425: Pinklisting

Saturday Night Live, 9 November 1985

This sketch, in the first SNL episode of autumn 1985, is in the context of Rock Hudson’s death the previous month. To America’s shock, the long time heart throb and Hollywood leading man had announced on July 25, 1985 that he was suffering from AIDS contracted from homosexual encounters. Two and a half months later he died on 2 October 85. In the wake of Hudson’s revelation there was much concern that in his kissing scenes with his co-star Linda Evans on “Dallas” he might have transmitted AIDS to her. On Oct 31, 1985, the New York Times reported that “Because of the fear of AIDS among its members, the Screen Actors Guild is requiring the 7,000 producers and agents with whom it has contracts to notify performers in advance of any scenes that require open-mouth kissing. The guild has sent a letter describing such scenes as ‘a possible hazard to the health of actors in light of the lack of clear and consistent medical opinion as to how or in what manner this disease is communicated’.''

Supposedly the light falling into the pool was an accident and Sweeney’s panicked cry was genuine, but in the context of the sketch both make sense. If not the first episode, then this was one of the earliest episodes that Sweeney performed in. He had been a writer for the show for a number of years, and was already “out”, therefore becoming the first gay performer on the show. So here you have a gay man pretending to be gay, as stereotypes of masculine and gay behavior and interests are played off each other. Hence the Judy Garland headline, and occasional shrieking sissiness and effeminate mannerisms. Although it’s all in the aid of a larger sympathetic satirical point about being forced back into the closet.

Madonna as Melinda Zoomont
Randy Quaid as the Director
Terry Sweeney as Clint Weston
Joan Cusack as Make-Up Girl
Jon Lovitz as Censor

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Rolling Captions and Announcer: "In the early 1950's, a dark shadow descended upon Hollywood. Caught up in the mass-hysteria of the McCarthy era, the entertainment industry turned against its own, blacklisting innocent artists and craftsmen. Banned from their chosen occupations, these blacklisted individuals fell victim to hearsay, its ugly accomplice innuendo, and their unattractive sidekick, guilt by association. And now in 1985, Hollywood again is gripped by paranoia, this time provoked by the tragic AIDS outbreak. Actresses refused to do scenes with unknown actors. Gay actors are forced back into the closet, leading double lives, wearing wedding bands, riding motorcyles - living in fear that they will fall victim to: PINKLISTING"

[ dissolve to movie set, as actress Melinda Zoomont storms in ]

Melinda Zoomont (in a terrible stilted posh English actress accent): Art, are these the pages? Because if they are, it's all wrong. I thought the love scene with the new character was out?

Director: Sweetheart, we decided that we had to establish your relationship with Lionel, because four or five scripts down the line, you're gonna have his baby and he kidnaps you.

Melinda Zoomont: But I told you, I don't do love scenes with actors I don't know!

Director: Take five, everybody!

(Stagehands groan]

Melinda Zoomont: I hate that this is happening to me, because it places me in the role of the bitch. And I hate that, because I'm not a bitch.

Director: Melinda, Melinda.. no one thinks you're a bitch. You’re a professional. We all are. We've got a job to do. Now, you may not know Clint Weston, but I do. And I can tell you that there's not another more masculine, heterosexual actor on 24-hour call in this town!

Melinda Zoomont: Well.. maybe I'll do the scene - but not until I meet the man face-to-face.

[sound of motorcycle can be heard ]

Director: That sounds like Clint's Harley.

Clint Weston (appears, punching shoulders of other men in palsy fashion) : Damn those helmet laws - who needs 'em, huh? Heads up (as he throws helmet to stangehand)

[everyone is happy to see Clint as he enters the set, Clint shakes hands, give high-fives, almost goes to shake hand with female stangehand ]

Director: Hey, Clint! [ they shake hands ]

Clint Weston: (over emphatic, with stilted macho movements ala John Wayne, rolling shoulders pulling at shirt and adjusting belt buckle) How about the gazombas (cups hands) on that make-up girl, huh? Boy, I know the old wife wouldn't be pleased with that comment (flaunts wedding band on hand) , but hey - just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't look at the menu, right guys? [ notices Melinda ] Oh . . . uh . . . excuse me. Just a little guy talk there!

Director: Clint, this is Melinda Zoomont, your leading lady.

Melinda Zoomont: How do you do?

Clint Weston: Oh, how do you do? You don't have to introduce me to television's sexiest star!

Melinda Zoomont: Well, uh.. I think we're running a bit late. Shall we do the scene?

