Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company From the Inside Out (12 page)

The growth of reception studies in academic circles has much bearing on discussion of “gay spectatorship.” Often denied the ability 50

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to openly produce texts dealing with homosexuality (through both the law and lack of economic means), the emergent gay and lesbian culture often relied on its ability to appropriate texts from the dominant heterosexual hegemony. Hence, a sense of homosexual community and identity can be traced in part to a strong emphasis on reading—specifically on “poaching” straight texts. From Bette Davis movies to
art nouveau
to Chet Baker, from James Dean to Wonder Woman, gay male and lesbian communities often coalesced around
re
-reading certain parts of popular culture. As de Certeau points out, these reading strategies do not supplant the dominant ideal subject position structured within the texts. Rather, they function as a series of “advances and retreats, tactics and games played with the text,” a cultural bricolage. With this in mind, this chapter in no way suggests that the following “gay” readings of Disney are what is “really” going on. Rather, they analyze a different viewpoint, having no more—but importantly,
no less
—authority than other methods of reading. The possibilities opened by concrete individuals doing non-straight readings of Disneyana suggest there is no single definitive reading, challenging the privilege usually given to the “more obvious” heterosexual subject position. As Alexander Doty notes in
Making Things Perfectly Queer,
“I’ve got news for straight culture: your readings of texts are usually ‘alternative’ ones for me, and they often seem like desperate attempts to deny the queerness that is so clearly a part of mass culture.”10

Oftentimes, a reader’s “play” with the text means dissociating certain elements from the whole of the text, thus making it easier to rework. Due to the relative lack of texts explicitly dealing with homosexuality, enjoying a text from a lesbian or gay viewpoint often requires selecting out the scene, image or section from the text that suits the individual’s needs and discarding the rest (i.e., ignoring the portion of the text that won’t “fit” a “lesbian/gay reading”). In the documentary film based on
The Celluloid Closet
(1995), author Susie Bright describes sitting through entire movies just to see “that one moment”—such as Joan Crawford descending a staircase in pants and a man’s black shirt in
Johnny Guitar
(1954). I would argue that many homosexuals enjoy (and have enjoyed) the output from the Walt Disney Company in much the same manner, taking portions and appreciating how certain narrative motifs, character types or stylistic choices somehow “speak to”

their experience. As Jenkins puts it, media fans “fragment texts and re-

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assemble the broken shards according to their own blueprints, sal-vaging bits and pieces of the found material in making sense of their own social experience.”11

In theorizing readership, de Certeau makes a distinction between those who actually produce texts and those who receive them: “Writing accumulates, stocks up, resists time by the establishment of a place and multiplies its production through the expansionism of reproduction. Reading takes no measures against the erosion of time (one forgets oneself
and
also forgets), it does not keep what it acquires, or it does so poorly.”12 Yet, de Certeau bases his claim upon a notion that readers are isolated, and the play is usually for the individual’s own minor enjoyment. Jenkins disagrees with this when he writes: “Fan reading . . . is a social process through which individual interpretations are shaped and reinforced through ongoing discussions with other readers.”13 This approach is especially true for gay culture, which has often been forged through sharing a unique appreciation of, for example, Judy Garland or classical opera. Through learning how to read “as a homosexual,” individuals gain access to a community that is often hard to find and maintain.

Consequently, such “textual poaching” has often helped define an individual’s sexual identity.14 Many writers have described this as a

“gay sensibility,” which Jack Babuscio defines as

a creative energy reflecting a consciousness that is different from the mainstream; a heightened awareness of certain human complications of feeling that spring from the fact of social oppression; in short, a perception of the world which is colored, shaped, directed and defined by the fact of one’s gayness.15

Such a reading strategy is honed and sharpened (if not learned
en
toto
) through interaction with other self-identified homosexuals. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the association of “gay”

with homosexuality was itself developed and passed on to others.

Learning a “gay sensibility” further constructs an internalized notion of what it means to be “lesbian” or “gay.” Reading through a “gay sensibility” may resist the hegemonic heterosexual imperative that dominates Western popular culture, but such reading stays within certain boundaries, limited by certain conceptions of what it means to be “homosexual.”

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Terms such as “homosexual,” “lesbian” and “gay” are not stable and, over time, have meant different things to different individuals.

Historical research suggests that men and women now recognized as homosexual understood their sexuality differently in their own time. In fact, defining one’s self according to sexual orientation was not yet totally commonplace by the time Walt Disney began producing cartoons.

Many still considered “acts of sodomy” simply as sinful actions and not indications of a personality type. The term “homosexuality” itself was only beginning to make its way out of the medical texts and into the larger public consciousness. Historian George Chauncey points out that in urban America at the beginning of the twentieth century, men who had sex with other men did not consider themselves all part of one category.16 One group self-identified as “fairies,” effeminate men who tended to take the “submissive” role in sex (although not always). On the other hand, many men self-identified as “queers,” more conventionally masculine men who nonetheless did not consider themselves

“normal” because of their sexual object choice (showing that this term has also changed meaning over time). There was even a third category—the “normal” men, or “trade,” who engaged in sex with other men but did not self-identify as somehow outside the hegemonic norm because they maintained the dominant penetrative role in sex. They felt this way because social conventions at that time only associated “homosexuality” with those who “played the woman’s part”; as long as an individual remained in the conventionally masculine role, he was still

“normal.” Similarly, “lesbianism” was mainly associated with inverting the gender roles—i.e., manly or “butch” women. Conventionally feminine women at this point were not pictured as “lesbian,” even if they had relationships with other women. As Lillian Faderman has pointed out, many “proper” women lived together, formed primary bonds and shared living quarters with other women at the beginning of the century without being considered lesbian or, even more importantly,
considering themselves lesbian.
17 Further, while certain urban areas had thriv-ing homosexual subcultures, many living in small towns or rural areas had no idea that there were others “like them” and thus had to negotiate their own definitions of their sexual desires.

