Archie and Jughead

Though there are lots of hints and signals about same-sex desire in Archie Comics, Archie himself is ludicrously girl-crazy. He is failing French until Veronica helps him “study” by seductively reciting French words  – and then he gets an “A.”  He is an expert artist, but only when he paints girls.  Advised to chose a future career, he selects fashion photography because then he can be surrounded by girls all day.

Archie’s girl craziness rarely receives any criticism from parents or peers, and when someone does complain that he's "too" girl-crazy, he retorts that chasing girls is the only thing worth doing in life.  In “The Andrews Family Tree” (Archie Digest 108) , teenage brain Dilton discovers that all of Archie’s ancestors just missed brilliant scientific discoveries because of their girl-craziness  – they didn’t notice the apple falling because they were busy flirting, for instance. “I feel sorry for your ancestors,” Dilton says, “They were a bunch of losers.”  Archie responds  “And I feel sorry for poor Dilton!  He can’t tell us winners from the losers!”

It seems odd that this acme of girl-craziness has a best friend who "hates" girls. Or at least "hated," from the 1940s through the 1980s, until the character was retconned.  Jughead actually liked girls as friends, but he did not want to date. kiss, or cuddle them.  He was not attracted to women.

Archie and the gang generally accepted this "quirk," but on those rare instances where Jughead seemed to be interested in a girl, they were beside themselves with joy.  In “There’s This Girl, See” (Archie Annual Digest 74) Jughead says that he needs money because “There’s this girl,” and his friends joyfully hug each other and take a collection to finance his date.  When it turns out that the girl merely owes him money, which he needs for a date with a boy, his friends spend a spread panel banging their heads together and kicking themselves in frustration.

Jughead’s most passionate relationship was with his “best pal” Archie, a fact recognized as natural and inevitable by almost all of the other characters. In Archie Double Digest 9, Jughead is so closely attached to Archie that he even tags along on his date with Veronica.  She banishes him, but the softhearted Mr. Lodge intervenes and reunites them

In Archie Andrews Where Are You Digest 66, Archie is dumped by a girl, and his father cheers him up not by introducing him to another girl, but by sending him out on the town with Jughead.

In “Best Friends” (Archie Andrews, Where Are You? 43), Jughead invites Archie to a dance, explaining that “you know I don’t go with girls.” Archie agrees, but at the last minute Jughead receives an invitation to a pizza cook-off that he would rather attend, and gives the tickets to Betty.

When Betty presents herself as a substitute date, Archie is nonplussed.  “[Jughead] stood me up!” he exclaims, treating the snub exactly as if he were expecting a romantic date.  There is no hint that anyone perceives the event as “buddies hanging out”; if we knew nothing about the characters but this single story, we would certainly conclude that Archie considers both Jughead and Betty appropriate romantic partners.

Jughead was also frequently paired with Betty or Veronica, or both,  as a competitor for Archie’s affection. When all three successively try to lure Archie to fates unknown, he balks.  “How much can a man take!” he exclaims.  “Is it my fault I’m so desirable?”  Although this is a satirical story that ended with all of them characters rejecting Archie, the implication is clearly that Jughead, like the girls, has a romantic interest in Archie.

Gradually becoming aware of the existence of gay people, Archie Comics tried -- not always successfully -- to heterosexualize the character of Jughead during the 1990s.  But not to worry, in 2011 they made up for it by introducing a "real" gay character.

Most recently, Jughead has been retconned as asexual, adding to the sexual diversity of Riverdale High.

Johnny Weissmuller's Last Boyfriend

During the 1970s, my brother and I liked to watch Chuck Acri's Creature Feature on Friday nights at midnight (when we could get away with it).  It sprinkled the monsters liberally sword-and-sandal and jungle hero epics, and one night it showed Cannibal Attack (1954), with a 50-year old Johnny Weismuller, long retired from his MGM Tarzan movie, oddly playing a fully clothed version of himself: Johnny Weismuller.

The governor of an unnamed African colony hires him to find out who is stealing valuable shipments of cobalt. Only sinister foreign powers would be interested in so much cobalt, so he is looking for both a thief and a traitor. Johnny suspects everyone, but especially the governor’s ne’er-do-well brother, Arnold King ( David Bruce, left, from another movie). 

The governor is forcing Arnold to work in the mines in order to “make a man out of him” (e.g., make him heterosexual). Who better than a shady, sexually ambiguous middle-aged man to consort with the enemy?

