girl, with her atrocious Cockney accent: Pickering: I am myself a student of Indian dialects; and– Higgins: [eagerly] Are you? Do you know Colonel Pickering, the author of _Spoken Sanscrit_? P: I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you? H: Henry Higgins, author of _Higgins’s Universal Alphabet_. P: [with enthusiasm] I came from India to meet you. H: I was going to India to meet you. I’m not sure how it came about that two intelligent male characters, or an intelligent male character reluctant to pursue a romantic relationship with a woman, has to have a homosexual subtext. The song _Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man?_ suggests irritation to me, not homosexuality. ---
**Author:** ![Yamirskoonir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/c0e974/32.png) [@Yamirskoonir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yamirskoonir)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/35 "2004-12-02T20:02:21Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > I honestly can’t think of a single text that would be completely innocent of homosexual characters or figures from the latest romance novel to history (Especially not any history written by Winston “Buggery and the Lash” Churchill.) to the Bible. Hell’s bells, I’ve heard someone accuse Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things as being homosexual predators in disguise! Milton’s _Paradise Lost_? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/36 "2004-12-02T20:07:41Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > _I’d_ consider it a leap… > > \ > > I’m not sure how it came about that two intelligent male characters, or an intelligent male character reluctant to pursue a romantic relationship with a woman, has to have a homosexual subtext. The song _Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man?_ suggests irritation to me, not homosexuality. Actually, the song is titled: “A Hymn to Him.” Given the outright insanity of the arguments in the song (“Men are so honest, so thoroughly square…”) it goes beyond mere irritation to at least exasperation, perhaps even to a complete revisionist view of the two sexes. Seriously, I’m not arguing in favor of the idea of the homosexual relationship between Pickering and Higgins. I only meant that compared to many such theories (such as Hamlet as a gay male) it is much less of a leap. Given the level of homophobia that this guy in Alabama is expressing, does it matter how reasonable the leap might be, so long as someone can make it? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/37 "2004-12-02T20:11:52Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > _I’d_ consider it a leap, since the characters meet at the beginning of the play, when they have a chance encounter with each other and Eliza, the flower girl, with her atrocious Cockney accent: > > I’m not sure how it came about that two intelligent male characters, or an intelligent male character reluctant to pursue a romantic relationship with a woman, has to have a homosexual subtext. The song _Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man?_ suggests irritation to me, not homosexuality. Well, of course it doesn’t HAVE to have a subtext. I like it mostly because it gives me a chance to snicker over quite a few lines in the script. 🙂 That and it gives **supervenusfreak** and I a long-lasting running joke… ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/38 "2004-12-02T20:59:51Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > I honestly can’t think of a single text that would be completely innocent of homosexual characters or figures from the latest romance novel to history (Especially not any history written by Winston “Buggery and the Lash” Churchill.) to the Bible. Hell’s bells, I’ve heard someone accuse Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things as being homosexual predators in disguise! Yeah. Why can’t people just read something innocent and heterosexually wholesome? Like the [King James Bible](http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/jamesi.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/39 "2004-12-02T21:13:14Z")
> [@Aries28](#): > > Speaking as someone who lives in the what was it? asshole in the buttcrack of America there are a lot of us who think this guy is nuts and don’t agree with him whatsoever. But pay no mind to that…carry on lumping the entire population of the state along with the Rep. Allens and the Roy Moores here. As someone who was born there and is returning there next month, I appreciate and second your statement. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693/40 "2004-12-02T21:14:55Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Because children have _rights_, **Lib** , that’s why. Yes, of course they do. But if my child has a right to your money, would you please send some this way? She’s studying fashion design, and aced her recent algebra test. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-tennesee-williams-for-you/277693.md?page=3)