Sissies, Pansies, Fairies, and Other Exotic Fruits

[BrianInAtlanta]

I'm also looking for scenes featuring other actors. Bonus points if the actor is wearing a small mustache and/or a carnation in his lapel.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Pangborn welcoming W.C. Fields to Woohoo, China in International House.

[Sloper]

-- I haven't pulled the film out in a while, but I don't remember that guy as being tagged gay in the text. What makes you say he is?

Are any of these characters 'tagged gay in the text'?

But fair enough, the Chain Gang example was an afterthought to Donald Meek. I guess prison and war films have their own versions of the 'sissies', but they perhaps aren't what Matt is looking for.

Also, another example from the Public Enemy - Putty Nose. He's ever so slightly paedophilic, in fact.

Not sure if anyone's mentioned Joe E. Brown yet, but his turn as Flute in Reinhardt and Dieterle's Midsummer Night's Dream is a pretty good example, in a role that's often been acted 'gay'.

[George Kaplan]

In RED DUST, Willie Fung giggles and wiggles with Mary Astor's lingerie prompting Jean Harlow's character, Vantine, to remark:
"My, you even find them in the jungle."

Fung's character may not be meant to be understood to be gay so much as allowing Harlow to voice the possible perception. Yet the moment provides a fairly direct acknowledgement of the idea of gayness.

[rohmerin]

I remember my favourite one: the British couple in Hitchcock's The lady vanishes travelling together, sleeping ensemble, and both of them refuse the blonde female chambre maid when she offers. ¡Tan homosexual!

[JonDambacher]

I'm putting together a presentation on Great Sissies of the 1930s Cinema, so I want to appeal to the group brain for ideas for clips to include in this presentation. What are your favorite "pansy" scenes of the 1930s? Scenes featuring Franklin Pangborn, Eric Blore, or Edward Everett Horton are ideal, but I'm also looking for scenes featuring other actors. Bonus points if the actor is wearing a small mustache and/or a carnation in his lapel.

And yes, this is a serious request, and no, this is not an occasion for arguing issues of representation or making unwise jokes.

Most of Conrad Veidt's pictures from the 30's match your basic idea. Also look at Peter Lorre and Errol Flynn. They were frilly in the early 30's and hadn't yet fallen into their meatier work of older age.

[Danny Burk]

Pierre, the "makeover artist" in LADY FOR A DAY, fits your description perfectly

[Matt]

Thanks, everyone, for all your help. I now have 20+ clips for a 45-minute talk, including many mentioned here. Should be very entertaining.

I really wish I could have got ahold of a clip from Walk Cheerfully, though.

[mckeldinb]

Check out Del Henderson in the 1932 Our Gang/Little Rascals short "Choo-Choo!" No pencil-line mustache or carnation, but he has a foppish bow tie and a very bad hair piece... and the catch-phrase "You make me so angry."

[Gregory]

I'm not sure the carnation per se signified anything effeminate at the time these films were made. The boutonniere was simply a hallmark of a well-dressed man (especially from the late 1800s through the Depression) and a small carnation is a very traditional one.

I seem to remember seeing a lot of leading men wear them.

[Jonathan S]

Of course, Oscar Wilde famously wore a green carnation, celebrated by Noel Coward in his 1929 musical Bitter Sweet when four 1890s dandies perform the "Green Carnation" song that pretty much spells out they are supposed to be homosexual:

Pretty boys, witty boys,
You may sneer
At our disintegration.
Haughty boys, naughty boys,
Dear, dear, dear!
Swooning with affectation...
And as we are the reason
For the "Nineties" being gay,
We all wear a green carnation.

[Matt]

I'm not sure the carnation per se signified anything effeminate at the time these films were made. The boutonniere was simply a hallmark of a well-dressed man (especially from the late 1800s through the Depression) and a small carnation is a very traditional one.

Of course not. Neither were little mustaches themselves indicative of effeminacy (see Errol Flynn). When put all together with marcelled or bleached hair, jackets with nipped-in waists, suede shoes, and red neckties, however, all of these signifiers were part of a "pansy uniform."

