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 The movies are interesting historical documents, and Advise and Consent is pretty well-made, but they so accurately capture a particular way of thinking that they’re hard to watch.

Some Like it Hot (1959)

If you’ve never seen Some Like it Hot, you should go do that. I’ll wait.

If you still haven’t seen it, Some Like it Hot is a classic cross-dressing comedy. Though it's not technically a gay movie, there's a male/male relationship, and lots of blurring of gender boundaries, with a lack of gay panic that would be refreshing today, let alone in 1959.

Two down on their luck jazz musicians witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and go on the run, but can only find work in an all-girl’s orchestra, so they dress up as Daphne and Josephine and go to Miami. Joe/Josephine (Tony Curtis) sets about trying to seduce Marilyn Monroe, and Jerry/Dapne (Jack Lemmon) finds himself dating an elderly playboy millionaire. As the charade goes on, the Jack Lemmon becomes more absorbed in his Daphne persona, and the beta relationship progresses until gender becomes somewhat beside the point:

Jerry: Have I got things to tell you!
Joe: What happened?
Jerry: I'm engaged.
Joe: Congratulations. Who's the lucky girl?
Jerry: I am!
Joe: WHAT?!
Jerry: Osgood proposed to me! We're planning a June wedding.
Joe: What are you talking about? You can't marry Osgood.
Jerry: Why, you think he's too old for me?
Joe: Jerry, you can't be serious.
Jerry: Why not? He keeps marrying girls all the time.
Joe: But, you're not a girl! You're a guy, and, why would a guy wanna marry a guy?
Jerry: For security! Look, I know there's a problem, Joe.
Joe: I'll say there is.
Jerry: His mother - we need her approval, but I'm not worried because I don't smoke.
Joe: Jerry. There's another problem, like what are you gonna do on your honeymoon?
Jerry: We've been discussing that. He wants to go to the Riviera but I'm kinda leaning toward Niagra Falls.
Joe: My God.
Jerry: I don't expect it to last Joe. I'll tell him when the time's right.
Joe: Like when?
Jerry: Like right after the ceremony. Then we get a quick annulment, he makes a nice little settlement on me and I keep getting those alimony checks every month.
Joe: Jerry listen to me there are laws, conventions. It's just not been done.
Jerry: Joe this may be my last chance to marry a millionaire.
Joe: Oh, Jerry — Jerry, will you take my advice? Forget about the whole thing, will ya? Just keep telling yourself: you're a boy, you're a boy.
Jerry: I'm a boy.
Joe: That's the boy.
Jerry: I'm a boy. I'm a boy. I wish I were dead. I'm a boy. Boy, oh boy, am I a boy. Now, what am I gonna do about my engagement present?
Joe: What engagement present?
Jerry: Osgood gave me a bracelet.
Joe: [examining it] Hey, these are real diamonds!
Jerry: Of course they're real! What do you think? My fiance is a bum?

Director Billy Wilder couldn’t figure out how to end the film, so the actor improvised the final line as a placeholder until someone could write something better:



As if that's not enough, it was rated C for Condemned by the Catholic Decency League, and was banned in Kansas City. So you know they did something right.