[Sca-cooks] Re: Hollywood gays (was movie night at the rock)

[Philippa Alderton]

--- Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> wrote:

> Also sprach Randy Goldberg MD:
> >  > I assumed the theme would have had them
> revoking your card if you
> >>  didn't watch it the first day you had it.
> McKellan plays the great
> >>  director James Whale, who tried to live openly
> as a homosexual in a
> >>  fairly intolerant Hollywood, right around the
> time Somerset Maugham
> >>  was having the same problem as a writer in
> England, and ultimately,
> >>  effectively exiled. In Whale's case, it appears
> to have contributed
> >>  to his death, one way or another.
> >
> >About the same time as Billy Haines, too, wasn't
> it? He managed to live
> >openly, but had to give up acting to do it.
>
> Maybe just a tad earlier. 1936 or 37, give or take.
> It's amazing when
> you consider the number of prominent and successful
> gays and
> bisexuals who simply remained under cover, but
> otherwise behaved in
> ways that would have been considered far more
> scandalous than
> anything Whale ever did.

Well, part of the consideration for openly gay actors,
at least, is that a public awareness of their
preferences makes it a bit tough for them to play
romantic leads, at least in the eyes of the
rather....ummmm....innocent movie-going public, at
that time. Much of the Hollywood mystique is/was the
nice guy getting the girl, other than the odd heroic
cowboy, getting his horse. Women were the prizes for
the mighty testosterone poisoned hero.....

The other thing was the common perception that gay men
were effeminate, useless, imitation females, at best,
baby rapers at worst, unable to change a flat tire or
shoot a gun. The equivalent was that competent women
were, of course, all bull-dykes- look at Grayson Hall,
for example, in Night of the Iguana.

Fortunately, we're all getting away from the
stereotypes of the 50s and thereabouts, though you
have yet to convince me that so-called political
correctness is much of an improvement.

I myself have been very irritated over the years by a
number of people who have decided that I'm a lesbian,
or at best bisexual, because of my preference for
things like smithing and horseshoeing, and hunting,
and other traditionally male, outdoors activities. At
one point, my standard answer to "Are you a man/boy or
a woman/girl" was, "What the Hell's the difference,
I'm not going to ask you to dance".... Now, I just
flat don't give a damn- my men know where I'm at, and
other's opinions are generally as worthless as the
mindset that leads them to have them. I'm Phlip, and I
do things, and if you don't like it, blow it.....

Phlip

=====
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

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