[Antoine Doinel]

Thanks, everyone, for all your help. I now have 20+ clips for a 45-minute talk, including many mentioned here. Should be very entertaining.

I really wish I could have got ahold of a clip from Walk Cheerfully, though.

If there is a way you could record your presentation, I'm sure a lot of us would love to see it. Please report back on how it goes!

[Gregory]

I was wondering whether the carnation was really part of a "pansy uniform." I'm not arguing the point one way or the other, but I was thinking about the cultural influence of dandyism, which has virtually disappeared and is probably not understood all that well now, generally speaking. I'm interested in the ways that as time goes by it gets harder and harder to understand films in the contexts they were made.

[Michael]

Well the carnation thing could be influenced by Oscar Wilde who sported around with a green carnation.

[Matt]

If there is a way you could record your presentation, I'm sure a lot of us would love to see it. Please report back on how it goes!

It already happened, and it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. The clips were definitely the star of the show.

I was wondering whether the carnation was really part of a "pansy uniform."

None of my readings really included any detail about the wearing of carnations, but I imagine the discussion of red neckties in George Chauncey's Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 is analogous to the wearing of carnations: depending on the context, it may or may not raise eyebrows. Certainly your average buttoned-down American businessman wouldn't be caught dead at work with a red necktie [or a lapel flower], but he might wear one elsewhere on a more "festive" occasion. But if a gay male wanted to signify to others his sexual orientation, he would almost certainly opt to wear a red necktie [and a lapel flower]. See W.C. Fields meeting Franklin Pangborn in International House: "Don't let the posy fool ya."

Depictions of pansies during the 1920s and 1930s (during the "pansy craze"), however, never fail to include a lapel flower:




Click image to view clip:


It's also highly possible that the lapel flower started out as a gay custom and then was picked up by mainstream culture. That's what Burton William Peretti's Nightclub City seems to assert.

[Gregory]

I think the green carnation thing began with Oscar Wilde and became a popular way of signifying that one is gay (or a St. Patrick's Day reveler oblivious to this history). But the boutonniere itself goes back at least to the 18th century, unless I'm mistaken, and was a sartorial staple for royalty, the social elite, and dandies alike. I've noticed that Fred Astaire wore them a lot of the time throughout the 1930s, as did other well-dressed men like Adolphe Menjou. Still, I'm sure it had gay associations for some people but that these varied from place to place.

[Tom Amolad]

I think the green carnation thing began with Oscar Wilde and became a popular way of signifying that one is gay (or a St. Patrick's Day reveler oblivious to this history). But the boutonniere itself goes back at least to the 18th century, unless I'm mistaken, and was a sartorial staple for royalty, the social elite, and dandies alike. I've noticed that Fred Astaire wore them a lot of the time throughout the 1930s, as did other well-dressed men like Adolphe Menjou. Still, I'm sure it had gay associations for some people but that these varied from place to place.

Probably the best book on the emergence of effeminacy as a model for homosexuality is Alan Sinfield's The Wilde Century. Sinfield argues that Wilde's dandyism didn't exclusively signify "gay" at the time, and that prior to Wilde, excessive masculinity was at least as dominant a model for sodomy (which for much of that period is the more appropriate term), but that it came to be the hegemonic signifier as a result of Wilde (and certainly by the 30s).

The book also offers the best demonstration I know of the difference between American and British publishers. The American edition's cover has a nice William Morris design; the British edition has a picture of Wilde wearing a T-shirt that says "Queer as fuck."

Tom

[Cash Flagg]

Sorry for the rather late bump, but I just had the displeasure of sitting through Just Imagine (1930), and there's a sequence that reminded me of this thread. The three explorers have just been brought before the Queen of Mars. One of the queen's male minions runs his hands through the hair of one of the explorers, smiling meaningfully. The explorer cracks, "She's not the queen - he is!" They are later seen walking arm in arm, the explorer flicking the Mars man's metal-spiked neckware playfully.