446: Lesbian Femininity Control

Private Eye, 29 September 1967
Bill Tidy

Private Eye, 5 November 1982
Marc Boxer

The counterapart to the sissy, effete male athlete is the mannish sportswoman, which is equally threatening to conservative gender assumptions. How easy to undermine a woman’s accomplishments in a man’s arena by insinuating that she’s a lesbian. That’s one of the reasons why I generally try to avoid comic portrayals of lesbians. They’re generally a lot more limited than humorous portrayals of gay men – dykes in male drag, threatening burly monsters, feminist ballbusters and sexual teases. I lack the specific historical knowledge to pick up on allusions, and there’s a whole raft of cultural assumptions and experiences that I lack to make any informed assessment so I’d be little better than whoever was making the crappy lesbian joke in the first place. It is also unfortunate that any cartoons that I happen to have posted that have included any lesbians being affectionate or naked with each other have usually had hit rates 4-or-5 times the average. Ugghh.

329: Peter Tatchell

Peter Tatchell has been doing things in the Uk for about the last four decades, and is famous/notorious as the nation’s leading gay rights campaigner. At times this has brought him great opprobrium, although as the principles of gay rights have been legally instituted, he no longer seems such a strident figure. Also his attempt to perform a citizen’s arrest on Robert Mugabe probably did a lot to endear him to many.

Tatchell first came to national attention when he stood as the Labour candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey byelection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermondsey_by-election,_1983 should probably give you all the context for what follows.
It was infighting in the Labour Party at the highest levels about the appropriateness of Tatchell’s selection which made for such good copy in the newspapers. And therefore made him and his homosexuality a matter of national discussion.

Here we have cartoons and gags about an out gay figure (although it was confused at the time by Tatchell’s attempts to “in” himself somewhat for electability). There were an awful lot of snide gags made about him at the time. But we shall discounting all the obvious homophobic abuse, (presumably thought to be killingly witty at the time by its perpetrators), and instead focus on how humorists and cartoonists portrayed Tatchell.

How is Tatchell as a gay man portrayed, and what use is made of his homosexuality as a club to beat the Labour party.


from “Private Eye”, 18 December 1981

On 7 November 1981, Bermondsey Labour Party selected Peter Tatchell. Labour Party leader Michael Foot declared "the individual concerned is not an endorsed member of the Labour Party and as far as I'm concerned never will be". Foot’s outburst was prompted by suspicions that Tatchell was of the hard Left, a part of the Trotskyist Militant Tendency, But then the Labour party’s objections all got confused in the public consciousness with revelations about Tatchell’s homosexuality.
So this column from Adrian Spart – an ad hoc adaptation of “Private Eye”’s usual left-wing activist Dave Spart. Spart’s typical contradictory and illogical ranting are employed to present a touchy homosexual who will take anything as opportunity for offense, rejoicing in his victimisation.

The controversy over Tatchell’s candidacy was largely played out in the press as a conflict between Michael Foot and Tatchell, so as to undermine Foot’s leadership
Such was the obvious conflict between the two that gags about gay coupledom were pretty much impossible.
This cartoon by MAC is the only I can find that makes an attempt. MAC presents Foot and Tactchell as a couple. Not only are they holding hands but the caption refers to Deidre and Ken from the soap opera “Coronation Street”, two characters then going through a tempestuous romantic reconciliation, a storyline making national headlines.


by MAC in “Daily Mail” 21 February 1983

The following three cartoons are all about the difficulties between Foot and Tachell. Whatever the point of each cartoon, the cartoonist employs certain elements from gay stereotypes to depict Peter Tatchell. Overly detailed eyebrows and eyes with large, pursed lips, and often stood in a fey stance. It contributes nothing to the gag but it lets you know that Tatchell is a gay man


by Keith Waite in “Daily Mirror”, 16 February 1983


by Nicholas Garland in “The Spectator”, 19 February 1983


by Michael Cummings in “The Sunday Express”, 20 February 1983


from “Private Eye” 25 February 1983
Another of the editorials by “Private Eye”’s fictional proprietor Lord Gnome is fairly accurate summation of the hypocritical conflation of politics with homophobia enjoyed by Tatchell’s opponents that marked the Bermondsey by-election.


