The word 'gay' in the film referenced homosexuals...

You are (1) wrong and you are (2) wrong again.

"Thank you, thank you--you're most kind. In fact you're every kind."

You are making a small amount of progress. First we know that the movie audiences of the day didn't think it was a gay joke and I'm sure they laughed at it for obvious reasons. There is inherent humor in a man dressing like a woman, see e.g. Milton Berle. Even if Grant had said nothing, the point of the joke would have remained. He put on womens apparel. The next question is why would Cary Grant have any inclination to make a 'gay joke' knowing that the way he did the scene was completely comprehensible by the audiences of the day without any 'homosexual' subtext. We know that Grant wasn't gay himself. We know that the word 'gay' was in frequent, general use in its traditional sense. So for him to use the word in its traditional sense would be perfectly normal and unsurprising. Conclusion: There is absolutely no reason to believe that the use of the word 'gay' by him meant anything else other than 'gay' in its traditional sense.

'Gay' in the traditional sense means "full of or showing high-spirited merriment" The joke is that Grant has put on womens' clothing which is a time honored joke employed by many male comedians. 'Gay' in this instance means that he has taken on the high-spirited attributes of a woman. It doesn't mean that he is a homosexual. The joke makes perfect sense without any homosexual inference. We know this because the audiences of the day didn't understand it to be a joke about homosexuals since the word 'gay' to means homosexuals was not in general use. The joke works. I fail to understand why you can't get it. What do you think the audiences of the day were thinking when they laughed at the joke?

So, if I understand your response, you say my quote probably isn't authentic even though you haven't checked, which would have been quite easy to do, and have no evidence to the contrary except your baseless questioning of its validity structurally as a song lyric even though I am quoting only a few lines, again, something it would have been very easy for you to check before insulting me with the terseness and baselessness of your dismissal, and besides, if it does turn out to be authentic, you will maintain that it doesn't mean what it clearly does mean, plus you bring up something totally irrelevant that I never said and use that as evidence contrary to my point.

Here's the complete original lyric, which can be found in more than one published compendium of Cole Porter lyrics and is included when the show for which it was written, Let's Face It, is performed, including on the occasion of the authentic historical recreation presented at the New York Historical Society in 2001. Note the rhymes. The alleged "gayness" of the bull (as if I have to explain this) is offered as the reason his cow companions have never produced calves.

No response you can possibly make to this post can disprove that, three years after Bringing Up Baby, Cole Porter used the word "gay" in the modern sense of "disinterested in sexual intercourse with the opposite sex (and all that implies)." Porter's use of the word elsewhere (including elsewhere in this same song) to mean "festive" doesn't alter its inarguable meaning in this context. This is not something that is subject to your delusional claims to the contrary.

FARMING (from the Broadway musical Let's Face It)

Here's a bit of news that's quite a shocker
Proving Mother Nature still has charm,
Quoting Mr. Cholly Knickerbocker,
"Get in the swim and buy a farm."
Acres of alfalfa, fields of clover
Suddenly enchant our top "Who's Who,"
So the moment all this row is over
What say if we go hayseed too?
For

Farming, that's the fashion,
Farming, that's the passion
Of our great celebrities of today.
Kit Cornell is shellin' peas,
Lady Mendl's climbin' trees,
Dear Mae West is at her best in the hay,
Stomping through the thickets,
Romping with the crickets,
Make's 'em feel more glamorous and more gay,
They tell me cows who are feeling milky
All give cream when they're milked by Wilkie,
Farming is so charming they all say.

Farming, that's the fashion,
Farming, that's the passion
Of our great celebrities of today.
Monty Woolley, so I heard,
Has boll weevils in his beard,
Michael Strange has got the mange, will it stay?
Mussing up the clover,
Cussing when it's over,
Makes 'em feel more glamorous and more gay.
The natives think it's utterly utter
When Margie Hart start churning her butter,
Farming is so charming, they all say.

Farming, that's the fashion,
Farming, that's the passion
Of our great celebrities of today.
Fannie Hurst is haulin' logs,
Fannie Brice is feedin' hogs,
Garbo-peep has led her sheep all astray,
Singing while their rakin',
Bringing home the bacon,
Makes 'em feel more glamorous and more gay.
Miss Elsa Maxwell, so the folks tattle,
Got well-goosed while de-horning her cattle,
Farming is so charming, they all say.

Farming, that's the fashion,
Farming, that's the passion
Of our great celebrities of today.
Don't inquire of Georgie Raft
Why his cow has never calfed,
Georgie's bull is beautiful, but he's gay!
Seeing spring a-coming,
Being minus plumbing,
Make 'em feel informal and degage.
When Cliff Odets found a new tomater
He ploughed under the Group Theyater,
Farming is so charming, they all say.

