465: AIDS 1 - Earliest Days

By the late 70s/early 80s, an accepted element of a healthy life on the gay scene was the regular trip to the VD clinic and then a few pills or shots to clear up the STD of the moment. A cartoon that appeared in the gay magazine “Christopher Street” in the summer of 1981 (and which I’m sure was reprinted in “Gay News”) showed two men at a bar with one saying to the other: “What do you say you and me pool our viruses”. If printed in a straight magazine, it would almost certainly be condemned for homophobically suggesting the diseased quality of gay life, but when printed in gay magazines it’s a twist on contemporary mores. Either way, it was a foreshadowing of what was to come.

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“National Lampoon” 1982

(The headline alludes of this piece alludes to a famous "NY Daily News" headline: "Ford to City: Drop Dead". This is a surprisingly early piece alert to one small blip in a small subset of the American population. On the one hand this can be read as satirising the casual bigotry and religious condemnation in the dismissal of the rising deaths in the gay community. On the other hand, it’s just as likely to provoke laughs in its unconcerned readers, for whom satire is breaking taboos, saying the unsayable, and joyously anaesthetising the heart so as to appreciate finer graduations of cruelty and vitriol. In retrospect, this piece is unfair to Dianne Fehrstein whose AIDS budget for the City of San Francisco was bigger than President Reagan's AIDS budget was for the entire nation for several years in the 80s)

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A little over a year later and AIDS is a word to conjure with in this glib concoction.

“Punch”, 18 May 1983

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Auberon Waugh’s Diary
Private Eye 26 August 1983

In fact, there are only 14 confirmed cases of AIDS in Britain, as I keep telling everybody. The disease is no less fatal than rabies, and the health authorities have managed to control rabies by a strict policy of quarantine. Would the Gay Community take it very badly if I suggested that American homosexuals visiting Britain should be required to spend six months in kennels before being allowed out to take their pleasure with the natives. My purpose is not to annoy English gays, many of whom are terrifically amusing, talented, artistic, etc, but to protect them. Scientists are working on an idea that a prophylactic against AIDS might be to eat huge numbers of cucumbers every day, but it would be foolish to rely on this.

Illustration by Brian Bagnall

(What is intended here in a sententiously high-toned and blithely semi-nonsensical opinion-proffering manner would later go on to be offered as serious advice by numerous media and political pundits. Where the cucumbers come into this I don’t know, other than the tendency for people to use them as demonstration models for the application of prophylactics.)

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Eddie Murphy, Delirious (recorded August 17, 1983)

http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2007/12/27-faggots-eddie-murphy.html (I’d already covered this piece of stand-up before, but mostly just looking at Murphy’s manner, rather than his extended piece on AIDS)

Ladies be hangin' out with gay people. Ladies be saying, "Gay men are the best friends to have. 'Cause they don't want anything from you and you don't want anything from them and he can just hang out and you can be with him and it's fun and you can talk to them" and all that bullshit and they be hangin' out with them.

You know what's real scary about that? That new AIDS shit. AIDS is scary 'cause it kills motherfuckers, AIDS. That ain't like the good old days when venereal disease was simple. In the good old days you'd get gonorrhea and your dick hurt, Go get a shot, clear it right up. Then they came out with herpes. You keep that shit forever like luggage. Now they got AIDS. That just kills motherfuckers. I say what's next? I guess you just put your dick in and it explode (mimes sex and an explosion) and the girl will be on the bed and go "Maybe I should see a doctor about this."

Kills people! And it petrifies me because girls be hangin' out with them. And one night they could be in the club havin' fun with their gay friend and give them a little kiss (lip-smacking sound) and go home with their AIDS on their lips. Get home with their husband and like five years later it's "Mr. Johnson, you have AIDS." He goes, "AIDS? But I'm not a homosexual." "Sure, you're not a homosexual."

(In an October 1990 interview with Spike Lee, Murphy apologised for making these jokes about AIDS. He explained that he had been only 21 at the time, and that AIDS was then a new disease that nobody knew enough about at the time., and that he wouldn’t joke about it now because it’s a much more sensitive issue.)

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)

388: Anita Bryant 4 – Bob Hope

Johnny Carson’s equal as mainstream jester to the American people was Bob Hope. However Hope was even more of an Establishment comedian than Carson, conservative and patriotic. Because Hope was such a torrent of gags, most of his output in concerts and TV specials has dissipated, as ephemeral as smoke. In this instance he got dragged into the whole issue, and so his joke has become part of the record. Where Buchwald avoided any actual commentary, because Hope spoke out on the issue as a public figure, we can the consequences of his comments on his career.

