Re choreographer Jerome Robbins and his rejection of the "implicit homosexuality of that depiction"

Cafe Society
101

Regarding the red tie, I found this:

  • Although historians Jonathan Ned Katz (4) and Allan Berube note that homosexuality in the United States did not become widely visible until after the Second World War, lesbians and gay men certainly existed in the nation prior to this period. In the 1915 edition of his famous volume Sexual Inversion, for instance, sexologist Havelock Ellis discussed both the presence of and culture associated with gay American males. “The world of sexual inverts,” he remarked “is, indeed, a large one in any American city, and it is a community distinctly organized–words, customs, traditions of its own…” (5) One of the “traditions” the sexologist goes on to elucidate is gay men’s clothing:

    … it is notable that of recent years there has been a fashion for a red
    tie to be adopted by inverts as their badge. This is especially marked
    among the fairies' (as a fellator is there termed) in New York. It is
    red,’ writes an American correspondent, himself inverted, `that has become
    almost a synonym for sexual inversion, not only in the minds of inverts
    themselves, but in the popular mind… It is the badge of all their
    tribe.'*

And then it goes on at some length, even discussing this painting:

*Paul Cadmus’s 1934 painting The Fleet’s In depicts a homoerotic encounter between a civilian and a sailor. In the painting, a man offers a cigarette to the seaman. As George Chauncey observes, the gentleman has “the typical markers of a fairy [during this period]: bleached hair, tweezed eyebrows, rouged cheeks, and red tie” (p. 64). The expression Cadmus depicts on the sailor’s face suggests that “he knows exactly what is being offered along with the smoke” *

Earlier in the thread, astro said:

But it was actually the exact opposite. Low level crypto queerness was the name of the game. Gay people used coded language and dress to be able to find each other in a hostile world. “Friend of Dorothy” “Bohemian Club” Lesbians got tattoos of blue stars on their wrists or arms that could be hidden or shown as needed. It may have been the love that dare not speak its name, but people still had to have ways to meet up.

102

And that’s the only proper way to get any data on the subject. The question as stated in the OP was “Would people see this as homoerotic?” Obviously no one who already knows it’s supposed to be homoerotic counts. The study has to be blinded. It’s basic science.

What is it about art that makes people’s brains stop working? Is it because it’s so much fun to pretend you are better than everyone else because you “get it” and they don’t? If this weren’t a two-year old thread I’d be pitting a whole heck of a lot of people for this crap.

103

Why not? You already appear to have no compunctions about posting in it.