Contents:
- WAS CARY GRANT THE FIRST ACTOR TO SAY "GAY" ONSCREEN?
- I JT WENT GAY ALL OF A SUDN!
- BRGG UP BABY – I JT WENT GAY ALL OF A SUDN
- HE JT WENT GAY ALL OF A SUDN: CARY GRANT AND THE SCREWBALL COMEDY
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. 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.
I JT WENT GAY ALL OF A SUDN!
[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:]. The queer bloggers I read and feel a raship wh don’t thk that there is only one way to be a good lbian or gay man.
They don’t police the language that other gays and lbians e to wre about or talk about their own experienc. And if anyone asks, tell them that I jt went gay all of a sudn! Now, which of you gay bloggers is gog to fix me a drk?
TIL Carry Grant's ad-libbed le “Bee I jt went GAY all of a sudn! ” the movie "Brgg Up Baby" is arguably first e of the word “gay” the homosexual ntext on film. In the film, the word “gay” was an ad-lib by Grant and not any versn of the origal script.
BRGG UP BABY – I JT WENT GAY ALL OF A SUDN
In the era of the Motn Picture Productn Co, pictns of homosexualy were verboten, classified unr the Co’s rather vague tch-all tegory of “sex perversn.
” While those makg films prr to 1934 enjoyed more eedom their abily to pict some obv—and even blatant—homosexual characters, the tablishment of the Productn Co Admistratn (PCA) put an end to such overt thematic elements subsequent movi.
HE JT WENT GAY ALL OF A SUDN: CARY GRANT AND THE SCREWBALL COMEDY
Savvy filmmakers, however, were largely unterred by PCA rtrictns, and ntued to place d gay characters and relatnships their movi.
Therefore, screwball films, practilly anarchic their general revelg utter chaos and nfn, were able to play wh the nventns of male-female relatnships, often vg qutns of genr reversal through cross-drsg motifs and, by extensn, elicg imprsns of homosexual attractn—all the tert of a few lghs.