Cover to “Private Eye” 25 February 1983
This however is just a cheap gibe. The tendency Foot referring to being The Militant Tendency. Hmmm, “Ducky”, is not advanced.


by Marc Boxer in “Private Eye” 25 February 1983
The embarrassed father's slightly posh son looks as though he’s an extra from “Brideshead Revisited” but as per usual, note the prominent almost rouged lips.


by Michael Heath in “The Spectator” 3 April 1983


from "Private Eye", 16 December 1983
And this refers to Tatchell’s book “The Battle for Bermondsey” at the end of 1983

So as you can see, in most of the above, outright homophobic jokes are usually outside the discourse of political comedy, but even caricaturists find it tempting to include some allusion or other to Tatchell’s homosexuality no matter how irrelevant. Although this si somewhat understandable since homosexuality was then unknown in public politics.
It would be profitable to compare this approach to Peter Mandelson’s treatment by the press. Coded phrases, double entendres, fussy descriptions of his clothes and manner, and allusions to Larry Grayson and “Are You being served” are all employed by cartoonists, impressionists and humorous political journalists. Mandelson’s homosexuality makes for a vulnerable point. Is it expressly homophobic? Well, the fact that Mandelson’s outing was handled so badly made him seem embarrassed and so a characteristic for mockery like boggle-eyes, corpulence, speech impediments or any other mockable trait.

314: Days of Future Past

A rather feeble title to show how ideas of the slightly comic idea of gay integration have now been overtaken by fact.
During the previous 10-15 years from the mid-60s onwards there had been a continuous development in the public’s awareness of homosexuals. At first it was the public just getting used to the idea that homosexuality existed, and then the existence of actual gay men. Of course, homosexuals were always someone, somewhere, and, to be honest, something else (Terry Southern syndrome). Then came Gay Lib and Gay pride, as gay men insisted that they weren’t ashamed of their sexuality and were just like everyone else (the general trend of sitcoms during the ‘70s). Then the was the growing awareness of homosexuals as a community, of the gay scene with a separate gay life entrenched in the major cities (hence films like “The Ritz”, “Saturday Night at the Baths”). Accompanying this, the actual practices of a sexual identity start to overtake all the sissy clichés, and gay couples start popping up in films and sketches. By the end of the ‘70s gay men have an established identity. They are a part of a society, but are not yet integrated within society. Hence all those jokes about ultra-leftist tokenism with jokes about gay centres, gay Santas, etc (which I find I haven’t posted yet)
These cartoons show the next stage during the 1980s of changes in modern attitudes towards homosexuality, as the typical social trappings of heterosexual life are extended to and overlaid onto gay men and couples. So the joke here is - isn’t it slightly funny when homosexual couples do exactly the same things as straight couples? Of course, some 25 years later it’s impossible to look at these cartoons un-ironically, since inclusive assumptions about gay life are now all part of modern life. Whereas this cartoon by Handelsman from 1973 is about how futuristically unlikely gay marriage would be.
Of course gay magazines had been running these sorts of cartoons since the mid/late-70s, but that’s another thing entirely.


by Gahan Wilson
in “Playboy” June 1980
The one chief’s distaste is a way to put a handle on what is otherwise just a gay wedding cake. A gay wedding cake isn’t quite enough of a joke to stand on its own without the tag line about time’s changing.


by Tony Husband
in “Private Eye” 24 April 1986
Either cluelessness or an inability to confront the matter head on by the manager.


by Ken Pyne
in “Private Eye” 24 August 1984


by Kipper Williams
in “Private Eye” 22 September 1982


by Tony Husband
in “Private Eye” 8 February 1985

Acceptance here is comic because it is nervous and fumbled, and overcast by second-thoughts. Is this right? Can this be right? is the message of these cartoons. Unless explicitly emotionally-wrought any gag cartoon character will look self-possessed. These gay characters, deliberately not gay caricatures therefore casually inhabit these little worlds, and so only the two characters in the Husband cartoon suffer the embarrassment we’ve all experienced at the hands of a well-meaning but inept associate. These cartoons are the first indication of a trend of social development which when mirrored in comedy reaches ludicrous fruition in Harry Enfield’s “Modern Dad” sketches some 15 years later.


by Spencer
in “Punch” 7 July 1982


by Marc Boxer
in “Private Eye” 22 October 1985
Gay men means cartoonist have a new tool in their array of adultery gags. An element in these particular cartons is the belief that aftershave was really for poofs.

Oh, and one final thought these cartoons elicit.

Piss on “The New Yorker”.