Hope’s joke about the situation follows:

"There was an early chill in Florida and all of Anita's pansies froze"

It puts Anita and a less than flattering term for gay men in the same sentence, and that’s about all you can say for it. But then so do a lot of these Anita Bryant gags. Not exactly one for the ages.

Hope and Bryant had history, performing together in converts on various occasions in previous years. However, rather than keep quiet, Hope chose to criticise her in an interview in “The National Enquirer” in July 1977: “Bob Hope: Why I Don't Agree with the War on Homosexuals.” His first major statement on the issue was a conservative endorsement of gay right:, that sexuality (what goes on behind closed doors) should not be subject to prejudice a la Bryant’s Dade County motion.

Read the full article at:

http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/hopeforamerica/blurringlines/controversy/ExhibitObjects/AnitaBryant.aspx

In a later article syndicated in April 1978, it was obvious that Bryant’s supporters had taken offense at Hope, and led a successful campaign using boycott tactics. They cut up credit cards of Hope’s sponsor, Texaco. The company asked Hope to stop telling Bryant jokes and he agreed. Which again ties in cicely with Buchwald’s observations about the problems resulting from political opinions by commercial spokespeople.

On the other hand, gay men weren’t big fans of his “pansies” line either, as papers reported that one time at an appearance in Florida the gays protested so much he dropped the line

387: Anita Bryant 3 - Johnny Carson

This article by Tom Shales speaks for itself:

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Tom Shales
Washington Post, 31 July 1977

Americans think the Alaskan pipeline is a klutzy farce, the neutron bomb a cruel joke and Anita Bryant a big pain in the neck.

These findings are the result of an analysis of the monologs of Johnny Carson, star of NBC's “The Tonight Show".

When you follow Carson's nightly topical musing religiously - or, let's say, loyally - you get a provocative picture of what a popular entertainer thinks it is safe to say about current events.

Carson is not on the cutting edge of social change or public attitudes, but what he says is barometric because he's so brilliantly expert at gauging and exploiting what the traffic will allow. In recent months his monologs have grown increasingly audacious and topical, and it's his handling of the Anita Bryant business that has proven most interesting to observe.

Gay rights activists said they feared a new era of McCarthyism when Bryant began her crusade against homosexual visibility. To the contrary, she may have unwittingly done them a favor. Carson and other comedians have turned her into a new symbolic stock comic figure: Anita Bryant has become the female Archie Bunker, a living caricature of abrasive bigotry.

The image of Bryant that emerges from the Carson monologs - repeatedly to the cheers and laughter of, one presumes, a largely heterosexual studio audience - is that of a prudish, self-righteous fanatic. Was the New York black-out an act of God? No, said Carson. because “Anita Bryant would never have given Him time off!”

In a routine about mock predictions for the future, Carson prophesized that this year, “at the insistence of Anita Bryant, the Muppets will undergo a sex test.”

He also promised his audience, “A little later on, Anita Bryant will be out here and try to knock off Truman Capote's hat with a Florida orange.”

The tone is not hostile, but clearly derisive. Other talk shows guests have spoken against her but not so effectively, because they all lack Carson's guileless credibility. Guest host Rob Reiner sounded nearly as self-righteous as Bryant when be implored into the camera. "Why doesn't that woman stop? Stop, Anita." This did get a big hand, however.

It’ s very likely that Bryant jokes will be particularly plentiful on the new Fall comedy shows coming up. They all did "Gong Show” jokes last year; they’ll all do Bryant jokes this year. "Laugh-In” producer George Schlatter, contemplating topics for the new version of the show to be seen on NBC, was quoted recently as noting, “You don't have the war anymore - but you do have Anita Bryant."

Pollsters could be more conclusive about this, but it does begin to look as though Bryant has solidified public opinion against what gay activists call "homophobia" more effectively and more quickly than any amount of homosexually generated propaganda could have done.

[….]

What Bryant and Carson may have done is help speed up the process that will allow television to treat homosexuals with the same disrespect it treats everyone else, which is in its way a kind of 20th century media realism, and perhaps even fair[…] and Anita Bryant, at least in the telltale monologs of Johnny Carson, has assumed the Earl Butz role of national village idiot.

353: Gay Cowboys - 1970s and 1980s

Charles Rodrigues
In “National Lampoon”, May 1970
I’ll confess this one is a bit of a guess. But hey, he’s riding side-saddle (see poem below) and is lisping. So it’s not much of a leap to assume that some sort of weird effeminate thing is going on. Although Rodrigues slightly eggs his gag by having another character laughing at him, as though to prove that his ridiculousness is irrefutable.