Director: Right you are, Melinda. We'll knock this off as soon as you get out of make-up, Clint.

Clint Weston: Okay, right-o! [approaches the make-up chair, sits down ] Hey, how about handing me the paper, huh? I want to check the stats on my Raiders. (on front page of paper held to audience away from him, headline reads: “Judy Garland Bio: Liza Unwanted" Clint flips papers around so he notices article). (in more effeminate emotional tones, clasping hands to face) Oh, my God! Why doesn't she leave the poor woman alone! (crying)

Make-Up Girl: Are you alright?

Clint Weston: (pulls himself together) Of course, I'm alright! It's just that Raiders secondary! Last week they leaked like a sieve

Make-Up Girl: Who's the secondary?

Clint Weston: Oh, uh.. those are the guys that, uh . . . go . . . uh, uh . . . both ways. [gets up, returns to the set ]

Director: Uh.. you got your dialogue?

Clint Weston: Uh.. yeah, yeah.

Director: Alright, come on over here, we'll just talk you through this. Okay, now, Clint, you propose a toast to your little scheme, you share a glass of wine, you gaze into each other's eyes, you kiss passionately . . . then you take off your clothes, and you get into the hot tub. Got it? Uh, can we hear that hot tub!

Stagehand: Hot tub!

[hot tub starts bubbling]

Director: That's 180° in there, so you two should be quite comfortable.

Clint Weston: Can you believe we're getting paid to do this!

Melinda Zoomont: Another day, another $10,000.

Clint Weston: [ laugh] (almost camply:) Stop it! We've got a scene to do!

Director: Could we get a censor in here? I've got a question about this kiss here?

Censor: [enters set ] Yeah, what can I do for you?

Director: Oh, Ted, hey how you doing? Uh, listen, Ted, how passionately can we make this kiss? Uh.. we got sweeps coming up, I need a little help here.

Censor: I tell you, there hasn't been much kissing lately, so.. just about anything is okay with us. Now, as long as we don't see any tongue; a little bulge in the cheek [ demonstrates ] or this, that's alright. But we can't see any of this (tongue waggling)..

Director: Okay. Thanks, Ted, I owe you one, buddy! Okay, let's rehearse this - Clint, Melinda, from the top! Alright, roll it.

Voice: Speed.

Voice: Sound.

Director: Action!

Melinda Zoomont: My husband has the same routine every day. If you follow my instructions, it should be child's play.

Clint Weston (huskier): Angel, I want you to know - I'm not just doing this for the money..

[a light falls from the set, crashing into the hot tub, Clint camply shrieks and panics ]

Melinda Zoomont: Wait a minute! You're gay!

Clint Weston: Yes, I'm gay! And now you all know. Art, you can fire me if you like, but I can't go on living a lie.

Director: Clint, I admire your guts. And I think you should know that.. I'm gay, too.

(All the other stagehands shout they are too, and two wrap their arms around each other)

Clint Weston: [ to Melinda ] Living out this little charade, you know, was not our choice. It was a matter of survival! But I suppose you wouldn't know anything about that!

Melinda Zoomont: Well.. actually.. I do have a confession to make. And I do understand you. [ long pause as she slowly stalks to centre stage, stand still, collects herself, then proclaims] I'm an intravenous drug user.

[everyone groans with disgust and horror]

Director (pats he comfortingly, understandingly): Well, shall we do the scene, then?

Melinda Zoomont: [ considering ] Alright.

Clint Weston: Wait a minute! No way am I gonna kiss an intravenous drug user! Get my agent! (charges off stage, his hand waggling high)

Director: Take five, everybody! Clint!

[As the camera pulls back the two stagehands with their arms around - one of whom I think is Anthony Michael Hall - begin kissing each other]

390: Anita Bryant 6 - Across the Dials

A few more spot gags from the time, with references to “Fruits”, “Fairies”, “Queens”, and an implied “Queer” (as a three dollar bill).

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Johnny Carson:
(as Carnac the Magnificent giving predictions to questions)

Answer: 13 Queens Boulevard.
Question: Name an address Anita Bryant will never have.

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Bette Davis on “Laugh-In” - September 5 1977:

“Anita Bryant has won her court suit to force Florida orange growers to cover their navels and quit pinching the fruit. The fruit was not available for comment.”

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Frank Sinatra at Dean Martin Roast – 7 February 1978

“I love Dean Martin and if that upsets Anita Bryant then so be it.”

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The Unknown Comic on “The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour” late 1977 /early 1978

“Anita Bryant drove her car across a river yesterday, yeah she didn't want to take a ferry (pronounced: fairy)."

