Swithin wrote: ↑March 28th, 2024, 10:07 am
Hibi wrote: ↑March 28th, 2024, 9:04 am
Swithin wrote: ↑March 28th, 2024, 3:44 am
As an older gay man, I use the word "queer" in the way that African Americans may use the "N" word. I'm on the alumni committee of my university and also work with young actors and find the word "queer" is used by younger men almost as much as they use the word "gay." I don't think straight people would be comfortable using it.
I don't think the word "pansy" is used anymore. The gay lyricist Lorenz Hart used it in one of his best songs, ca. 1930:
"Ten cents a dance, pansies and rough guys, tough guys who tear my gown..."
"Sometimes I think, I found my hero, but it's a queer romance..."
I noticed in Love Me Or Leave Me, they changed pansies to dandies in the lyric.
Larry Hart's sophisticated lyrics have often been tampered with. The original (and my favorite) version of "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" was sung by Vivienne Segal in the original Broadway production of
Pal Joey. The song includes these lines:
Until I could sleep where I shouldn’t sleep;
And worship the trousers that cling to him;
Horizontally speaking he’s at his best;
Vexed again, perplexed again, thank God I can be oversexed again.
Ella Fitzgerald's recording cuts the top one but retains the other three. The film version, sung (dubbed) by Rita Hayworth, cuts them all.
Dandy was another euphemism for gay, as was fop. Both were/are more centered on style and dress than sexual orientation, but to audiences of the day, the implication would be clear.
Re: Hart's lyrics, many of them never would get past the radio censors of the day, so to get airplay (or on film) they had to be "adjusted." Same with Cole Porter's songs (like the cocaine reference in I Get a Kick Out of You).
Even R&H lyrics had to be changed every now and then. For example, the Soliloquy from
Carousel had to be changed to remove the word b****** from the stage version's original lyric (flabby-faced, pot-bellied, baggy-eyed b****** became bully instead). The "clean" versions also stop short in the same song later on when Billy utters a "what the hell" - usually becomes a "what the -" in a clean version.
Edit: I had to LOL at this. Even the board's autocensor is triggered by R&H lyrics. Never knew until now...