The Children's Hour and Advise and Consent

1961 and 1962 were not, it would seem, a good time for the gays.

It was, however, a groundbreaking two years in representation of gays and lesbians in Hollywood. It saw the premiere of The Children’s Hour in 1961 and Advise and Consent in 1962, which benefited enormously from the repeal of the Hayes Code, which banned representation of homosexual content in the movies. Advise and Consent notably features the first gay bar in American movies after WWII.

They’re both phenomenally depressing, in very similar ways. In , Shirley McLaine and Audrey Hepburn play schoolteachers who become the targets of a heinous little girl’s rumors that they’re lesbians. The women lose their school, their reputations, and a court case. Audrey Hepburn’s fiance leaves her out of suspicion, but she manages to hang on to her self-respect, because she knows they’ve been falsely accused. Not so for McLaine, who tearfully declares her love for Audrey Hepburn, then promptly hangs herself.

Shirley McClaine talks about the process of making the movie in the Celluloid Closet, and regrets the way her character turned out:



Likewise, Advise and Consent features a senator who’s being blackmailed over a gay encounter he had in the military. He goes to a gay bar, runs into an old lover, and, horrified at both what he witnesses in the bar and the threat of his own exposure, he slits his own throat.

In both movies, homophobia destroys two people, and the homosexuals become unfortunate objects of pity who kill themselves out of disgust. On some level, this is a lack of storytelling courage or imagination—what would happen to these people if they didn’t kill themselves? Where would the movie possibly go? The senator in Advise and Consent meets gay men who are pimps and blackmailers; there are no other lesbians in The Children’s Hour. All McLaine’s character has is Audrey Hepburn, who will never return her feelings—where is the story supposed to go from there? The movies offer pity for the unwilling homosexuals, who, after all, can’t help but hate themselves. It’s depressing. The movies are interesting historical documents, and Advise and Consent is pretty well-made, but they so accurately capture a particular way of thinking that they’re hard to watch.