But writer Carroll Young specialized in buddy-bonding jungle flicks and director Lee Scholem evoked the homoerotic male gaze constantly in such television programs as The Adventures of Superman, Maverick, Colt 45, Sugarfoot, and 77 Sunset Strip: neither would be content to let the two movie hunks remain antagonists. 

 So early in the film, Arnold saves Johnny from drowning. 

 A few scenes later, Johnny saves Arnold from a leopard. 

Arnold apparently enjoyed the rescue, so he splashes about in the river until a crocodile investigates, then calls out for help. Johnny comes running, but he trips and falls, knocking himself unconscious (he is fifty years old, after all). When Arnold realizes that he’s not going to be enveloped in the hunk’s arms, he pulls out a knife and dutifully saves himself.

Scholem believed that audiences could never tire of men holding each other and saying “Are you all right?." so he had the two rescue each other many, many times.  

They spend the rest of the movie with one’s hand pressed firmly on the other’s shoulder, sometimes for two full minutes (try this at home; it’s impossible: within sixty seconds, your partner will either break contact or want to kiss). 

Meanwhile Luora (Judy Walsh), the governor’s “half-breed” ward and secret girlfriend, falls all over Johnny, cooing and batting her eyes, but Johnny ignores her. She invites him on a midnight swim; when he refuses, she snips “are you that anxious to get rid of me?” He is. 

 When she sees the two men enter a cave together to do something that is none of her business, she pretends to be attacked by a crocodile, so Johnny will pry his hand from Arnold’s shoulder (or wherever it is at this point) long enough to rescue her. But after the faux rescue, Johnny rushes right back to Arnold again.

Luora turns out to be the culprit, conspiring with her handsome lover Rovak (Bruce Cowling) to sell the cobalt to the enemy and pin the blame on Arnold. She also happens to be the queen of a savage tribe, which she orders to feed Johnny and Arnold to a crocodile (the title is misleading: no cannibals threaten to eat anyone). 

They escape at the last moment (with the requisite hand-on-shoulder “Are you all right?”), and in the ensuing gunplay, the governor, Luora, and Rovak are all killed. To tie up all of the loose ends, Arnold is named the new governor.

In the last scene, his hand still superglued to Arnold’s shoulder, Johnny says “I guess it’s time to move on,” softly and hesitantly, as if he wants to be talked out of it. Arnold has no time to respond – there’s a crash in the office. It’s the chimp, Kimba, messing up the place. Fade out to laughter, and we never hear Arnold’s response to the question of Johnny leaving. This was his last movie – maybe he stayed.

Sitting Ducks

The animated series Sitting Ducks (2001-2004), based on Michael Bedard's book,  had a clean, uncluttered line usually seen in programs aimed at young children, and it aired on Nickelodeon in the early afternoon hours usually reserved for young children.  But it was one of the more subversive of the cartoons of the era, offering a strong social critique reminiscent of Animal Farm and Maus.

The Premise:  although alligators usually prey upon ducks, they need the winter clothing that the ducks manufacture from their feathers, so they have promised to stay away from Ducktown.  A few renegade alligators sneak into town to hunt the unwary, or try to lure ducks out of town where they’ll be fair game.  Alligator-duck antipathy runs high, and the truce could break down at any moment.

The protagonist in this uneasy world is Bill, a quiet, sensitive duck.  He has a trio of wacky friends,  but he is still lonely, until one night he is attacked by a renegade alligator named Aldo.  Bill manages to defend himself and break Aldo’s tooth, and his kindness afterwards -- offering to get the tooth fixed -- convinces Aldo of the ducks’ innate “humanity.”  The two become friends.

At first their friendship consists of playing bongo drums and a board game called Squaddle, but soon it develops into an intimacy rare in animation.  Bill casually rubs Aldo’s belly; Aldo puts his arm around him in the movies.

One of the scene in the opening montage shows an alligator and duck kissing – not Aldo and Bill, but still, it underscores a reading of the two as romantic partners. Some scripts suggest that they are living together:: they say goodnight to other friends at the end of the evening and are seen together at breakfast; Aldo rearranges the furniture.

Their relationship is overtly romantic.

In “Feather Island,” Bill is despondent because the town’s redneck police officer has threatened to jail him if he sees Aldo again, so his duck friend Bev tries to cheer him up with a treasure mapy.  The "treasure"  turns out to be Aldo: it was all a hoax, orchestrated by Bev to give the two some time together.  Police disapproval, the threat of jail, and Bev’s straight gal-pal concern emphatically code Aldo and Bill as a same-sex couple.