("O cowboy so lean,
O cowboy so tall,
You sit there straight as an arrow.
But side-saddle you ride,
Instead of astride.
Are you perhaps a gay ranchero?"
- Ernie Kovacs as "Percy Dovetonsils", a joke that tends to be remembered better as "Show me a cowboy who rides sidesaddle, and I'll show you a gay ranchero")


Arnold Roth
In “Punch” 15 October 1980
From a collection of cartoons about “The Drinking Public”
This is exactly the same joke from “Laugh-In” about 10 years earlier. Not that Roth needs to crib. A little thought and this gag writes itself. The Cowboy at western saloon demanding a whisky is a cliché. The sissiest drink for a man to request is a daiquiri. Et Voila! An effeminate cowboy drinking a daiquiri. It then just comes down to how you want to depict effeminacy or homosexuality. Okay, yes, the pursed lips, yes, the effeminate eyes, yes, the hand on hip. But really, a watering can in his holster?


Illustration in “Playboy” January 1982
Oh look. It’s a cowboy all in pink, hand on hip, lowered eyelids, with a hairdryer for a gun. Cause a gay cowboy would be a hairdresser.


Banx
in “Punch” 18 May 1983
The cowboys holding hands is one joke (and note, yes, the one has got his hand on his bloody hip). The caption puts an ambivalent spin on it. Either he’s angrily refuting the insinuation anything gay could be going on. Or he’s threatening retaliation in response to a gay slur.

“Brokeback Mountain” is another phenomenon altogether. The cowboy aspect was the original hook, but now it’s almost spread independently. There is the tendency to slap the tag “Brokeback” on anything with homosexual or homosocial potential, with the same liberty that scandals are awarded the suffix “-gate”. And there’s there currency of “I wish I knew how to quit you”.

Wholly useless is this lame joke by David Brenner about “L.A.’s first gay western bar: it’s got a mechanical sheep”. Anything else, to say? Nothing further you might comedically extricate via the juxtaposition of ideas about homosexuality and cowboys? No. Then fuck off, David. We’re just a byword for perversion and bestiality, thanks.

Last, and honestly I don’t know whether it would be least, is the 1975 British film, “Eskimo Nell”. One of the plot threads in this satire of the tawdry end of the British film industry and sexploitation is about the filming of a gay western. I know no more than that. This is a film whose most repeated clip is of a naked porn actor getting his cock caught in the clapperboard, followed by an extend shot of him being taken out on a stretcher with his cock extravagantly bandaged up. Just because I know about a film doesn’t mean I’m going to bloody watch it. There are better things in life.

352: Lenny Bruce - Thank You, Mask Man

“Thank You, Mask Man”, 1968
Performed by Lenny Bruce,
Directed by Jeff Hale, animated by Imagination, Inc
(According to Albert Goldman’s doorstopping biography of Lenny Bruce, this routine dates back to 1962.)

“Masked man’s a fag!”

Unlike almost every other piece of the last month or so, in its subversion of childhood heroes this routine actually analyses the social consequences and impetuses of so-called heroism. Why are people “heroes”, and how are they perceived by the public? And what happens when they don’t fulfil the role we have set up for them? –i.e. not receive our gratitude with the appropriate social niceties, or lust after Tonto.
Like most Lenny Bruce routines this skit was semi-improvised and developed every night. This animation is therefore a recording of just one version, not necessarily even an optimum version. “The Essential Lenny Bruce” features a much longer version, which gets a lot of mileage out of making everybody heavily Yiddish. This version has a quick bit about syphilis instead. “The Essential Lenny Bruce” also has opening and closing sections which nicely frames Bruce’s reason for the whole routine, so I’ve included them in the transcript in brackets.

According to the cartoon’s producer John Magnuson, at early showings of this, gay audiences were upset by its apparent “fag-bashing”. And it’s true, part of the fun of the piece is just crying out “Masked man’s a fag”, scandalising and defacing the image of this all-American hero. But it’s within the larger context of Bruce’s analysis of heroism, and that the towns people reject the Masked Man is because of their prejudices, not because Bruce is asking us to endorse them.
Part of the reason why this is so successful and was worth animating is because Bruce has hit upon one of the modern myths. Modern youth may not be so au fait with the Lone Ranger in particular, but the single heroic cowboy who rides into save the day is a powerful icon. The cowboy is not merely the fodder of childhood games and entertainment (pow-pow, ptanng), but also inextricably binds American machismo with American history.

I do like the legally precise yet biologically evasive term “an unnatural sex act”. This cartoon was one of the joys of keeping the dial tuned to PBS stations so many years ago, the odd little films and cartoons used as fillers. I suppose all this stuff has migrated to Youtube now. But it’s not the same as having it unexpectedly blazon itself on your consciousness at 10.25 on a Wednesday school night.

