MovieChat Forums > Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) Discussion > Gay reference?

Gay reference?

posted 14 years ago by djrosenblatt
20 replies | jump to latest

In the beginning, when Steamboat Bill Sr. first meets his son, he witnesses Steamboat Bill Jr., in his rather prissy-looking beret & clothes, prancing about in a pixieish manner while strumming the ukelele. (What the father & first mate are unaware of, because it's out of their field of view, is that Bill Jr. is attempting to entertain a baby in a carriage.)

Bill Sr.'s first mate tries hard to stifle a chuckle. Seeing this, Bill Sr. angrily turns to him and says, "If you say what you're thinking I'll strangle you!"

While not explicit, no doubt the audience of that day was sophisticated enough to understand this to be a whimsical reference to homosexuality. I would think that this must be one of the first gay references in Hollywood cinema. Would anyone know of any earlier ones?

[–] edwardholub 14 years ago

Not off the top of my head, although in Germany gay romances films were being made, one of which stars the great Conrad Veight who played the head Nazi in Casablanca. The gay joke in Steamboat Bill is hilarious.

There is no "off" position on the genius switch.

[–] djrosenblatt 14 years ago

in Germany gay romances films were being made

Interesting, I didn't know that. I'm no great student of European history, but if films like Cabaret are any indication, I guess there was a certain degree of licentiousness in the days of the Weimar Republic. I wonder if Hitler's ascent can partly be attributed to an appeal to Germany's "moral majority" of the time, to push back against this rising tide of "moral depraviy".

[–] Lord-Z 10 years ago

Weimar Berlin was a veritable banquet of what ever floats any boat. There is an excellent book about it, "Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin"

And if that book is to believed, the Nazis were no slouches when it came to depravity.

[–] NewtonFigg 9 years ago

See the Soilers (1923)

[–] joyce-miller777 9 years ago

In 1924 Walter Slezak starred in the Movie, "Michael" which was made in Germany. In it, he has an affair with a gay painter. Good movie. It also stars the beautiful Nora Gregor.

[–] N00deltje 14 years ago

I think it was meant to be a reference Junior being a little girly and wussy, not necessarily homosexual.

Btw, back in the days, the word 'gay' meant 'bright, lively, cheerful', and because some (stereotypical) homosexuals often have this characteristic, gay became some kind of synonym for homosexual.

[–] Burt-11 13 years ago

Well I just saw this tonight at the Lyceum in Alexandria as part of the Film Festival. Actually I did not think anything at all like this. To me it was more of at this point Bill, Sr. did not want to admit that this was son due to the way he is dancing around.

[–] rgcustomer 13 years ago

Yes, but that just gets you back to the original question: why is dancing around like that bad? Because it's too gay.

[–] ZildjianDFW 13 years ago

An earlier gay reference is in Chaplin's 1917 short, "Behind the Screen", in which Charlie discovers that one of the stagehands is a woman disguising herself as a man to get work, and starts flirting with her. Another man sees, and, not knowing the situation, thinks they're both men, and starts prancing around, mocking them.

[–] moon-is-mine1 13 years ago

I don´t know if it counts but Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle dress as a woman in Coney Island (1917) and starts flirting with Al St. John. Then he does the same with Buster in Good Night, Nurse!(1918).

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] djrosenblatt 13 years ago

I would agree with you were it not for the line "If you say what you're thinking I'll strangle you!".

Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers! But if you could show us something in a nice possum...

[–] SnorrSm1989 13 years ago

Haven't read all replies here so sorry if I'm repeating anyone, but references to homosexuality were far more common in silent films (and entertainment in general) than we think today. It is correct that BEING a homosexual was very much a taboo subject, but the "gay stereotype" was used with frequency and amused audiences just as many other stereotypes of the day. There's a quite obvious reference in Chaplin's short "Behind the Screen" from 1916, in which Charlie kisses a girl dressed as a man, to the amusement of his boss who is unaware of the circumstances. Also earlier, in vaudeville, there was such a thing as a "gay stereotype." The one big difference between now and then was that the TERM homosexuality was never acknowledged, but only suggested through specific gestures or (on the stage) words. And, of course, they wouldn't have used the word "gay" anyway, as it had a different meaning back then.