In “Close Encounters of the Green Kind,” has the duck Wattle dress as an alligator to date an alligator girl. Bill and Aldo firmly support the relationship, specifically comparing it to their own.  They encourage Wattle to “come out” as a duck to his girlfriend.  She is not bothered by the idea of interspecies romance, but the relationship ends when her father finds out and tries to eat Wattle.

In “Oh Brother, What Art Thou?,” Bill is jealous of Aldo’s alligator-only men’s club, so he puts on an alligator disguise and crashes.  He is so witty and charming that the alligators all love him, and vote to make him a member.  Overwhelmed by their acceptance, Bill decides to “come out.”  But then his new friends try to kill him.  Aldo rushes to the rescue, and is banished from the club forever for daring to bring in a duck.

But the most emphatic episode is “Duck Lover,” in which Aldo and Bill are accidentally outed as a couple.  Bill is ecstatic: “we don’t have to hide anymore!”

The ducks, liberal, well-educated, and generally sophisticated, “tolerate” the relationship, except for a few heterosexist (or alligator-ist) jokes and behind-the-back put-downs.  Among the working-class, conservative alligators, however, they face slurs, jokes, and angry taunts about their “unnatural” relationship.  Some of the alligators even scheme to “straighten Aldo out” by getting rid of “his favorite little friend.”

Michael Bedard has also released calendars, posters, and original paintings about the same-sex alligator-duck romance.

See also: I Go Pogo: The Gay Possum of Okefenokee Swamp

Things Were Rotten: Dick Gautier in the 1960s

Dick Gautier, a fixture of 1970s comedy, found himself in the spotlight recently, when the Game Show Network aired a 1972 episode of The Match Game.  Guest Gautier had to fill in the blank n the question "Doris just got married and found out her husband was a __."  He said "fag."

Back in 1972, it wasn't homophobia that caused a ruckus; it was revealing the existence of gay people.

But there's no evidence that Gautier was more homophobic than other heterosexuals in the 1970s; it was only three years after Stonewall, one year after the first gay character on tv, and "things were rotten."

Besides, he had a lot to offer to gay kids in the 1960s and 1970s.

1. He was handsome, with dreamy hair and a dazzling smile.  Not to mention hunky (seen here in the musical South Pacific).

2. He had a number of roles in television or movies that minimized heterosexual interest and emphasized buddy-bonding, such as the robot secret agent Hymie on Get Smart (1966-68).

Or as Hal Walters, best friend/confidant/object of rescue of reluctant superhero Stanley Beamish (Steven Strumphill) on Mr. Terrific, which lasted for only 17 episodes in the spring of 1967.

3. He starred in the Mel Brooks series When Things Were Rotten, which lasted for only 13 episodes in the fall of 1975.  A parodic treatment of the legend, it offered a Robin Hood who would prefer hanging out in Sherwood Forest with his merry men to wooing Maid Marian.

Dick Gautier had over 500 guest shots in sitcoms, dramas,  and game shows,  voiced dozens of cartoons, composed popular songs, acted on Broadway, drew caricatures and wrote a dozen books, including a murder mystery, No Laughing Matter.  He can probably be forgiven for having the same prejudices of many people in his generation.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I just saw Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966).  I knew that it was written by gay playwright Edward Albee, that it starred gay ally Elizabeth Taylor, and that some people said that her character, Martha, could be read as a drag queen living incognito with sullen college professor George (Richard Burton).

It actually works better with Martha and George both as bisexual, or rather sexual opportunists, willing to have sex with whomever will further their goals.

They invite a newly hired professor and his wife over, ostensibly "for drinks" at 2:00 am -- a little late even for the Swinging Sixties -- but with the real goal of seeing which one they can destroy first.  They'll do whatever it takes -- seduction, dredging up traumatic memories, revealing secrets.  Apparently they make a regular game of it.

The couple arrive -- tall, hunky Nick (George Segal), and his mousy wife Honey (Sandy Davis).

First Martha seduces Honey.

Honey needs to use the bathroom, so Martha escorts her upstairs.  She takes an extraordinarily long time, and returns with a dazed expression.  Other people use the downstairs bathroom, and are back in a few minutes.  What exactly was she doing up there?  "Oh...um, Martha gave me a tour of the house."  Where's Martha?  "Oh...um, she's changing clothes."

It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what was going on up there.

Honey spends the rest of the evening drunk, barely aware of what's going on.