Bruce testified in the Jazz Workshop trial in San Francisco about the Lone Ranger sketch. Prosecutor Ronald Ross had the following exchange with Bruce, as reported in THE TRIALS OF LENNY BRUCE: THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AMERICAN ICON.
Ross: Well, specifically, you are talking about...the unnatural act between Lone Ranger and Tonto...
Bruce: Yes...What's the most ridiculous thing that the Lone Ranger could do? We assume that it's completely incongruous...He wants the Indian...To perform an unnatural act. It is silly, you know...
Ross: In other words, you were not trying to say anything about the unnatural act, then? In other words, it was just for incongruity, then? Was it trying to raise a laugh from the audience? Was that its point?
Bruce: What do you want from me? Tell me—
Ross: Just your answers.
Bruce: I didn't--I didn't want to encourage anyone in the audience to be perverse or perform an unnatural act.

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[There was only one guy – I just thought of a man now – Selflessness – a man who did it all for you, and wanted nothing in return. Ohhhh (sigh), what a good man, a man that never waited for “thank you”. Who was that good man? The Lone Ranger. He was truly that Corpus Christi image projected, a man that never waited for “thank you”. Cleaned up towns of five thousand people. Always did the same bit: The Silver Bullet; nod; and split – HHHHHYYYYYUU, SSLLLLLLVVVVVVAA....]

Redneck: Mask Man, what's your story, buddy? You know Mr. Di Angelo, he's hoppin' ass mad at you. His momma made all those hot pancakes and you run'd off. Run'd off and didn't wait for nuthin. How come you're so snobby you can't accept love or thank you from nobody?

Lone Ranger (noble tones): I'll explain - take your goddamn hands off me, you barbarians. The reason I never wait for thank you …see …ah...Supposing for once I wait for thank you?

Redneck: Thank you, Mask Man.

Lone Ranger: What's that?

Redneck: Thank you, Mask Man.

Lone Ranger: Thank you, Masked man!? Goddamn it, I like that! Let's hear it once again, son.

Redneck: Thank you, Mask Man.

Lone Ranger: Thank you, Masked Man. Ain't that sweet?

(In background) Mask man, help Mask Man, help we're being robbed, get the Mask Man!

Lone Ranger: Don’t break my balls now. I've helped you people a lot. I'm entitled to take one week off to get some “thank you”s. You're not gonna get nuthin' if you keep it up. All right, let's have it again.

Redneck: Thank you, Mask Man.

Lone Ranger: I'm gonna get a book, that's all, screw these people. I'll get a “Thank You Mask Man” book. I'll put it in the book. They'll say, "You in the shingle business?" I'll say, "You think I'm in the shingle business? - look at this: “Thank you, Masked Man. The people of Long Island.” Look at all the “Thank you, Masked Mans'"….I'm going down to the mailbox to see if the “Thank you, Mask Man” has been here today....Someone's been fooling with my mail, I know it. Someone is foolin' with my mail! Where is my 'Thank you, Masked Man?'

Preacher: There are no more 'Thank you, Mask Mans.' The Messiah returned during the night."

Lone Ranger: The Messiah? What has this to do with me?

Preacher: Well, you see men like yourself you thrived upon the continuance of segregation, violence and disease. Now that Messiah has returned all is pure. You're in the shit house.

Lone Ranger: Well then, I'll make trouble. Because I'm geared for it. And I must have a 'Thank you, Masked Man.' That's why I always ride off and never wait for 'thank you.'

Redneck: Man, you sure can talk some shit buddy! I got a goddamn headache. My head hurts me. What the hell you talking about -"Thank you, Mask Man--the people of Long Island"? Look, I work for the city. You know what I mean, buddy? I got a job to do. Now look, I'm here to see you accept a present, just one present. Do it for the kids and we'll get the hell out of here. What do you say?

Lone Ranger: Alright, for the children I'll do it. Give me…no ashtrays…Anything I like?

Redneck: Anything. Just take a whip, or a doll--any of them of things on the top shelf.

Lone Ranger: I tell you what…Anything? Give me that Indian over there.

Redneck: Who's that…Tanto?

Lone Ranger: Yes, Tanta…I want Tanta the Indian.

Redneck: What you talking about? You can't have Tanto.

Lone Ranger: Bullshit! You made the deal. That's what I want. I want Tanta the Indian.

Redneck: You gonna get your Tanta buddy. His name ain't Tanta it's Tant-o. What the hell you want Tanto for?

Lone Ranger: To perform an unnatural act.

Redneck: What!?

