Bernie, Mink and Dane are all referred to as being gay, but seem to incur no homophobia. Their being gay is apparently accepted, but I would have thought that back in the Prohibition era, negative attitudes towards gay people would have been very prevalent? Or were things a bit more liberal in the underworld, where living outside the "norms" of society made people less hung-up about how others lived?
shareJust watched this movie.
There's an expository scene early on where Verna and Tom are talking and Verna accuses Tom of hating Bernie just like everybody else because 'he's different' and considering him a 'degenerate' and 'scum'. So we're not shown any homophobia, but in Verna's mind there is homophobia. Of course, Tom (and presumably others) actually dislikes Bernie for his character and ethics and not so much his sexuality.
The other thing is that most people seem to look down on Bernie because he's a jew and the casual anti-semitism is shown as more prevalent than homophobia if you go by the number of times they refer to him pejoratively as 'shmatta' and 'shiner' or something like that but nobody refers to him as *beep* or anything like that.
Bernie also tells Tom later that his sister tried to 'straighten' him by 'showing him' stuff... so we can surmise that she seems to be more troubled by his sexuality than the other gangsters.
There's an expository scene early on where Verna and Tom are talking and Verna accuses Tom of hating Bernie just like everybody else because 'he's different' and considering him a 'degenerate' and 'scum'. So we're not shown any homophobia, but in Verna's mind there is homophobia.
Of course, Tom (and presumably others) actually dislikes Bernie for his character and ethics and not so much his sexuality.
I don't think that it was accepted. Bernie seems to have been persecuted a bit. And it's not like he and Mink were stepping out together in public.
Obviously, Casper knew about Dane, and his "boy", Mink. But Casper let it go, probably since Dane was such a big part of his gang.
Casper, definitely didn't like to think about it, and just kind of let it go - but I think that in the back of his mind, he thought of Dane as a degenerate. And I think that is how he was able to be manipulated by Tom into believing that Dane would double-cross him - that ultimately, someone capable of that kind of behaviour is capable of anything amoral.
I think the point is that the tolerant or intolerant characters all handle that issue more adult-ly than most characters in films. The Dane is gay - many American and British gangsters in real history were homosexual and this chimes. Let it drift.
share"it's not like he (Bernie) and Mink were stepping out together in public." because the Dane would have killed Mink for cheating on him and Bernie for fucking Mink.
shareThe 20's were relatively permissive decade sexually.
Hollywood did not implement its repressive morality codes until the 1930s
I was born in the house my father built
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