Meanwhile George starts on Nick.  He decides that the best tactic will be to convince Nick that he's gay, either through seduction or innuendo.  So he refers to Nick as handsome and muscular, puts his arm around him, puts his hand on Nick's knee, literally puts his hand on Nick's crotch.  Meanwhile he interrogates Nick about why they have no children -- could it be because he doesn't care for sex with women?  -- and why they married in the first place -- could it be because he needed a screen?

Later they go out into the back yard, and George tells a story about a beautiful, cherubic boy he knew 30 years ago, in the military -- obviously a confession of homoerotic desire meant to parallel George's real or pretend attraction to Nick.  After more implications that Nick has a "secret," they lie side by side, their faces so close that they are almost kissing, and confess that they don't care for their wives, they prefer the company of men.

But that's as far as it goes.  Nick goes back into the house, not quite convinced that he's gay.

The second half is tedious, overacted, and not nearly as much fun.  Seeing that George failed at his destruction attempt, Martha takes over -- seducing Nick in full view of his wife should do the trick!

Apparently this isn't in the rules.  Martha got to destroy Honey, so George should get Nick!  George is livid, and decides to change the game plan by destroying Martha.

They have a son, a beautiful boy, now a rowdy sixteen-year old.  Except he's fictional, make-believe, a folie-a-deux created out of their despair at not being able to have a child of their own (here Martha as drag queen makes sense).  So George "kills" the boy.  Martha is devastated.

Why didn't Nick and Honey just leave when things got weird?  Maybe on some level they were enjoying the game.  Maybe they wanted to be destroyed. They realize that they hate each other as they walk out into the daylight.

The game over, George and Martha go upstairs to bed.  

If it ended as Nick goes back into the house, it would be one of my favorite movies, a camp classic. As it is, you just get really tired of these people and their make-believe tragedies.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

British radio personality Arthur Dent is having a bad day. First he must lie down in the mud in his bathrobe to keep his house from being bulldozed, and then his friend Ford Prefect pops round to tell him that the Earth is going to be destroyed. Soon. In a few minutes.

 Still in a muddy bathrobe, he allows Ford to teleport them both to a passing Vogon cruiser and escape. The Vogons, who hate stowaways, torture them with bad poetry and then eject them into space. 

 But not to worry: in a staggering improbability, another spaceship happens to be zipping by at that precise moment, and they are rescued in the moment before they suffocate. 

 In another staggering improbability, their rescuers turn out to be Ford’s cousin, a two-headed hipster named Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Trillian, a ditzy blonde with a Ph.D. in astrophysics. In another staggering improbability, Arthur knows Trilian: he had been chatting her up at a party in Islington six months before when  she left with Zaphod. . . .

And so on. Douglas Adam’s anarchic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy began as a 1977 radio series, then became a 1981 television series (which I saw during the 1980s British invasion that also included The Prisoner, The Tomorrow People, and Monty Python's Flying Circus) and a five-part novel series (1979-92),. It sent Ford and Arthur to a restaurant at the end of the universe, a prehistoric Earth settled by advertising executives, an Earth that is really a giant computer manned by rats, and many more wildly improbable worlds. 

In the radio/tv series and the first two books, the two are inseparable companions. Never in the course of their adventures do they suggest that they might find amenable planets and part company, nor do they ever exhibit a romantic interest in anyone else. 

 In later books, Arthur becomes increasingly insistent about heterosexual practice -- he even goes at it with a girlfriend while floating in midair -- and he grows to despise Ford, parting company with him as often as feasible. But Ford (on television the androgynous, purple-eyed Elf David Dixon, Ariel in BBC’s The Tempest) does not engage in heterosexual practice at all.  

And his attachment to Arthur (Simon Jones), his insistence that they remain together, never seems to diminish. Indeed, he seems to engineer hassles just so Arthur will have to depend upon his intergalactic expertise. And one must wonder how the whole chain of events began in the first place: 

Before the Vogons arrived, Ford spent fifteen years on Earth, researching an entry for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a sort of hip interplanetary encyclopedia (his entry consisted of two words: “Mostly harmless”) . No doubt he acquired many friends, associates, and lovers. One morning he discovered that the Earth would be destroyed. He then devoted valuable escape time to seeking out Arthur, explaining the situation as best he could, and bringing him along. Why did he choose Arthur? Why not a famous physicist, or another friend, or some girl from Chelmsford? 

 For that matter, why anyone at all? Why not transport himself directly onto the nearby Vogon cruiser, and escape? No explanation is ever given, but for the gay teenagers of the 1980s, a simple one came to mind: Ford is in love with him.