Lone Ranger: To perform an unnatural act.

Redneck: Oh, the Mask Man’s a fag. Bleagh! Blaargh! …Fag man! Bleargh, a dirty fag, you dang queer you. The Mask -fag man, ain't that a kick in the ass. Bet you got mascarry under that damn mask, ain't you? A dang queer, I never knew you a fag, Mask Man.

Lone Ranger: I'm not a fag, but I heard a lot about it and read “Expose” and I want to try it now to see how bad it is, just once. I like what they do with fags anyway. Their punishment is quite correct. They throw them in jail with a lot of men. Very clever, hmm-hmm! Wash him up and get him ready. Tell you what - give me the horse too.

Redneck: What the hell you want the horse for?

Lone Ranger: For the Act.

Redneck: Dang queer freak!

Growing reverberating chorus of disgust, cries of fag!

[I always wonder about the anonymous giver. Cause the anonymous giver truly is the egomaniac: “I’m so good – I’m not going to tell anybody.” That’s sick, man. I’m going to leave you with this, that the only anonymous giver is the guy that knocks up your daughter.]

318: George Carlin

“Gay Lib”
from “Toledo Window Box” ( recorded 20 July 1974)
by George Carlin

Though titled “Gay Lib”, this stand-up routine has very little actually to do with the details and practicalities of the Gay Lib movement. It’s much more about constitutes natural and unnatural sexual attractions and responses, arguing that a sexual response is just a sexual responses and therefore discrimination is unthinking. George Carlin was by this time recognised as the new Lenny Bruce for the counter-culture, all for tolerance, social change and sexual openness.

From about ten years earlier these were Lenny Bruce’s take on homosexuality which (discounting the liberal use of “faggot for the time) is also very open to the whole range of human sexual responses

By analysing the central matter of sexuality, but not in a prurient manner, both Bruce and Carlin pretty much avoid any discussion of gay stereotypes.

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Gay Lib.
Now interestingly, here is an attempt by a put down and kind of persecuted minority to insist on their place rightfully and their treatment rightfully, without it having anything to do with ethnic or religion or anything! It's really an exciting separate part of Liberation.
Now I have always wondered...Well, we’ve all thought about “homosexual” – “heterosexual”. We’ve always wondered, first of all, sometimes we, if we're younger, we react to that in a way that we've been schooled. Then you kinda get your chops and you get things okay and you understand and it's all right to be able to talk about that:
(mumbles mimicking conversation) ...young.....kid...that’s cool...(more mumbling) You know.
Then.
Well here's what I mean. The word "homosexual" - many people who are not in the position to have to decide this, they wonder:
(puts on voice) "Is homosexuality... is it Normal? Is it Natural? I ask you. Is it Normal or Natural? Is it unnatural and abnormal?"
Now those two words seem to revolve around it. Now let's look at those words for what they are...
"Natural." Hey. Means "according to nature." Is it according to nature? Well....Probably not in the strictest sense because nature didn't presuppose it. Nature only gave us one set of sexual apparatus. Girl's got something for the guys, guy's got something for the girls.
As it is now, a homosexual is forced to "Share" the apparatus that the opposite sex is using on this person. Certainly if nature were in command there'd be two sets of goodies. So nature was not ready. We leaped past nature again in our sociological development, Way down the road ahead of nature.
Is it normal? Normal? Well what's "normal?" Well, let's see.. if you're standing in a room, stripped, and it's dark, (speaks faster) and you're hugging a person and loving them and rubbing them up and down and they're rubbing you and you're rubbing together, and suddenly the light goes on and it's the same sex, you've been trained to go
(long, loud prolonged scream)
But it felt Okayyy.... So maybe it was normal without being natural.

294: Jonathan Winters 1962-1965

Jonathan Winters was a stand-up comedian whose career began in the early 1960s. Like Bob Newhart and Lenny Bruce much of his act consisted of in-character monologues, routines and sketches. Lenny Bruce was the high-end of controversy, and his act could sometimes be somewhere between a revivalist meeting and an encounter group session. Newhart’s routines were very carefully worked-out monologues. Winters didn’t touch directly on social and political matters, and his act was more free-form and exuberantly silly than Newhart’s. Even as Lenny Bruce was in decline, suffering concerted oppression from the law, Jonathan Winters was becoming a regular guest enlivening early and mid-60s talk shows. As he flipped from character to character on stage, improvising and following his fancy, it was obvious Winters was getting a lot of boyish fun out of own pretending, and so he sets an obvious model for Robin Williams, establishing a livewire format and manner which would make Williams warehouse-loads of cash. Indeed, Williams brought on Winters to play his son in the later seasons of “Mork and Mindy”.
Winters had a lot of stock characters and mannerisms which he could draw upon, some of which would go on to popular success, such as playing an eccentric old lady in drag. In the early ‘60s Winters had a number of pieces of schtick which centred on playing a fey camp gay character. Most of the specimens I can find date from about 1962-1964. This means he may have had a bit of reputation for dealing in this sort of humour and may possibly explain a little why he was one of the actors in the ultra-camp film of “The Loved One” (1965).

