BijouBlog

Now, at one point in the movie, Reverend Mother guilt-trips the girls into entertaining one day during the holiday season the residents of what appears to be a women-only old folks home with “refreshments, songs, and readings.” Hayley aka Mary Clancy and her partner in mayhem Rachel are actually cooperating for a change. 

Then Mary sees Mother Superior comforting an elderly woman who is weeping. Her family will not be able to come to see her for Christmas. The woman feels slighted, perhaps because she gave them everything when they were young (nothing was too much), why can't they come see her? I have gifts for them she laments. But it's not just that she is laying on selfish guilt. She feels unwanted, useless. Why? Because she can't give to them. 
 

The Mother Superior perhaps senses this feeling. But she challenges the woman to give her family one more gift. “Be happy!” she gently commands. “Put on a pretty face and come down to the party!” 

Now, I think there's more going on here then that old trope of the clown smiling through the tears like Pagliacci, which could be tied into that stereotype of the closeted gay man “covering” because of individual and social rejection. The flamboyance and the wit and the camp supposedly conceal a deep hurt and self-hate. 
 

For the holy haters, being gay means not being happy or even capable of happiness. That a gay person is somehow broken or incomplete. Some like the British romance novelist Norah Lofts in her book Queens of England have even claimed that the word gay, which can still mean happy, “has been debased” (how ironic, given the title of her book). 

Now that gays are out and proud and can “come down to the party” without hiding, both stereotypes are offensive and insulting. But when you hear Mary Clancy's angry response (she, like many others, misses the point) to the scene, “I hope I die wealthy!” I wonder if there's something here that a gay person (or any person) can connect to. 

Giving is not just giving gifts or money or affection or prayers as objects. Giving is giving the self as a subject, without expecting an object in return. The total person, gay or straight or transgender or bi-curious ad infinitum is a gift, and by simply gifting himself to others (coming down to the party), he loses his feeling of being unwanted; his sense of self is no longer determined by what he quantitatively does for others or by what others do to him. Voila! Happiness. 

So be happy and be gay! Live, live, live! Life's a banquet, and too many poor suckers are starving to death! (Well, Auntie Mame was wealthy, but that's beside the point here!) 
 

 

 

The world has recently lost two immensely talented figures, one so tragically by suicide, one dying at a ripe old age. 

Both were able to reach deep into the heart of the human condition, using wit and humor with compassion and grace. 

In her own words, Lauren Bacall: 
 

“Find me a man who's interesting enough to have dinner with and I'll be happy.” 

“I am not a has-been. I am a will be.” 

“Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.”  

“I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.”

“You realize yourself when you start reflecting–because I don’t live in the past, although your past is so much a part of what you are–that you can’t ignore it. But I don’t look at scrapbooks.” 

“You can’t always be a leading lady.” 

“I'd like to meet the man who decided that people do or don't look Jewish. What the hell does that mean anyway? Is it the American penchant for pinning things down, categorizing, for pigeonholing people? Whatever it is, it's wrong.” 

"My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. And a favorite book as a child? Growing up, it was 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' — I would read the whole C.S. Lewis series out loud to my kids. I was once reading to Zelda, and she said 'don't do any voices. Just read it as yourself.' So I did, I just read it straight, and she said 'that's better.'" 

"You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." 

"Do you think God gets stoned? I think so ... look at the platypus." 

"When in doubt, go for the dick joke." 

On his mentor, Jonathan Winters: "Jonathan taught me that the world is open for play, that everything and everybody is mockable, in a wonderful way." 

"I love kids, but they are a tough audience." 

“You'll always have bad times, but it'll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to.” – Robin Williams as Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting 

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change this world. –Dead Poets Society 
 

May they rest in peace and continue to inspire us by making us laugh. 
 

 

 

 

But what's the real scoop on the cliched gay obsession with Joan Crawford and other dead or superannuated movie stars, or as movie mogul Jack Warner put it more bluntly, “old broads,” the language he used when referring to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 

These larger than life ladies, and others like them, have always enjoyed large gay male followings.  

So my question is: is the “big lady” and her gay entourage now a stereotype of a campy, closeted culture of the past, in which diva worship, according to many cultural critics, was an elaborate “covering” dynamic for gay men's profound social and psychological insecurities?   

