In classics film circuits, “Bringing up baby” is just one of the movies that everyone knows about. It’s Cary Grant. It’s Katharine Hepburn. It’s Howard Hawks. All “Old Hollywood for Dummies” is buzzing words. But the movie – a notorious flop at release – Is a historical curiosity not because it is a cute, Zany screwball comedy from a bygone era – even if it is. “To take up baby“Just happens to have what is probably the first use in the movie of the word” gay “to mean something other than happy. At least we think it does.
“My understanding is that when” picking up baby “came out, the word” gay “was known in some circles to mean gay,” Tcm Host Dave Karger said during a new interview with IndieWire. “And the story is possible to Cary Grant -Ad Labbade that line. So I would like to think that the person who Cary Grant knew what he said when he is alleged to come with that line.”
Author Alonso Duralde, author of the book “Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film” agrees.
“I know that when I wrote about” Pick up Baby “, I quoted William Mann in his movie” Behind the screen “, who said back in 2001 that the word” gay “to mean” gay “had hovered around for at least the better part of a century at that time,” said Duralde. “And he in turn quotes Gary Schmidgall, who was a cinema by Walt Whitman, who said there were cases of people who used it that way during the first years of the 1900s.”
Duralde explained that its use would have been “very intramural” in the 30s. That maybe Cary Grant knew about it, “but it wasn’t something the broad world knew about yet,” Raised, “You have to wonder … Was it a wink?”
It is really difficult to interpret the word that means something other than a wink in this case, although it clearly flew over the heads of the censors – and probably anywhere except specific circles in the coastal cities – far back in 1938. Grant wears hepburn’s chilly mantle. He is frustrated with his own flamboyant look, badgered by May Robson, and then exclaims: “I just went gay suddenly!” Take a quick clock (the exchange starts at 1:43).
This is about as openly “gay” as the films would get for the next 30 years. Not because there were no plenty of films that went a tight rope around the proposal on homosexuality. Alfred Hitchcocks ‘Rebecca’ Has the unhappy wife Danvers, whose obsession with the title character seems to be romantic. There is a seemingly obvious Hitman gay couple in “The Big Combo.” A rather disturbing Wendell Corey acting ownership of his mobile roommate In “Desert Fury.” Salo Mineo – a real bisexual – seems to be in love with James Dean In “Rebel Without a Cause.” A community between all these characters is that they (spoiler) die – perhaps the only reason why the strict production code of time allowed them to get to the screen.
A note about the production code – Known generally as the Hays code after his long -standing leader comes H. Hays – for the new ones to old Hollywood. In 1934, because fear of government censorship was on the way, American film studios began to maintain a strict production code (prepared 1930) that mainly banned the depiction of a number of perceived moral errors and ambiguities – all crimes must have a sequence, open sex was in question, dialogue had to be purely pure, and noted that it would be a succession.
Anyway, some coded characters (as stated above) and some gay stereotypes made it to the films, even during censorship. Of course, the characters were not out, open or did something about it, but it was clear to know the eyes what exactly happened. A specific stereotype was “pansy” – also known as “sissy” – as Turner Classic movies will highlight On Monday June 23, with a series of films showing variations on this type of character.
“The Pansy madman really exploded in the 1930s,” Karger explained. It started in Live Entertainment, where there were bars in Hollywood as stars and studio managers would often, and there were well -known drag artists who were very popular with the Hollywood set. What you also saw to varying degrees before and after the production code was enforced, Queer was coded, open, outward gay characters in some films. ”
Actor like Edward Everett Horton (see: “The Gay Divorcee”) and Franklin Pangborn (see: “Professional Sweetheart”) made careers playing Pansy. “What I love about these films is that it provides wonderful platforms for some of these fascinating and funny character actors in the era,” said Karger.
“The thing about Sissy is that you don’t say this guy wants sex with dudes,” said Durla. “You just say,“ Oh, look at this free little little anything. “That character goes all the way back to the earliest cinema.
TCM will also show interesting rarities such as the pre -code “Call Her Savage” with Clara Bowwhich presents Pansen in a much more open way. This one would not have had to slip under the noses of the censorship, since it was released in 1932 before the code was in rigid enforcement.
“(” Call Her Savage “) has a scene in what is clearly a gay bar, and there are these two boys wearing French maid clothes, diluted around and sing about how they wish they were on a naval ship surrounded by fucking sailors, mainly,” said Karger. “And it’s just so fascinating to see these two children, almost 100 years ago, be their true self and talk about their true wishes and desires.”
The set-up also includes Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche-led “Midnight”, a lovely 30s “Askepott” story that finds John Barrymore who plays Fairy Godmother. None of these leads is the “gay” character. Instead, it belongs to veteran character actor Rex O’Malley – as in real life, eh … never married – Who plays a gossip friend, alias Pansy.
“There are only all these amazing scenes of him, sitting around a breakfast table and pumping all other characters for the latest gossip. And it’s just so much fun,” Karger said. “He steals every scene he is in. And yes, of course no open gay is mentioned. We are not told that he is gay. They cannot use that word in that context, of course at that point. So he is mainly – as many of these men are – an asexual guy who is much more interested in life and goes on everyone else than he is to strive for a romantic life.”
Next week, June 30, TCM will once again visit Queer Cinema, in contrast to a series of later films – those that investigate depictions of homosexuality, drag culture and transgender people in recent decades.
“I love the fact that we have these two nights of pride programming, one of which is from the 1930s and since the other is from the last 40 years. So we will see how LGBTQ+ Cinema has been developed,” shared Carger. Among the films included on the second night are 2008’s Oscar-winning “Milk” (A TCM Premiere), 1994 Lesbian theme Dramedy “Go fish,” And the 1990s “Without you I’m nothing,” Written by and with Sandra Bernhard in the lead role.
“I am all too bread and butter movies that we show on TCM. I love it. That’s what we mainly do. But I think when we can get out of the usual” classic era “and include movies like the ones we do on the other Pride night, especially for for too Proud monthI think it’s really exciting, ”Karger said.
As for the word “gay”, did not revolutionize “to take up baby” use of the word its use in modern culture. 1961, 23 years later, Natalie Wood still sang (Well, Marni Nixon was) About feeling “beautiful, witty and gay” in “West Side Story.” But like so many cultural touch stones in American history, the 1960s changed things. Civil rights, hippies, the second wave of feminism, and then, of course, of course 1969 Stonewall upset Setting the gay liberation movement, shifted culture. In 1970, “The boys in the band” threw “gay” around in clear reference to homosexuality. Ironically, Wood himself helped start the game It became that filming. But I lose.
What is most interesting to look at TCM’s 23 and 30 Juni-settings is that, while coded, the stereotypes remained the same for many decades, even after the production code had fallen-and in the more modern films are clearly evident. The movies did not go “gay suddenly” when Cary Grant made her exclamation in “Bringing up baby”, but perhaps instead put this little moment a standard for gay that would largely hold the rest of the century and then.
