As our reading for today demonstrates, the fifties marked a return of a rabid anti-LGBT sentiment in public and social mores (as contrasted with the general openness of the war years) that was deeply linked both to the hegemony of fantastical gender normativity in the immediate post-war era as well as McCarthyism's linkage of the homosexual with Communism.
Here are a couple of classic propaganda films and cautionary sexual warnings for from that era, that while providing some laughs, indicate both a real social and political fear over LGBT people that arguably persists today, as well as inculcating sexual caution and fear in girls. These fears are grounded in a potent soup of the unconscious, gender normativity, and gender disgust, as much as in sexual antipathy towards "unnatural" lesbian and gay sex, contained again in the metaphorical relevance of Ian Young's formulation of the Myth of the Homosexual, a strict understanding of gender behaviors and norms, and Shelley's Monster. How instructive are the differences between the films, and what do they tell us about the relative sexuality of men and women?
While we may chuckle at the outrageous hysteria of these "educational" films, how far have we moved, in a deep structural understanding of LGBT identity and gender normativity, away from these fears? The continuing dynamic of visibility is a contestation over the nature of that occular presence and social change and reaction.
Here, on the one hand, LGBT visibility is used as a means of social control and pathology, Shelley's Monster come to life in the guise of badly dressed homosexuals. On the other, Stranger Danger appropriate rewards for those who stay within the guidelines of heterodominant normativity and punishments for those who don't (As one reviewer on YouTube summarized Girls Beware!: "a trilogy of tragedies brought about by teenage girls' attempts at independent behavior. Covers do's and don'ts in the babysitting situation. Develops the problem of the 'PICK UP' and the girls who go with boys that are too old."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
This "Boys Beware" video is a mess, it is hilarious to see now, looking back at it in retrospect but, even then, it still is just striking. Lines line: "Ralph is a homosexual, and is a sick individual, not a visible sick like smallpox, but a mental sickness that is that is infectious and contagious!" Or the fact that is says they homosexuals DEMAND a relationship with the same sex and their "disease" is dangerous. I don't know if I should just laugh or just be disgusted, after all being around homosexuals could cost you your life!
I agree with Camren. I think Boys Beware was slightly over the top with comments like "you never know when a homosexual is on the prowl". However I thought that the Girls Beware video was actually interesting. Boys Beware was a little far fetched while Girls Beware were things that could happen more easily. Both were funny though.
MORAL of THE STORY IS: Don't get in cars.(period, because every story had something to do with a car)
LOL @ don't get in cars. The regime of fear that surrounds middle-class femininity is on display in "Girls, Beware" in ways much more circumspect in "Boys, Beware." In both cases, men are threatening and dangerous. Is there a difference I wonder in the relative advice given boys vs. girls in this series?
Post a Comment