Given the era, Winters camp portrayals usually edge beyond merely sissy, but then he’s confronted by the problem of how much further he can actually go, of what he is allowed to say. There’s always the need to take his audience’s attitudes into account, and also the mores and censorship of whichever media or venue he happens to be playing in. So these gay gags become a practical matter of balancing the performance within the larger joke of the piece, and also configuring them both so that Winters won’t fall foul of somebody’s offended sensibilities. And at the time, there was probably enough novelty and daring just in Winter’s performance, without having to go much further than that. Whereas by the ‘90s just putting on a gay manner was nowhere near good enough for a decent joke for informed audiences (for unenlightened audiences is maybe another matter).



from the Jack Paar Program (circa-1962-1965)

Here, in character with Tv talk show host Jack Paar, Winters is a playful, delightfully naughty faun – a bouncy, exuberant sissy. So some of the joke is that Winters is playing a faun, and some of the joke that this mythological creature is a bit camp. And on top of that, in the interview there’s a strong amount of “Is he/isn’t he/” flirting between Paar and Winters resulting in Winter’s “They know in the forest!” So it’s not merely a camp performance, but also slightly deniably, should complaints come down from executives, that it was all within the context of Winter’s faun joke. So funny to play gay, but a little ambivalent, and not outrightly homosexual


“Moby Dick and Captain Arnold” from “Jonathan Winters' Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” (1963)
Listen to it at: http://www.archive.org/details/jonathan_winters_1193

This is a camp take on “Moby Dick”, the epitome of obsession in the rugged nautical world. Its notable though Winters doesn’t make any attempt at jokes about what sailors get up to when the lights go out. Arnold is just described “as a bit of a strange fellow”

This is the longest performance I’ve got of Winters so it gives me a little more latitude to describe his performance. For a start besides being queeny, it’s slightly lispy, because Americans more than the British tend to think that homosexuals lisp. It’s not spectacularly effeminate, but there is an overall unmanly and simpering tone to his performance. Part of the unmanliness is a tendency to triviality, to lavishly deploy the epithet "silly". He employs a slightly drawn out pronunciation - vowels are dipthonged. The triviality results in a tendency to try to keep everything on his level, but when crossed (the gruff sailor calling him a “sissy”) he becomes slightly petulant. Again it’s a largely unsexualised performance. Statements like "You're so strong" and "hold me" could be come-ons, but they could just as easily be the sort of sissy pleas that Bob Hope used to make in scary situations.


"Fairies Can Fly" aka “The Cop and the Fairy” from “The Underground Tapes” a 2007 collection of bits which were too risque or controversial to be released in the early 1960s when they recorded.
The sketch is only a minute long so you can listen to the first half at http://www.voeveo.com/audio/fulltrack/66574

Officer: Where’s the fire, where’s the fire?
Driver: In your eyes, officer! In your eyes!
Officer: (slight pause – declarative) you’re a fairy, aren’t ya?
Driver: Do you see any wings (giggle) I think that’s an asinine remark on your part – You great big man-neanderthal person, you. Yeahss, just a hood with a badge, that’s the only difference.
Officer: What did you call me?
Driver: A hood, a hood! You ought to have one right over your ss-kull! Jayssuss!
Officer: I don’t want you cursing. I happen to be patrolman O’Brien
Driver: (slightly sarcastic) Oh tell us, oh leader, where is your motor-sssickle? Do you have the multi-coloured fox-tails and the devil on the front? What’ll a Harley do? Open it up on a sssnowy day, mmm, and then we’ll see.
(mimics crashing noise)
Officer: Oh, you damn fool! You ran right into me!
Driver: Yeah, yeah! Fairies can fly, can’t they.
Officer: Alright lock him up. Joe. Fag, put him down in number 3-6-7-12. I don’t want to fool with him. Get in the back seat with those devils and they tear your clothes off

This plays a slightly more flirtatious and defensively queeny camp type against a bluff ignorant cop. A touch of gay panic at the end, although how could one be afraid of such is a sissy is probably part of the joke. The “where’s the fire?” – “In your eyes” would be repeated in an episode of “Laugh-In” with Alan Sues.

