Monday, April 15, 2013

Lesbian Code

While I spend every free moment today obsessing over what exactly happened and how to exactly to write about last night’s big “Lost Girl” season finale (p.s. Don’t worry, Syfy viewers, you’ll get your show in a week), I thought it might be fun to flash back to a time when same-sex attraction among women wasn’t allowed to be shown on the big screen (and before small screens were in nearly every home yet). During the Production Code era starting in 1934, homosexuality was among the many banned themes from our motion pictures. The Hays code would not allow anything that would supposedly “lower the moral standards of those who see it.” That included showing nudity, profanity, men and women in bed together, sexual relationships between the races, ridicule of the clergy, “lustful kissing” and the sexual perversion of us gays. Of course, sneaky types still managed to slip The Gay onto the screen. But it had to be in the form of a public service film showing the evils of our ways. Like the 1938 film “Sex Madness” which told all about the horrors of syphilis. It managed to slip in warnings about premarital sex and lesbianism as a bonus. Though, I don’t know. Seeing Betty hit on Peggy while talking about going to see a burlesque show together is kinda hilariously hot. Girl’s just trying to get a date. Ain’t no shame in that game.

5 comments:

the_deuceCuatro said...

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Anonymous said...

Say Dorothy, stay over at my place tonight, wontcha?? Fantastic clip, it reminded me of my homo film class in college (suuuch a depressing class btw).

Anonymous said...

It looked like the "man" lesbian was really more into the other ones shirt than into her. Ridiculous. The religious right would still like to show this film.

Unknown said...

That was freaking hilarious. Where do you find this stuff?!

I think the 'reticent' lady was just playing hard to get. She knew exactly what she was getting into. LOL.

Sally said...

That was the clumsiest grope I've seen since Sandy and Danny in Grease! Although on a serious note, people actually lived in this environment. Feeling lucky to be living in this current era.