The Life of Riley: Bullying Boys into Girl-Craziness

Before World War II, teenage boys were expected to be concerned with the gang, or with one special pal, and think of girls as "poison."  Those boys who expressed an interest in girls prior to graduating from high school were ridiculed by their peers as pansies and Percies, evaluated by school psychologists, and subjected to tense heart-to-heart talks with their parents.

But after the War, the image of the adolescent masculinity shifted from "woman-hating" to "girl-crazy," and some of the long-running radio teenagers who had previously been concerned solely with paper routes and bad report cards suddenly began casting longing glances at their female schoolmates.  You can find the exact date: Chester Riley’s son Junior (Scotty Beckett) on  Life of Riley in January 1948; The Great Gildersleeve’s wisecracking nephew Leroy (Walter Tetley) in March 1949; and Ozzie and Harriet’s eldest son David Nelson in November 1951

Left and below: in 1948, MGM arranged for  Scotty Beckett (later Corky of Gasoline Alley) and his friend Roddy McDowall to go on a "see, they're not gay!" double date with Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Powell, but they seem to have ended up cuddling with each other.

The teenage boy had to be bullied, cajoled, and if necessary forced into girl-craziness; it could not be taken for granted.

In the January 1948 episode of The Life of Riley, for instance, blustering working-class family man  Chester (William Bendix) is horrified to discover that his fifteen-year old son, Junior, plans to bring a boy to the big New Year’s Eve dance.

He tries to explain about “the birds and bees,” sexual difference, but Junior insists that he already knows about “all that jazz.”

So Chester puts his foot down: there are “boy people” and “girl people,” he argues, and “boy people” should only take “girl people” to dances.  “Don’t you like girls?” he asks in a timid, hesitant voice, afraid of the possible answer.

When Junior admits that he likes girls “sometimes,” Chester takes charge, forcing the boy to break his same-sex date and telephone the boss’s daughter.  She is noncommital, so Chester forces him to call the offspring of another VIP (resulting, of course, in two dates for the dance, both impossible to break).  He is as hysterical in his insistence that Junior should like girls as fathers of the pre-War generation were hysterical in their insistence that their teenage sons should not.

Chester continued trying to "encourage" his son into girl-craziness when the show moved onto television, and Scotty Beckett was replaced by Lanny Reese (above) and even the obviously-grown up Wesley Morgan (left).

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.