357: I’d Rather Swish Than Fight

I was going to make the title “Suck Cock, Dodge the Draft” (which was a real Gay Lib placard from 1970-71) but I thought I’d show a little decorum

One area in which homosexuality began to impinge upon the younger generation in the 1960s was its usefulness as a way of avoiding the draft. It worked for the straight Ken Tynan in the UK. It didn’t work for the American writer Tom Disch, and he was gay. Swings and roundabouts. Other than actually admitting to a homosexual act, the rough and ready method of immediately proving one’s homosexuality was a little transvestism. Because, as I’ve covered elsewhere, cross-dressing stands in fro homosexuality. And so the following couple of gags.


By Guindon
In “The Realist” April 1966


Cover to “Esquire” September 1966.
Well this is underwhelming. The English style magazine had a fashion spread in the early ‘60s with the drag artiste Danny La Rue modelling the new styles for women. That was witty and daring (some of the advertisers objected at the time). One lipstick reluctantly held by one very straight looking boy is not much of a snappy eye-catcher.

And of course there was the character Klinger in the sitcom “M.A.S.H.” (1972 – 1983). Klinger played on the “mental unfitness” rather than the “sexual perversion” line. Klinger, played by Jamie Farr, was always dressed in women’s clothing to try and prove his psychological unsuitability for the army. Apparently the character was originally written as an effeminate gay man, but then inspired by Lenny Bruce’s escapeds, they subsequently decided that it would be more interesting to have Klinger be heterosexual, but wear dresses in an attempt to gain a Section 8 discharge. So Klinger just ended up being a fast-talking heterosexual who was the go-to guy for a hairdryer with a concern for the the standard of his wardrobe.

“Greetings” (1968)
Directed by Brian De Palma
Written by Charles Hirsch and Brian De Palma




Starring Gerritt Graham, Robert De Niro and Jonathan Ward.

This rather choppy, fly-by-the-seat-of-its-pants early comedy-drama effort by Brian De Palma follows three young counter-cultural sorts and their escapades attempting to evade the draft and get laid in New York City. When the Jonathan Ward character is called to attend his conscription office, there’s is a brief scene where Gerritt Graham gives him a lesson in how to mince and swish before De Niro relo-playing as sergeant – a very limp wrist, a fey lisping voice, primping his hair, some not very veiled come-ons and invading personal space. A bunch of straight guys showing each other how to act gay is never particularly rewarding, except as a display of degrees of cluelessness, and this is really just flailing around.



1.10 – 1.20
Then there’s this brief clip from a “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” episode from early 1969. A brief man-on-man kiss between an officer (Jonathan Williams) and a draftee. I suppose even just a brief peck on the cheek must be accounted relatively bold for this time. Especially because of the throwaway compliment on the kiss even as the soldier is kicked out of the army.

273: Fag Rock 8 - The Phantom of the Paradise

Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
Written and directed by Brian De Palma
“Beef”

If you haven’t seen “Phantom of the Paradise” you won’t believe how much fun you’ve missed. I certainly think it hangs together better as a story than “Rocky Horror”. A better discovery on late night TV certainly. In its own exuberant yet allusive way, it also offers more of the traditional electric pleasures of a horror flick than “Rocky”’s supposed playing about with the same sort of cheesy B-flick conventions. You can call much of it camp in one way or another. It’s the character of Beef, played by Gerrit Graham, which I’m interested in here. Graham had camped it up in an earlier De Palma film, “Greetings” (1968), when he shows his friend how he should pretend to act gay so as to get out of military duty. That bit of schtick was played as insinuating and seductive for maximum comic contrast. Here Grahame is a bit more nasal and abrasive (almost but not quite lisping), more of a bitchy queen, projecting the incompetent egotism of the character. Such a massive man in glitter costume and platform boots only makes for further comically incongruous effeminacy, particularly with occasional limp wrists and hands on hips or else waggling his bottom on stage. There’s a later scene where he frolics about in hair curlers and then takes a shower in his little plastic shower hat. The film satirises the music industry, so each of the singers in the film is hired on-screen on the pretext of cashing in on some current musical trend. So Beef isn’t merely an agglomeration of faggy mannerisms but embodies some slight suggestion of relevant comment. Although, that he is a feaqsible commercial figure, no matter how ridiculous, is satire in itself. Some gay men liked the film at the time. Some reviews in gay magazines found the character of Beef an insulting travesty. I wince ever so slightly but it’s not really offensive, and the film is just too much fun. Being genuinely entertaining will redeem anything in my ledger.