I was just in Blockbuster when my fiancee pointed out an old Judy Garland cat cartoon movie called (ironically enough since Judy Garland was in it) “Gay Puree” and how much she loved this 50s movie when she was a kid.
This got me thinking: this isn’t the first time I heard the word “gay” or the name “Gay” used commonly in books and movies 40 or more years ago. It seemed like it was very common to refer to someone who is happy as “gay”, with the connotion that they were joyful, not neccessarily homosexual.
Then you have Marvin Gaye, pitcher Gaylord Perry, and women commonly named Gay. There were even Gay Streets in cities, with the word having nothing to do with any reference to homosexuality.
I remember as a grade schooler in the mid 70s getting laughed at becuase I did not understand what the word “gay” meant. I went home and asked my parents who explained to me that some boys like boys, etc. (no smart-ass, just because I was 8 years old and didnt like girls yet didnt mean I thought I must have therefore been gay),so the word “gay” must have meant homosexuals at least back to the 60s.
It was around this time that I also noticed that kids would refer to something corny or that they did not like as “gay”. I had a seventh grade student in the early 90s that whenever there was something she didnt like, she would go around saying “That’s so gay!” . . .or that “TV show is SOOOOO gay!” etc.
Now of course,if you name your daughter “Gay” she’ll probably get beat up in third grade, and homosexuals proudly declare themselves as “Gay”.
So . . . when did the term become so synonymous with homosexuality???
I do recall a guest column in Newsweek several years ago that talked a bit about the development of gay as a synonymn for homosexual. Can’t remember the gist, but you might be able to look it up.
What I do remember about the column was that the author was complaining that “gay”, in its non-homosexual meaning, was an essentially irreplaceable word, and that the homosexual meaning had swallowed up the whole word. His suggestion was that gays start referring to themselves as “fabulous”.
It was all tongue-in-cheek, very funny, and actually logical. I still get a chuckle picturing a teenage boy sitting his parents down and saying, “Mom, dad, I’m … FABULOUS!”
BTW, I think Cary Grant is credited with the first (1930s) major screen appearance of the word’s use meaning something other than “happy” when he announces in one scene that he has “gone gay,” although which meaning he meant is not so clear to me.
Derives, I believe, from English slang “on the gay”, meaing primarily to be trading sexual favors for upkeep, gifts, etc. but not direct prostitution as such, also connotes what we now refer to as “cruising”, going around with the idea of maybe picking someone up. It came later to mean hanging about with the intent to solicit sex for pay.
The movie referred to is “Bringing Up Baby”,Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Grant’s clothes were wet or something, and he is seen wearing a very frilly nightdress kind of thing, and says he’s suddenly turned “gay”, meaning effeminate but not necessarily meaning homosexual. Cary himself, well, as a blue horse. Love is a many gendered thing.
I am sure we will hear from our resident expert quite soon.
The quote is from “Bringing Up Baby”. David is Cary Grant.
*(David is wearing a dress.) Mrs. Random: Well, you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes. David: These aren’t my clothes. Mrs. Random: Well, where are your clothes? David: I’ve lost my clothes! Mrs. Random: But why are you wearing these clothes? David: Because I just went gay all of a sudden!
*
It was in Bringing Up Baby (1938). For reasons of plot, Grant had to wear one of Katherine Hepburn’s robes. When Hepburn’s mother finds him, she asks him why he’s wearing those clothes. Grant replied “Because I suddenly went gay, all of a sudden.” The writers knew what that meant, if not the average audience (like the use of the word “gunsel” in The Maltese Falcon.
The usage seems to have originally come from “gay woman,” a euphemism for “prostitute.” Male prostitutes then became “gay men.” Later “gay” became associated with “homosexual.” This took place probably in the 1920s or earlier.
It was used as a shibboleth. If a gay man met someone else he wasn’t sure of sexually, he’d say something like “Are you looking for a gay old time?” A straight person would assume the question meant “want to party?” (in a nonsexual sense). A gay person would know exactly what the questioner meant.
In the 70s, as homosexuality began to come out of the closet, their secret slang term came out with them.
Dunno about all the timing issues, but in 1964, the Flintstones were still singing about having a “gay old time,” and, also in the early 60’s, Sam Cooke was singing “Let me tell you ‘bout a place; somewhere up New York way; where the people are so gay; twistin’ the night away!”
So, as of the early to mid-sixties, it appears the new meaning had not yet overwhelmed the old, and was probably still just an underground expression.
I also remember an early 70’s sit-com moment (can’t remember the show), where one character says “Oh, by the way, I’m gay!” and the other replies “Great! We love happy people!” Roars of canned laughter followed. So, obviously, by the early 70’s the new meaning had taken hold.
Anyway, that seems to narrow down to a one-decade window the time when the new meaning became commonly understood.
All I remember is loving the Babar books when I was young, which still used “gay” in the ‘original’ sense of the word, and being very confused when I learned some of the facts of life…
When Peter Cook (the British comedian) first started doing the talk show circuit on US television, it was live, and you could still smoke on the air. Well, he was on the Tonight Show (not sure if it was Jack Parr or Johnny Carson) and they asked him, since he was smoking, if he smoked a lot. His answer? “Oh, yes - I’m not happy unless there’s a fag in my mouth.” Needless to say, it got a laugh. It isn’t until recently that the double entendre of “fag” has reached over to Britain - it still means both cigarette and homosexual. Here in the US, I don’t believe anyone would mistake “fag” for a bundle of sticks…
