Did Al Capp’s cartoon have a deliberate or subconscious homosexual motif?
[ul]
[li]He was generally afeared or disdainful of all women folk, including the luscious Daisy Mae.[/li]
[li]Once or twice a week he would appear nearly in the buff, in and around bed, looking like a Chippendale’s dancer or something.[/li]
[li]His distaste for women and fear of their attraction to him drove him to be a cross dresser on at least one occasion.[/li][/ul]
So was Li’l Abner an example of the love that dare not speak its name back in the 30s, 40s, and 50s?
All links from http://www.lil-abner.com
DHR
This is a matter of considerable debate and dispute. And I’d broaden your question to more general sexual underlying motifs (both homo- and oral sex). Certainly, he drew his young women lusciously bosomed and his young men droolingly muscled. Certainly, they were “hillbillies” who went scantily clothed (both males and females.) Certainly his little shmoos were phallic-looking creatures who “flipped over if someone looked at it hungrily.” But my feeling (and I think majority scholarly opinion) is that Capp was mainly trying to be funny, and that the few seeming sexual references were largely coincidental.
For many years, there was a running gag about L’il Abner being afraid of women, sure. But that was not an uncommon gag situation in those days – the young innocent virtuous male who didn’t know what to do around women. Remember too that Li’l Abner and Daisy Mae did finally marry, and clearly he learned what to do since they produced offspring.
Capp had lots of sexual/gender jokes, but most of them were jokes at societal norms: such as Sadie Hawkins Day (see Staff Report) where women chased men for marriage.
The situation is clouded by an incident where one of Capp’s detractors deliberately doctored some of his strips, adding grotesquely overt sexual references. If Capp intended sexual references, they were far more obscure and subtle than the forged panels.
It should also be noted that Capp took on political jokes, as well. He exploited lots of genres for jokes, including crime movies, other cartoon strips (“Fearless Fosdick” as a take off on Dick Tracy), spy intrigues, mad scientist plots, etc.