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Playboy - November 1977:

“The Treasury are considering introducing a three dollar bill bearing Anita Bryant’s face.”

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Saturday Night Live Newsdesk Update:

1. Anita Bryant, former mediocre actress and orange juice promoter, performed coitus in public yesterday, and campaigned to promote heterosexuality. She and her husband assumed the missionary position for two minutes, then announced she is a citrusexual. (April 9th, 1977)

2. A report from Florida states that Anita Bryant plans to undergo a sex-change operation this Spring. The exact date will not be set until the popular TV personality decides which sex to change to. More on this story as it develops. (February 26th, 1977)

3. (after Bryant was hit in the face with a pie by a gay activist) Fortunately, Ms. Bryant, who was not injured, enjoyed a good laugh, and said it was okay if the assailant dated her husband.(October 15th, 1977)

307: Cocksuckers & Bloodsuckers - Gay Vampires 7

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177: Gay Bodybuilding 3

Saturday Night Live, 27 October 1990

Hans – Dana Carvey
Franz – Kevin Nealon

Hans and Franz were popular recurring characters in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s on “Saturday Night Live”. In comic Austrian accents and padded grey workout suits, they mimicked Arnold Schwarzenegger. The sketches largely consisted of alternating between praising the “plumpitude” of each other’s muscles and denigrating the pathetic lack of definition of assorted “girlie men” (a provocative and leading term, hein?).
However homosexuality was usually off the menu, except in this case where an appreciation of Patrick Swayze’s flexibility plumbs hitherto unknown depths.

165: Gay Ad - Schmitt's Gay Beer

from Saturday Night Live, 28 September 1991
Housesitter #1.....Chris Farley
Housesitter #2.....Adam Sandler

This is pretty much a detail perfect parody of American beer ads in the late 80’s/early 90s. The policy of blatant displays of jiggly female flesh-appeal used to flog beer to young heterosexual men, is here turned on its head with equally and ludicrously explicit displays of male flesh to entice the homosexuals. These beer ads always started with a couple of all-American young men in some situation that was just no fun at all. And every Americans consumer is entitled to constant fun - anything else would be an infringement of their Constitutional rights. So, the solution is to just open a beer cooler (you need a whole cooler of the stuff because American beer has all the flavour and potency of something strained through a sickly donkey’s last kidney). Instantly, the sun comes out making everything magically brighter and more appealing, a raucous rock n’roll track starts blaring in the background, and hordes of nubile, barely clad lovelies with mammaries that’d inspire the Graf von Zeppelin are leaping about all over the scenery. The young men turn to the camera and thank the beer for making everything better. Oh yes, and everyone has been holding a beer in every bloody shot. Fun = tits= beer. God, I wish I had the ingenious insight into the human mind that would allow me to be an advertising executive.
The SNL crew follow exactly the same commercial formula, only all homosexual-like. The joke is about beer ads, not homosexuals per se. The point of these sort of ads is always to instil a fairly base Pavlovian sexual association with the particular brand being advertised. For the parody to work, it therefore has to show the same level of open unabashed homosexual desire – Farley and Sandler staring at the models, taking photographs and other assorted horseplay. In showing that, without sneering at it, this is a fairly positive parody. The tagline about “If you’ve got a big thirst and you’re gay” incidentally shows up how ridiculous much of the pink economy was before it even existed.

158: Gay Ad - Long Distance

on “Saturday Night Live”, 8 November 1975




http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6989279wx9Ry4MD&source=embedVideo

It starts with the typical advertising trick of establishing generic associations of warm nostalgia about home life to slop all over the product at hand. There is some syrupy sentimental music which becomes more overpowering as the advert continues.
However rather than a standard Norman Rockwell scenario, we see a young boy standing on a stool, dressed in a green dress, while his mother kneels before him with pins in her mouth making adjustments to the dress.

Voice over: “Remember when you were a little boy and mother would dress you up in her prettiest things. The hours of fun together, sharing secrets and planning elegant little tea parties.”

The camera focuses on the boy’s face (which doesn’t show much to be honest) which then fades to a close-up of a nicely presented young man sat at a sofa. He has a look of pleased remembrance.

Voice-over: “Well, mother is only seconds away when you dial long distance.”

He then picks up a phone and starts dialling. While dialling he is joined by another nicely presented young man, carrying a cup and saucer who sits on the arm of the sofa, crosses his legs and turn his attention to the first, who mouths silently “mother”. Cuts to old woman sewing who picks up a ringing phone by her side. Screen splits so son and boyfiend are on left, and mother on right hand side of screen. Young man sat on the arm of the sofa drinks his tea rather prissily while mother and son talk happily.