[–] that_ealing_feeling 13 years ago

The stereotype of Buster's character is not the gay man (as such), but the "sissy", for want of a better and less judgmental word. The meanings of sissy and gay do overlap, but they're not the same thing: many gay men are very tough and masculine, and many straight men like cats and Broadway musicals. It takes all sorts ... but no commercial film in 1928 would have dared suggest its hero might be gay. What riles Buster's he-man dad is the thought of his son having grown up to be a city slicker with fancy-Dan, college-boy ways.

[–] djrosenblatt 13 years ago

You write with a strong sense of authority, but if you're so sure of yourself, kindly offer some evidence to support it. If it's an opinion, fine - then say so.

no commercial film in 1928 would have dared suggest its hero might be gay.

First, let's get it straight that no one here is claiming that the film Steamboat Bill, Jr. suggests the hero is gay; only that, for purposes of humor, the father is concerned that his first mate might be thinking that. (I'm guessing, however, that you didn't intend to say that the film actually suggested Keaton's character was indeed gay.)

Second, have you bothered to read all the messages here? Two people have already refered to a Chaplin film made a decade earlier than Steamboat Bill, Jr., that did indeed make a humorous reference to homosexuality. (Similarly, it did so by only suggesting that a certain observer mistakenly believed the protagonist to be gay.) Another writer mentions more explicitly gay films, albeit in Germany.

I would not be so quick to dismiss the possibility that a commercial film - a pre-Production Code one, no less - could touch on the subject of gay-ness, especially in a VERY tangential manner. It's an all-too-common conceit amongst us of these modern, "enlightened" times to underestimate the sophistication of audiences of 50 or 100 years ago. But the fact is that adults in general, through the past several millenia, have been well aware of homosexuality's existence in their respective societies. Moreover, it's long been the subject of humor - on the stage, in literature, and no doubt in common discourse. The stereotype of a comical, effeminate male - generally without any explicit suggestion of his sexual preferences - has always been with us.

The only difference between 80 years ago and now in America is in the sensitivities that need to be observed. Eighty years ago, you didn't want to get explicit about sexual orientation, for fear of offending the general audience; today, you generally have to tread lightly so as to avoid being seen as offending the homosexual community.

None of this is to say definitively that the creators of this film intended the audience to infer that Bill Sr. was thinking his son might be gay. But you can't dismiss that possibility based solely on the idea that such an inferrence would have been unthinkable at that time. It wasn't.

Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers! But if you could show us something in a nice possum...

[–] cmashieldscapting 12 years ago

My first thought was, "Bill Sr.'s gay-dar just went off on five-alarm full alert!" but it could also be saying Bill Jr. just looked sissy or flaky to Bill Sr. and the first mate, not homosexual. The look on his face watching that little dance is priceless! Words are hardly needed.

[–] djrosenblatt 12 years ago

I fully agree that it could simply be that Bill Jr. "looked sissy or flaky". I would never have made this post in the first place except for that one line that the father makes to the first mate: "If you say what you're thinking, I'll strangle you!"

Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers! But if you could show us something in a nice possum...

[–] cmashieldscapting 12 years ago

Mental illness was as much a misunderstood and shunned taboo as homosexuality. Maybe he thought the first mate thought his son was weak-minded, limp-wristed, or both.

[–] novastar_6 12 years ago

He was ashamed by his son because he was expecting a large rough guy like himself, not petite little, ukelele playing, beret wearing Jr.

[–] dayvit78 8 years ago

More than that, did you see his outfit? He had a spotted bow tie, a multicolored diamond wool vest and a striped jacket (though the film is black and white, I wouldn't be surprised if it was green and red or some other garish color combination). Nobody else in the film is wearing anything close to that.

But I agree, it was most certainly just the fact that he was effeminate city-boy that the dad was thinking.

If there was a gay subtext, I think in the scene before he met his father when he was showing the carnation to each of the guys. A few of them took it offensively, as if it was a code, and the one who actually took it seemed to be getting very friendly with Buster.