The September/October 1977 issue of In Touch Magazine, in those early days when the magazine offered an array of cultural features, offers a tribute to Joan soon after her death, and, most significantly, before the now notorious book and camp cult classic Mommie Dearest came out.

This article pretty much rehashes many of the claims made about the late movie legend, such as director George Cukor's paean to her face, “that extraordinary sculptural construction of lines and planes,” her superlative (and some might argue, obsessive) projection of stardom, and her continual reinvention of her image.

She was the vibrant jazz baby; the assertive shopgirl who made good and got her man while fighting for her rights; the stylish, glamorous, yet suffering and vulnerable femme fatale; the Gothic horror queen.

Gay men found in these personas something they could identify with in their own struggles for individual identity and social respect. 

For gay men, Joan was the star and, for many, still is the star - that luminous, glamorous figure swathed in furs and jewels, kind of a fairy queen, remote but also approachable. Joan was approachable, even if she did supposedly get dressed up to go to the grocery store; she answered ever fan letter personally, sustained relationships with fans, and she would even thank you for a thank you note! "Goodbye, Joan" is the title of the article, and the author once again quotes the gay George Cukor, who expresses disbelief that the legend had actually died. 

Joan, of course, lives on in the movies and a caricature of her lives on, as well; the wire hanger and can of cleanser wielding monster of Mommie Dearest becoming one of the biggest gay camp icons ... ever. And a new generation can still see her (if they want to) on Turner Classic Movies, on DVD reissues, and on youtube.

But do the “old broad divas,” especially Crawford, with their larger than life personas, over the top (to many eyes and ears these days) characterization and dialogue, and often striking personal and professional flaws and vulnerabilities, really appeal to today's smoothly tech-savvy, more easily assimilated gay man? 

Yes, I love Joan Crawford, even if I can also also laugh at the melodramatic excesses. But how often in the life we live (as opposed perhaps to the life we dream), can we tell someone off like Joan does in Autumn Leaves, calling someone a slut twice in one harangue? (And not playing for the cameras on a reality TV show!).

Most people end up dying in sterile hospitals looking like a pincushion of tubes, or on the toilet; so who wouldn't want to drown on a gorgeous, moonlit beach with a violin playing theLiebestod in the background, like Joan does in Humoresque?

And Joan could laugh at herself, as she does in It's a Great Feeling, when she delivers a slap and says that she does that in all her movies. “Get out Veda! Get out before I throw your things into the street and you with them! Get out before I kill you!”

The point of this blog is not self-analysis, but if Joan Crawford worship is part of my gay unique sensibility, then so be it. Maybe I was born with it, or is it a social construct because of my generation? And of course, one can also mock the Joan Crawford obsession as a gay cliche, as Debbie Novatny in Queer as Folk says to her brother, when he asked her if she wanted to stay home and watch a Joan Crawford festival, “No one's that gay!” 
 

For a while, up to the early 90s, a new type of diva, like Streisand, Cher, Bette Midler, and Madonna, looked to replace, or perhaps supplement, the more traditional Barbra, Judy, Bette, and Joan as divas with that gay following, according to Michael Kearns in an article entitled “Heroine Worship” in the November 1984 issue of Male Review.

But in 2014, who is the new fairy queen or queen of the fairies (pun intended)? Is that image and its associations even relevant in this culture? 

The author Ethan Mordden, in a past issue of Opera News, focused on another type of diva with a gay following, the female opera singer (think Maria Callas, especially). He recounts that, at a recent dinner party, he deplored the type of gay man who mimics his diva of choice, sprinkling his conversation with “darlings,” pretending to be Auntie Mame. In other words, perhaps he is implicating the “older” gay men in the closet who identities with the diva in all her flaws (but also her assertiveness), taking on a mask to cover his feelings of oppression and discrimination. The younger gay men at the party did not know who Auntie Mame was. Gasp!

A younger employee of the Bijou confused Betty White with Bette Davis. Does he deserve the mockery his mistake created? Or are the older gay men, those “old queens,” the ones to be mocked and pitied for their now outdated diva worship that reeks, like Norma Desmond's tube rose perfume in Sunset Boulevard, of the pre-Stonewall closet? 