Voice over and on-screen slogan – “Long Distance … It’s the next best thing to being her.”

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This is from the school that believes as far as homosexuals are concerned “boys will be girls”.

I see that this was one was censored in much more modern and liberal considerate times. Most of the things posted here are one time only. Published in a magazine, broadcast on TV, then never to be thought of again. The intention of these creators is to be paid for the laughs that they raise there and then. At best, the creators pay lip service only to the social standards of their time, or else refute various hypocrisies. Certainly, as working comedians they probably have little sense of responsibility to future generations. That’s why comedy is so powerfully representative of the attitudes of a given time. The idea of being re-printed or re-broadcast is but a vague hope for continuing residual royalties, not an artistic legacy. However Saturday Night Live has now been so long-running that its repeats have become canonical.

This ad parody angered The Gay Activists Alliance during its initial broadcast, and so it was edited out of a late-night classic rebroadcast on NBC in 2005. Suggesting that gay men want to be their mothers is apparently now so offensive as to be unbroadcastable. Of course this does draw upon the longstanding belief that an overly intimate relationship as a child with one’s mother will make one gay. Which is of course a total lie, with not a scrap of verifiable evidence from any homosexuals’ life, either now or at any time in the past. No sirree, I hope that’s clear and no mistake.

But still, you probably know the piece of graffiti: “My mother made me a homosexual” – "If I give her the wool, will she make me one too?"

155: Village People parody

Saturday Night Live 14 April 1979
(transcript from http://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78qrock.phtml)

[Pop music impresario Don Kirshner (Paul Shaffer) sits in a TV control room, woodenly reading off cue cards, addressing the camera.]

Don Kirshner:
I'm Don Kirshner and welcome to Rock Concert. I first met the Village Persons two years ago when their lead singer, Lyle Manning, provided the floral arrangements for my daughter Karen's bas mitzvah. Today, thanks to the brilliant disco production of Giorgio Morali and to their manager Maury Mineo, they have become a vibrant force in the music industry. Now, to introduce them from the perspective of a young person who can enjoy their music without understanding its homosexual connotations, here is my daughter, Karen Kirshner.

[Applause for Karen Kirshner (Gilda Radner) who enters and sits next to Don -- she, too, reads the cue cards woodenly, sounding exactly like her father.]

Karen Kirshner:
I first saw the Village Persons perform at L.A.'s famed Roxy Theater where they debuted their hit single "Health Club Man." Tonight, thanks to my good friend Herb Karp at Polysutra Records, they're here to perform their new hit, "Bend Over, Chuck Berry." Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome The Village Persons.

[Applause. Disco music begins. Dissolve to a mirrored chandelier and pan down to reveal a glittering disco set where the Village Persons gyrate to the beat: a native American Indian in full tribal regalia (John Belushi), a construction worker (Bill Murray), a biker in leather with a thick mustache (Dan Aykroyd), a sailor, a cowboy and the wildly intense, energetic lead singer, a uniformed cop (Garrett Morris).]

The Village Persons:
Bend over ... Bend over and over
Bend over and over and over
Bend over and over and over

Cop:
I went down to the disco to make it with my local deejay
Well, he looks so good in leather and he knows which records to play
Well, I walked right up to him but I didn't know what to say
Uh huh!
Well, he told me he was macho and he worked out down at the gym
Ha ha! Yeah!

The Village Persons:
Bend over, over and over

Cop:
I said, hey, look, you're the boss and the turntable started to spin

The Village Persons:
Bend over, over and over

Cop:
And before too long I was really gettin' in to him

The Village Persons:
Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!
Bend over, Chuck Berry
Put your guitar away
'Cause they're playin' disco music
From New York to L.A.

Cop:
Not to mention Philadelphia, P-A.

The Village Persons:
Take a look around you
There's no more rock and roll today
So bend over, Chuck Berry
Disco is here to stay

The Village Persons: [posing provocatively]
Bend over ... Bend over and over
Bend over and over and over

Cop:
... Yeah!
So the next time you're lonely and you're crawling on your hands and knees

The Village Persons:
Bend over, over and over

Cop:
And you're checkin' out each young man to find out where he wears his keys

The Village Persons:
Bend over, over and over

Cop:
Come on down to the disco where the deejays aim to please

The Village Persons:
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Bend over, Chuck Berry
Put your guitar away
'Cause they're playin' disco music
From New York to L.A.

Cop:
The places goin' down in 'Frisco Bay.