Such historiographic details must be taken into account when discussing “gay” or “lesbian” spectators from past decades. The terms used to describe same-sex relations during the early twentieth century were in various stages of contestation and coalescence. Individuals who

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appreciated Disney outside of the hegemonic norm probably differed both in how they understood their sexuality and in their conception of what made Disney’s films so interesting to them. Consequently, it might be more accurate to consider such early readings under the more encompassing concept of “queer” (in the ’90s sense) rather than explicitly

“homosexual.”

Armed with historical research on reading strategies by homosexual (or nascent homosexual) men and women, this chapter will explore possible methods of their enjoying Disneyana. Through close textual analyses of certain films and TV series, the chapter will discuss a variety of recurrent narrative patterns, characters and visual iconography in the Disney canon that might explain how Disney might have attracted (and might still attract) gay men and lesbians. As the chapter moves through the years, the analyses slide gradually from an amorphous “queer” viewpoint to a more definite “lesbian” or “gay” reading strategy, reflecting the growth of more agreed-upon definitions of these terms both from medical, legal and political discourses as well as from the emergent homosexual communities themselves.

“MICKEY-MOUSE” THEORY: FORSTER AND

EISENSTEIN ON DISNEY

From the beginnings of Walt Disney’s career, there was ample evidence that various audience members were watching and enjoying his films in very different ways. Before the age of television, animation was considered entertainment for adults as well as for children. Yet, even then there was a perception that cartoon shorts held a special attraction for young audiences. The Disney organization fostered this relationship with children through the merchandising of Mickey Mouse dolls, games, children’s books, etc. Also, in the early 1930s, long before the premiere of the television series of the same name, the studio sanctioned the formation of various local “Mickey Mouse Clubs.” The clubs were run by local exhibitors who would hold “meetings” at Saturday matinees that, of course, centered around the screening of the latest Mickey Mouse cartoon.18

Yet, at the same time that children were enjoying Mickey’s adventures, a sizable contingent of the artistic elite took to Disney’s films as well. Various art journals devoted space to analyzing the style of 54

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Disney’s animators.19 In 1933,
Time
reported in its “Art” section that Manhattan’s Kennedy Galleries were showing an exhibition of Mickey Mouse sketches and cels. In 1938, the Walt Disney studio signed a contract with Courvoisier Galleries, an exclusive San Francisco fine arts gallery, to sell original Disney art. By 1940, the studio’s production of
Fantasia
virtually demanded a “high culture” reading strategy. In many of the major newspapers, the film was reviewed both in the film section and the music section. One
New York Times
article considered
Fantasia
not a radical departure for the studio but only the next logical step in Disney’s artistic evolution, pointing out that
Steamboat Willie
had been

“preserved for posterity in the archives of the Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art.”20

The presence of these two widely different groups exemplifies the diverse reception of Disney texts. Yet, the gallery owners and cultural critics who admired Disney also provide an entrance into discussing how various homosexual individuals during the time might have appreciated Disney. Amongst the artistic elite that praised Disney were homosexuals. For the London
Spectator
in 1934, author E. M. Forster analyzed why Mickey Mouse was worshipped by the British Film Society.21 Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, also a huge fan of the Disney studio, made certain to visit Walt and his operation when he toured America in the early 1930s.22 Neither Eisenstein nor Forster was writing from an explicitly homosexual standpoint (neither was totally “open”

about his same-sex desires). As previously noted, it is not certain that their conception of their sexual identity would match current definitions of homosexuality, or even each other’s. Yet, both took time to analyze the appeal of Disney’s work, and both refer to the libidinous or the sensuous in their writings. Consequently, examining their comments with an awareness of their homosexuality can help shed light on how lesbians and gay men could have come to appreciate and enjoy Disney’s films during the ’30s and ’40s.

Forster’s attempt to discuss the appeal of Mickey favors the early, pre-1931 persona: “[Mickey] is never sentimental, indeed there is a scandalous element in him which I find most restful.”23 Although

“scandalous” could mean a number of possibilities (defiance of authority, a violent nature, etc.), the ties between “scandal” and sexuality were made more explicit in an even earlier discussion from 1928, in which Forster compared Mickey to the Egyptian god Bes, a playful part-lion demon, worshipped for his excessive indulgences in music, sex and

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childbirth.24 It seems that Forster enjoyed the pervasive sensuality of the early Mickeys. Forster’s interest in the anarchic impulses of fantasy are clearly expressed in an entire chapter devoted to fantasy in his
Aspects of the Novel.
He describes the power of fantasy as “the stuff of daily life . . . tugged and strained in various directions, the earth . . . given little tilts mischievous or pensive.”25 Forster also compares fantasy to the free-for-all of a carnival sideshow: “Some readers pay with delight, it is only for the sideshows that they entered the exhibition, and it is only to them I can now speak.”26

Forster’s linking Mickey Mouse to free-floating meaning and the carnivalesque might explain how some communities of gay men and lesbians read and used Mickey Mouse. As the examples from the opening of this chapter indicate, the name of Disney’s first cartoon star had become some sort of slang or code term in at least some circles of the homosexual subculture. Yet, what did it mean exactly, and how did the use of the phrase “Mickey Mouse” in ’30s gay culture reflect a gay reading of the character Mickey Mouse?

The use of “Mickey Mouse” as a descriptive phrase is not unique to

’30s gay culture. Over the years, the term has become common in American vernacular.
Webster’s New Collegiate
Dictionary defines the term as