Once Again, the Usage of the Word 'Gay'
I fail to understand the controversy surrounding Grant's usage of this word. The word "gay" HAS in fact been used to imply homosexuality since the turn of the century. This is a quote directly from dictionary.com:
"In addition to its original and continuing senses of “merry, lively” and “bright or showy,” gay has had various senses dealing with sexual conduct since the 17th century. A gay woman was a prostitute, a gay man a womanizer, a gay house a brothel. This sexual world included homosexuals too, and gay as an adjective meaning “homosexual” goes back at least to the early 1900s. After World War II, as social attitudes toward sexuality began to change, gay was applied openly by homosexuals to themselves, first as an adjective and later as a noun. Today, the noun often designates only a male homosexual: gays and lesbians. The word has ceased to be slang and is not used disparagingly. Homosexual as a noun is sometimes used only in reference to a male."
Although wikipedia may have questionable accuracy at times, it also references Bringing Up Baby as one of the first films to use the word in this context. (Here is the address, in case you are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bringing_Up_Baby#Usage_of_the_Word_.22Gay.22)
After reading previous discussions on this topic, I have no doubt that I will be thoroughly flamed for posting this, however, it seems clear to me based on the way the joke was stated, its circumstances, and the history of the word, exactly what was being implied. It's a fairly irrelevant discussion; the movie is extremely enjoyable without an added level of controversy.