Farming, that's the fashion,
Farming, that's the passion
Of our great celebrites of today.
Steinbeck's growing Grapes of Wrath,
Guy Lombardo, rumor hath,
Toots his horn and all the corn starts to sway,
Racing like the dickens,
Chasing after chickens,
Makes 'em feel more glamorous and more gay,
Liz Whitney has, on her bin of manure, a
Clip designed by the Duke of Verdura,
Farming is so charming, they all say.



“Maybe we're not supposed to sleep so well"

I came across this amusing stream while looking up Bringing up Baby. I am amazed at how much time, tact and patience some posters had in trying to provide fact-based information to you, Lysandra. I also found the research on the derivation of the term 'gay' to be quite interesting.

In turn you were rude, obstinate and condescending. Frankly, I don't know why anyone would try to debate with someone as uncivil and obtuse as yourself.

And now I'm sure you can dismiss me as a first time poster, with an ax to grind. Rest assured I have better things to do than respond to an criticisms you direct at me.

I asked my great uncle, who is gay at the ripe old age of 86 about this quandry, and he told me this: When he came out in the gay community sometime in 1940, he said the word gay carried homosexual connotations and that a lot of people, even those not participating in alternative lifestyles, knew about its dual meaning. I admit he is just a senile old man, but he swears that he had heard gay with its alternative meaning before 1940. When he saw the movie the first time he didn't remember how he interpreted that line. However, upon further veiwings, it is his belief that Mr. Grant was not simply referring to how hapy he was...
I know my great uncle does not hold the authority of wikipedia or even that foul mouthed poster who seems to have nothing better to do but post 100's of replies here, but he deffinately has been in the game longer than most of you (I am assuming), and since he is the closest we have to an eyewitness, I suggest we respect this and move on with our lives! However, if any of you were members of the gay community rior to 1940, I welcome you to prove me wrong.

Now, lets gang up on James Dean or Errol Flynn. I heard one of them might be gay...

Check it out:

"Grant was the first actor to use the word "gay" (meaning homosexual) on screen, in an ad-lib during a take for Bringing Up Baby (1938), that was kept in the film. Its meaning was not fully grasped by censors and so it slipped by the Hays code. In the scene Grant appears in a pink dressing gown, telling an incredulous observer, "Because I just went gay, all of the sudden!" The script initially had Grant saying, "I suppose you think it's odd, my wearing this. I realise it looks odd. I don't usually ... I mean, I don't own one of these." However Grant ad-libbed with a line of his own."

Now I know you like the idea of your Cary Grant having nothing to do with homosexuality. And I know that you're convinced most people wouldn't understand "gay" in this sense. But that is the extent of Grant's dry wit. Come on. Give it a rest now.

I don't want to keep feeding a double-thread, so I'll re-post this here, and then maybe we can agree to continue future discussion only on the other, similar posting, just since it's shorter.

****************************************************

Look - I can tell from your previous posts that I'm not going to convince you. But just to play a little longer . . .

Why is it so hard to understand or believe that a word can be used two ways at once? That it can have a traditional or dominant meaning AND a subcultural one at the same time? A current example would be the word 'sick.' To most of us, 'sick' means either physically ill or perverted. To certain teen groups, skater cultures, extreme sports communities, 'sick' means amazing, as in "That jump was sick." It's a positive thing.

I will concede that 'fairy' was a word much more commonly known to reference homosexuals in the 30's, but neither you nor I know exactly how audiences read this joke, or how many of them might have gotten the gay subtext. And as has been pointed out in other threads, the fast pace of dialogue and action mean that not everyone was going to get every joke in the film anyway, and a lot of sexual subtext slipped by the censors. Also - many filmmakers and actors put 'in-jokes' into their films for themselves, and not necessarily for the general audience. This could be an example.

As for drag balls being in newspapers, to quote Chauncey (p. 292):

"As the New York Herald Tribune reported in its account of a 1934 Greenwich Village ball: . . . 'Men danced with women in men's clothes. Women danced with men in women's clothes. And strange androgynous couples careened about the floor oblivious to the workings of society and nature.' "

And that's just the one quote I could pull up quickly as I'm on my way to being late for class. You say "Gay wasn't being used as slang for homosexual in the 1930s" but you obviously haven't looked at the reference I use to argue that it was.

No, it's definetly gay as in homosexual. It was an ad lib that probably wouldn't haven't gotten past censors if it had been in the script. And if there was any confusion as to it's meaning, his next line, "I'm just sitting in the middle of 42nd Street waiting for a bus" clarifies the joke. It refers to a pre-Christopher Street era, which was New York's most prominent gay cruising ground (From Queering the (New) Deal by David Lugowski, page 21). Gay had the meaning of homosexual I think since 1929, where it first had that connotation in a Noel Coward poem (I could be wrong).