Brgg Up Baby – I jt went gay all of a sudn – BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD

WAS CARY GRANT THE FIRST ACTOR TO SAY "GAY" ONSCREEN?

The term Gay had fely bee a sexualized term by the 17th century to mean "unhibed by moral nstrats" and was then attached to homosexualy by the early 1900s. Grant's explanatn for wearg women's cloth the film, "I jt went gay all of a sudn, " was improvised on set, which may expla how slipped by the Productn Co Admistratn (PCA), Hollywood's self-censorship group.

ON THIS GAY DAY: THE MOVIE ‘BRGG UP BABY’ PREMIERED

Between 1934, when the PCA began strict Co enforcement, and 1961, when the Co was amend, any mentn of homosexualy was strictly forbidn on screen. This marks the only e of "gay" to mean "homosexual" a Hollywood film of that era. Some historians have suggted that 's the screen's first e of "gay" a sexual ntext.

Sce this was a mastream movie at a time when the e of the word to mean homosexual would be unfaiar to most film-goers, the le uld also be terpreted to mean, “I jt cid to do somethg ivolo. [As a pot of tert, a reliance on lgual obscury helped wrers slip another gay term past censors The Malte Faln 3 years later by scribg Wilmer, a character nsired by many to be gay, as a 'gunsel', a Yiddish word for a young homosexual pann:]. It is while wearg this particular outf that Cary Grant ad-libbed the now famo le “I jt went GAY all of a sudn!

The origal script even had a far more suggtive le for Applegate, which was cut likely to appease the Hays Co regulatns (a that prohibed any sex “perversn”, which that time of urse meant anythg remotely gay).

BRGG UP BABY (1938) - (MOVIE CLIP) I JT WENT GAY!

The film is important queer history too, bee ’s the first rerd cince of the word ‘gay’ beg ed to scribe homosexualy on film. The le where Cary Grant’s character the word gay is not the origal script, suggtg was somethg the actor said off the cuff. Prr to the 1930’s the meang of the word gay was shiftg om meang happs to a scriptor of sexualy.

Jt a few years earlier Fred Astaire and Gger Rogers starred the mil The Gay Divorcee, which jt about a woman who was happy to be gettg a divorce.

Usage of the word ‘gay’ to scribe homosexualy n be traced further back, Gert Ste ed the phrase wrten work 1922, and as far back as the fourteenth century the word had been ed to scribe immoraly and prostutn. The Motn Picture Productn Co, also known as the Hays Co after censor/stick--the-mud Will Hays, regulated film ntent for nearly 40 years, rtrictg, among other thgs, pictns of homosexualy.

BRGG UP BABY AND INHERENT VICE: DID JOAQU PHOENIX GO ‘GAY ALL OF A SUDN’?

Filmmakers still managed to get around the Co, but gay characters were cloaked nuendo, leadg to some necsary dg.