All cultures undergo transformations in response to a complex variety of factors. But I do wonder if the lack of the old variety of diva worship in gay culture is a simple either/or, now/then issue. Generation Y and  the Millenials may not subscribe to the same values as preceding generations, but I do find some fault with the “ahistoricism” of said group, that somehow they have outgrown the old gay icons or replaced them with others less gay orthodox campy.

Yet even if the whole culture sees something like Joan Crawford worship as camp or kitsch, or even if some gay “hipsters” appropriate such imagery inauthentically as only parody, to deny even a glimpse of the power and beauty that these women uniquely conveyed to previous generations is a sad loss. 

We are so afraid of the grand gesture, the big emotion that these big ladies could generate, somehow seeing it as false or hollow or silly or politically incorrect. Perhaps we have cheapened big emotions with reality TV, with American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, where everyone, not just the few larger than life stars, can groan and weep and spit out insults for the omnipresent cameras.

Does being liberated from social oppression mean a liberation from .... feeling? Perhaps we can't truly experience the high without experiencing the contrast of the low.

But as I see it, one of the great cultural enjoyments is to let yourself experience the campy pleasures of truly big, talented personalities. 
 

 

Lately I've been something of a social media maven for Bijouworld and its ancillaries, Bijou Video and the Bijou Theater. In addition to our Facebook,Twitter, and Tumblr sites, we just started a couple of Pinterest sites, Bijou Vintage Gay History, and Bijou Vintage Gay Erotica. Because we do specialize in vintage (or retro) gay sexuality, I've noticed we seem to be, I guess the term is, “trending.” 

And it's not just the usual older folks sitting on the porch, “I remember when” … I am thinking of the whole Mad Men cult, and even some short-lived show on TLC that featured women trying to live exactly like they were living in the 1950s (kind of like a retro Real Housewives!). 
 

It's like anything retro exudes some kind of fascination that I think goes beyond nostalgia. I wonder if it's because so much of the retro items we've been posting and repinning were lovingly created. It's not like someone just took a picture with a digital camera. These items, ranging from a late nineteenth century tobacco box, or even a magazine cover from a 1940s muscle magazine, show a real attention to detail and design. Imagine trying to create these items without today's technology. 

Here's a couple of images we either posted or repinned: 
 

I'm not saying that art becomes less than great because it's easier to make, but in the social media world, where a post can become ephemeral in one second, our retro images and movies can evoke beauty with a capital B in addition to hot with a small h.

Oh, there is a difference! 
 

Check out our pinterest sites for more retro items.

July 20th was the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I vaguely remember watching it on a black and white television set at my mother's urging, not realizing the import of what happened. 

Now, looking back in hindsight, I remember being fascinated with astronomy and science fiction UFOs and ancient aliens even at that early age, perhaps prefiguring my desire to escape the mundane world. I even told my parents, much to their horror, after watching the made-­for-­tv movie about the famous Betty and Barney Hill UFO abduction with Estelle Parsons and James Earl Jones that if a UFO descended, I would say, “Take me away!” 

And then I remember reading astronomy books from the 1950s which predicted by the year 2000 we would be living on Mars or Venus or in floating space colonies. (Hasn't happened ... and let's not get into flying cars on The Jetsons.) 

We've landed on the moon, one of the Voyagers is now outside the solar system, and there was an article about prediction by NASA that we will find alien life on planets with earth­like conditions in about twenty years. 

I've often wondered if such a discover may transform even further our views about sexuality. Now most sci fi sex (at least the type I remember) is pretty much pumped­up heterosexual sex in revealing costumes. Think Barbarella. Or Captain Kirk fucking every beautiful stacked cosmic computer priestess on the original Star Trek. 
 

And now that we are discovering that sexuality exists on a complex spectrum that doesn't conform to traditional or heteronormative gender binaries, perhaps we could hypothesize that life on other planets is just as diverse sexually. 
 

Could a planet's ecosystem have developed three sexes? Or perhaps like the sea horse, males carry children and give birth? Or, and this would really be breaking boundaries, perhaps one planet thrives on some kind of interspecies sex?

(Remember, that's how Spock came to be!)