(PDF) The Importance of Beg Gay: The Stggle of “Comg Out” The Importance of Beg Earnt and Fun Home | Sanne Meijer

Contents:

• 'THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT'S' GAY EXPLAED
• THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOMETHE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOMETHE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOMETHE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOMETHE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOME
• A WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNTA WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNTA WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNTA WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNTA WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT
• THE VAL IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY

'THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT'S' GAY EXPLAED

Like opprsed mori throughout the centuri, gay Victorians ed a d language to munite privately wh one another, a signed to be untectable by members of mastream the hands of the sophistited and wty Irish playwright Osr Wil, that secret cipher beme a weapon so powerful unrmed tradnal notns of love and wonr 19th-century Englishmen nsired him a threat. “Most scholars believe Wil was wrg for two dienc: an upper-middle class heterosexual dience and members of an unrground gay dience who were out about their sexualy, ” said Joseph W. But beneath s scbbed and squeaky surface, Wil’s play is permeated wh barely ncealed allns to gay acquatanc, practic and lol.

”And at the time Wil was penng his edy, “earnt” had bee a tch phrase London for beg gay, Barr Gavigan performs the role of Algernon Moncrieff the Everyman Theatre productn of "The Importance of Beg Earnt. " The addrs on the llg rd he's examg -- 'E4 The Albany" was the actual London addrs of a gay activist. "Signifince: Jack’s rd lists the actual addrs at the time of Gee Iv, a gay activist who later found the secret homosexual society The Orr of Chaeronea.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOMETHE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOMETHE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOMETHE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOMETHE IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY: THE STGGLE OF “COMG OUT” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT AND FUN HOME

Osr Wil am “The Importance of Beg Earnt” around the paradoxil epigram, a skewerg metaphor for the play’s central theme of divisn of tth and inty that hts at a homosexual subtext.

Aid by clever wordplay, antic misunrstandg, and dissonance of knowledge between the characters and the dience, vic that are now stapl of ntemporary theater and suatn edy, “Earnt” suggts that, pecially “civilized” society, we all lead double liv that force upon a variety of postur, an ia wh which the closeted (until his public charge for sodomy) homosexual Wil was unrstandably obssed. However, the homoerotic nnotatns of the punng name (even the double “bu”‘s, which serve mostly an allerative purpose, suate a unn of siari, and “Bunbury” rhym wh “buggery, ” Brish slang for sodomy) flare up when paired wh Algernon’s repeated asslts on marriage:.

A WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNTA WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNTA WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNTA WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNTA WIL COCINCE: GAY THEORY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEG EARNT

The characters are given to hyperbolic nvictn their brief speech, a fast-paced technique that magnifi the play’s distant relatnship to vvillian humor and reveals another dualy wh homosexualy; Algernon is perfectly happy to be gay, while Jack is repellent to the ia, perhaps even to the pot of self-loathg. Algernon puns on the idm “to part wh, ” showg his reluctance to remove himself om both the world and the physilly spltg posn of homosexualy: “Nothg will duce me to part wh Bunbury, and if you ever get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to know Bunbury. His nfince Gwendolen as his only soul mate is an ordary claratn of love most plays; here, timat a fundamentally homosexual man who has “nverted” to heterosexualy on this sole ocsn.

Wil extends the dualy of homosexualy to the female populatn, as Algernon pots out Gwendolen’s alternative to staid marriage: “Then your wife will.

The “l, ” one n assume, are the unwrten s of homosexualy, and sce Algernon never giv the game away by explag what they are, Wil explos another dualy to the theater – which members of the dience “get , ” and which are left the dark. Wil lightly mocks the flagrant social posturg of Victorian women, a world wh which he was extribly associated but om which he uld jt as easily distance himself via a phy sayg, but he treats the tensn of homosexualy, his own mask, more serly.

THE VAL IMPORTANCE OF BEG GAY

The personifitn of homosexualy as a character’s double is not surprisg – some crics argue that Dr. Hy, has some homosexual leangs – as such a ntroversial and, perhaps, embarrassg topic n be more easily disguised and obscured the murky pths of the doppelganger tale. Today, wh scientific evince backg an opn that plac dividuals’ sexual preferenc on a slidg sle om full heterosexualy to full homosexualy, the simple bifurted view of sexualy lerature may soon be obsolete.

KEYWORDS lbian, Alison Bechl, Fun Home, Are You My Mother?, books, graphic memoirs, feelgs, cultural polics, fay, queer historyFor a ic, the visual is obvly important, and no more so than Alison Bechl’s graphic tobgraphy Fun Home, bee is a graphic novel that visualisatn to fe inty The story is ncerned wh Bechl’s father - his homosexualy and his suici specifilly – and how this has fluenced the inty of Alison Bechl’s. Bce Bechl’s inty is shown through the feme stylistic quali as an outlet for his homosexualy, and mt be allud to through the visual elements as, to quote Osr Wil, is the ‘love that dare not speak s name’, and therefore nnot be wrten 2005, Robert Rodriguez adapted Frank Miller’s renowned graphic novel S Cy onto the silver screen. The rult Wil’s private life is an inty flux that reveals him as an inty migrant, who at one moment is the Victorian father and hband, and at another, the homosexual lover of Lord Aled edy of manners is a genre which, sce s begngs the Rtoratn edy, enjoyed much attentn om both the wrers and the dience.

To honor him, I share here some of his disveri about a gay subtext to Osr’s Wil’s The Importance of Beg Earnt.