27 - Faggots: Eddie Murphy

From “Delirious”, (1983)

Also, faggots aren't allowed to look at my ass while I'm onstage. That's why I keep movin' while I'm up here. Now if you don't know where the faggot section is, you gotta keep movin'. So if they do see it it's quick, and you switch. They don't get no long stare at your shit and start havin' imagination flowin' on my …I know when you're lookin' at it too, because my ass gets hot.

'Cause I'm afraid of gay people. Petrified. I have nightmares about gay people. I have this nightmare that I go to Hollywood and find out that Mr. T is a faggot. Really, he be walkin' up to people going "Hey boy! Hey boy! You look might cute in them jeans. Now come on over here, and fuck me up the asss. Come on! I'm gonna bend over now. Uungh! Aaagh! Hey boy, slow down. You're going to mess around and come too fast and make me get mad. I'll clench up my butt cheeks and rip your dick off."

You know, you know, you know who would be a funny faggot? Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton. Wouldn't they be funny faggots? And Ralph Kramden leanin' out the window there one day sayin' "Norton! Norton, pal! Come on down! I want to show you something. HEH HEH" "Hey Ralphie boy, what do you say there, pal of mine?" "You know Norton, I've been watchin' you. And I know you've been watchin' me, Norton. You're watchin'. I know." "So Ralph, what are you gettin' at?" "Norton my friend, how would you like to fuck me up the ass? I know you want to fuck me, Norton! And you know that I know that you know that I know that you want to fuck me. Now I'm gonna bend over. And when I do, start fuckin'! Here I go!" "Whoooooooooah!” Hummuna-hummunah-hummunah-hummunah-hummunah-hummunah-hu...Way to go there, Ralphie boy!"

I kid the homosexuals a lot, cause they're homosexuals. I, I fuck with everybody, I don't give a fuck . It's like um, I don't mean anything by it. You can hang out with a gay person. You can guys. Don't feel, you know like alienated gay people 'cause they're gay. 'Cause you can play tennis with a gay person. Really, just after the game you say "I'm gonna get a beer, what you gonna do?" "I think I'll go suck somebody's dick." "Well, I'll see you later. Take it easy. You go suck that dick. I'm gonna have the beer."

Ladies are hip to it too. Ladies be hangin' out with gay people. Ladies be saying, "Gay men are the best friends to have. 'Cause they don't want anything from you and you don't want anything from them and he can just hang out and you can be with him and it's fun and you can talk to them" and all that bullshit and they be hangin' out with them.

You know what's real scary about that? That new AIDS shit. AIDS is scary 'cause it kills motherfuckers, AIDS. That ain't like the good old days when venereal disease was simple. In the good old days you'd get gonorrhea and your dick hurt, Go get a shot, clear it right up. Then they came out with herpes. You keep that shit forever like luggage. Now they got AIDS. That just kills motherfuckers. I say what's next? I guess you just put your dick in and it explode (mimes sex and an explosion) and the girl will be on the bed and go "Maybe I should see a doctor about this."

Kills people! And it petrifies me because girls be hangin' out with them. And one night they could be in the club havin' fun with their gay friend and give them a little kiss (lip-smacking sound) and go home with their AIDS on their lips. Get home with their husband and like five years later it's "Mr. Johnson, you have AIDS." He goes, "AIDS? But I'm not a homosexual." "Sure, you're not a homosexual."

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Now this fairly notorious excerpt is little more than the aggressive humour of the playground. Murphy has a great youthful energy and charm, with rapport with his audience, and these jokes are a way of bringing everyone together: this is what we really think and laugh at, all the stuff that isn’t safe for TV. Of course, much of Murphy’s act is very externally focused rather then the personal anecdotes and interpretations of the likes of Bruce or Richard Pryor. A strange guttural hooting Mr T and some only so-so impressions of “The Honeymooners” sodomising one another is not terribly advanced stuff. And there’s a weird quality of being vulnerable to homosexual advances, gay panic, while knowing it’s not really right. By this time, using “faggot” is a deliberately offensive move. It’s a way of showing I’ll say what I like about whom I like.

Immediately after this, when Murphy was criticised, he mocked gays all the more for being pissed off for his having mocked them in the first place.



Some years later Murphy would apologise for these jokes in his routine. And we all know the sterling work Murphy has since made in out-reach projects to the transgender community.