Most of these shouldn’t have been out of place in “The New Yorker”. Indeed, subsequent cartoons in “The New Yorker” have covered the same territory, making much the same jokes. It’s just that “The New Yorker” cartoons are at least 10-15 years later than the ones I’ve shown you – which isn’t necessarily the cartoonist’s fault. Whether you think the cartoons above are good or bad, “The New Yorker” lacked the balls to run any gay-themed cartoons until about 1993. This one from the end of 1992, merely a toe dipped in topical waters, is possibly the first properly gay-themed cartoon in “The New Yorker.”
Bear in mind that “Private Eye” and “Playboy” had been publishing gay cartoons since the beginning of the ‘60s, and even “Punch” and “Mad”, with their particular audiences, had followed suit by the end of the ‘60s, while “National Lampoon” had started in 1970 and never blanched at any gay gag. In different ways, editorial and strip cartoonists in popular newspapers and journals in America and Britain made individual forays on a case-by-case basis in the ‘70s and ‘80s. (And that’s before you even think about TV, radio, LPs and films.) The gay cartoonist William Haefeli, who has since produced a significant percentage of “The New Yorker”’s gay gags, with a career of twenty years in almost every major magazine, didn’t begin appearing in “The New Yorker” until 1998 with the appointment of a new cartoons editor, Bob Mankoff.
Was it cowardice, bourgeois distaste, or simply polite consideration for an oppressed minority? Whichever way you look at it, homosexuals were comedically unprintable in the pages of “The New Yorker”, one of the major venues for cartoons, until just over fifteen years ago (coinciding with the appointment of Tina Brown as the editor of “The New Yorker”.) Since Lee Lorenz was “The New Yorker”’s cartoon editor from 1973 until 1998, it’s fairly obvious who didn’t grow a fucking pair until his last five years in post.

190: Jeremy Thorpe 8

by Marc
in “Private Eye” 20 February 1976

A good example of how middle-class manners didn’t quite know where to establish themselves in the whole farrago. What could be more English than to ride one’s high horse, claiming one’s sympathy is with the dead dog, just about the only concrete fact at that point? Obsessing about the dog gives one slight ethical kudos. One can then pretend to be above prurient sexual curiosity or deny any homophobic disconcertion about Thorpe’s sexuality, or have to pass any judgement at all on a rather confusing scandal.

187: Jeremy Thorpe 5

by "Marc" (Marc Boxer)
February 1976

Marc Boxer had a regular pocket cartoon slot in the “Times”. This effort was rejected by the editor of the “Times”, William Rees-Mogg. Marc thought enough of this though that he printed it in his 1978 collection, “The Times We Live In”. A simple reversal of typical lover’s graffiti. Although petulant homosexual graffiti about prominent political leaders might be a bit too strong for the breakfast table. We shall see more of Rees-Mogg and the “Times” a little later on.

143: Police - Marc

by Marc Boxer in "The Guardian" 15 May 1984

Police entrapment was now a commonplace. And so Marc can have his characters toss off this rather jaded observation of the current state of affairs. This is all inspired by the particular case of Keith Hampson (see below). What may be even more interesting is the three characters on display: a slightly paunchy but twinkly-eyed clone in check shirt, what I assume is supposed to a Radclyffe Hall-type lesbian, and the dinner-jacketed policeman in the background. This is a very odd selection –particularly since Marc is usually prided for his observation of social styles and groups.

Keith Hampson, the Conservative MP for Leeds, was arrested by a plain-clothes policeman at the Gay Theatre Club (a male striptease show) in Berwick Street, Soho on 3 May 1984.
Hampson was charged with indecent assault but after much media attention the charge was eventually dropped in October. This incident provoked an outcry by many against the practice of police entrapment. Even Tories defended Hampson, and an editorial in “The Times” claimed that the public might wish “to see even homosexuals fairly treated”

130: Tom Driberg 2

-Marc Boxer in “The Times”, June 1976.
Reprinted in “The Times We Live In”, 1978.

Hey look, it’s a cartoon about homosexual toilet-solicitation in the pages of the “Times”. (Well, its about an agent looking for equally salacious gossip in hopes of garnering a new bestseller. So, some satire of the rapacious nature of literary agents in there too, if you want.But you don't get one without the other.)
Boxer had tried a cartoon about a piece of gossip about Jeremy Thorpe as gay toilet graffiti a couple of years earlier and it had been struck down. Of course, it may have been fear of the mountainous Lord Goodman taking action on Thorpe’s behalf that got that one censored.
But prior to this, I can’t find a single cartoon among the couple of hundred or so I’ve got from the ‘60s and ‘70s that hint at naughty toilet activities.
Thanks, Lord Bradwell.