The Village Persons:
Take a look around you
There's no more rock and roll today

Cop:
Do you hear me, man? Bend over!

The Village Persons:
So bend over, Chuck Berry

Cop:
What would Little Richard say?

The Village Persons:
Hey!

[Song ends. Dancers stop. Applause.]

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Saturday Night Live has always parodied new trends, and so from its heyday, here’s a pastiche of the Village people. The Village People have been the ubiquitous, maybe even archetypal out-gay stereotype (the leather cop in particular) for clueless sods for almost the last 30 years. See how it’s taken just 10 years for gays to go from being weird unsexual transvestites to growling hairy clones. That straights keep dragging up the leather cop image for comedy reasons gives you some idea as to how hard this hits a nerve about homosexual sex. But anyway, here we have a parody of the Village People from when they first fresh and new.

However, given the background of these performers and writers this sketch is acting out some fundamental assumptions about the importance of popular music in the lives of this particular generation. The careers of these writers and performers take in either the early ‘70s Woodstock parody “Lemmings” or else “The Blues Brothers”. If these people lived a rock n’roll lifestyle, then it was because rock n’roll was part of their cultural DNA. The promotion of rock n’ roll was a crowning part of their generation’s cultural achievements. Furthermore, rock n’roll is unremittingly heterosexual, and had become a young person’s music of choice to get laid to. Disgust about disco being “fag music” is really petulant irritation from a lot of straights who are suddenly find they’re not where the sexual action is. That the Village People seemed to be promoting and attracting a particular gay aesthetic only confirms that the order the heterosexual baby-boomers had made for themselves over the last 10-20 years was not the only story. For those who were a little older it means that they’ve got a sudden glimpse as to their irrelevance. For younger mainstream blue-collar music fans disco is an affront to their heterosexual hopes and assumptions. Watching documentary footage of rock fans torching disco records in “Last Days of Disco” can give you some idea as to the extent of their outrage.

So therefore in this parody, you not only have the performers ridiculing disco, but also heralding the possible death of straight music. If Chuck Berry introduced rock n’roll with “Roll over Beethoven” then here the SNL stars can lament the death of rock n’roll with the image of Chuck Berry being sodomised by disco, as the Village Persons also sing about the easy availability of gay sex. That disco music was about gay men and sex can’t be denied. But the typical straight boy trick of deriding something they don’t like as “gay” or “faggy” is suddenly undermined by the fact that the matter under scrutiny unabashedly proclaims its gayness. All that these satirists can do is outrageously emphasise the homosexual overtones, demonstrating how this music can never hope to appeal to the bland tastes of mainstream music-buying America, hence the intro by the unhip Kershners. All they can do is try to make homosexual expression and need for sex funny. And it is the fact that it has been a taboo until recently but is now broadcast on national television that makes it outrageously funny to most of the audience. These are fag jokes that your uncle would never make, so be hip with us is the invitation of SNL.

The sudden final reference to Little Richard is because he has always been surrounded by gay rumours.

43 - Saturday Night Live: Jamitol

from Saturday Night Live, October 11th, 1975
(transcript from: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75ajamitol.phtml)

Man #1 ... Chevy Chase
Man #2 ... Michael O'Donoghue

[Two soft-spoken, casually-dressed men address the camera, betraying not a trace of effeminacy. Man #1 (Chevy Chase) is tall. Man #2 (Michael O’Donoghue) is shorter, bespectacled and bearded.]

CC: This is my best friend, my business partner, my advisor, my companion, my wife. And I love her. She's quite a gal, you know. She takes care of the house, cooks great meals, makes studded leather vests at our own boutique, and still has enough energy to give me the attention I need at the end of a long day. I don't know how you do it.

MOD: Well, I take care of myself. I get plenty of rest, go to the Y, eat right and, to make sure I get enough iron and vitamins, I take Jamitol every day. [puts a pipe in his mouth]

CC: Makes me take it, too.

[Dissolve to two packages of the product (tablet and liquid) and a large spoon.]

Announcer: Jamitol. More than twice the iron and high-potency vitamins found in other supplements. Tablet or liquid.

[Cut back to the two men. Man #2 takes the pipe out of his mouth.]

CC: My wife. She's quite a gal. And I love her for it.

[The two men glance at one another matter-of-factly, as a husband and wife would, then look back at the camera.]
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This is from the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. The jokes lies in that an advert featuring homosexuals is just as dull and banal as any other advert. Or it could just be the joke of a man taking the woman’s role, but with the extra twist of doing without comedy drag.