24 Faggots: Lenny Bruce

From “The Essential Lenny Bruce”, open gate Books, 1973
These routines, circa 1963, from quotes by Paul Krassner in “The Realist”

You know, it's really weird. You've heard, no doubt, that Rock Hudson is a faggot. Course you've heard it. I've heard it, and everything's in the papers:
‘Rock Hudson 's a fag. He's a fruit.'
'Yeah, Rock Hudson 's a fag. A fag.'
I started thinking about it. I mean, he doesn't look like a faggot to me. Then I find out there's two hookers, who don't know each other - East Coast, West Coast - that balled him. So if he gave up some bread for some trim, well, then he just can’t be a faggot.
Double gaited? No. That's some bullshit some faggot made up. I mean, I never did meet any cat. who was double gaited. You dig chicks, or you don't, man.
It's very possible that Rock Hudson is very sexual. He's just probably a very horny cat - makes it with guys, chicks, mud, sheep, anything: his fist. He's a real baisser - that could be, couldn't it?
Like all of us: me, you, you - put us on a desert island for five years, no chicks, you'll ball mud. Emmis. You have, man. Knotholes.
'Are you kidding? -"What are you doing next to that tree, you slob you? What are you doing? Schtupping a tree!’
'It's my tree.'
'Your back'll get crooked.'
I challenge this audience. I challenge your manhood. I will give you - hear me well (and the owner will back me up) - one thousand dollars. I will pay for the lie-detector test. The daddy of the polygraph is here in. this town. His name is Reed. Now if it's good enough for Brinks and Powers, it's good enough for you and me.
You take the lie-detector test. The purpose is to stop casting the first stone: you cannot cast the first stone if you're' stoned in front.
I challenge your manhood. Because if ‘homosexual' means - like the cliche, no such thing as being a little pregnant - if faggot means ever involved with a homosexual, active or passive, then I just know I'm looking at a room full of fags. Isn't that weird? Whether you were two years old or six years old, any time that scoutmaster or gym coach jacked you off to a Tillie and Mack book, your Uncle Donald wanted to kiss you, or that truck driver that jacked you off when you were hitchhiking on Merrick Road, or you were experimenting and playing doctor - that's it, Jim: you're a sometimes fag.
That's the worst thing you can call us, right? Goddamn, man. It really bugs guys to call them faggot. .

Faggots. . . Dig. Isn't the argument against pornography - selling pornography, making it available to the public? That the man is happily married, or he's just a happy cat, and you come along with some matter the predominant appeal of which is 'to his prurient interest. And what you're doing;. you're entrapping him. You're inciting him. Something that the guy wouldn't be thinking of ordinarily - you're getting him horny. You're getting it up, and you're not getting it off, and you're creating a clear and present danger. And it's worthless, and so that's the objection to it. And that's a valid objection.
But when I hear about faggots who get arrested in toilets!
'How'd you get arrested in a toilet?'
'Oh, I accosted a peace officer:
'Well, that's certainly no concept of reality, I mean, you certainly –‘
'Well, I didn't know he was a peace officer.’
'What do you mean?'
'Well, he didn't have any uniform on.’
'Well, he wasn't wearing a costume, was he? He wasn't wearing a low-cut gown - '
What a low-cut gown to a faggot must be is like tight Levis with a padded basket.
'- I mean, he wasn't wearing Levis and leaning up against the urinal like that - sultry -like that, was he? Cause if he was, that's bullshit, then. Cause he was appealing to your prurient interest, then. And entrapping you. You can't do that.'

It's a funny thing, all the different stages that we've all gone through. My generation was so - well, me, phew! Such hang-ups about ever being called a faggot that I'm amazed at any guy who can go into a public toilet and do anything but piss and leave!
Guys who can wash their hands are amazing to me. I just unbutton, psshhhhht! up! out!
'Wait, I want to talk to you!'
'Not in here - are you kidding?'
Cause if somebody said
'What are you doing in that toilet?'
'I dunno, ah, uh, heh, heh . . .'
'What were you doing in there! Did you make?'
'Yeah, I did, ah . . .'
'Alright. But don't hang around here. O.K.'

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A few cartoons and routines this week featuring THAT six-letter word.

Given the period when Lenny Bruce was performing, faggot is about the only word he could use. He’s too early for “gay”. And since Lenny Bruce uses a sort of hip street-preacher spiel, then homosexual is just too high-toned a word for him to use without some irony. So “faggot” it has to be, even when most of these routines are actually sympathetic. Of course, being sympathetic then, doesn’t mean that he gets away with harbouring, with what seems to us oh-so modern sophisticates, some rather strange ideas about what it means to be gay.

Lenny Bruce posed as gay to get out of army service. He first became a noted comic when performing at Ann’s 440, a gay club in San Francisco.

When these routines were published in "The Essential Lenny Bruce", Rock Hudson's name was blanked out. However, when Hudson died, Krassner quoted a section in issue #99 of his "The Realist" reminding everyone of Bruce's shtick.