Before the establishment of the Hollywood Production Code in the 1930s, filmmakers deployed gender and sexuality stereotypes for glamour, humor, and drama alike.
With Pride month in full swing, it’s an ideal moment to look at historical queer representation, particularly in the early days of Hollywood cinema. The first few decades of the twentieth century were not only an active time for a growing medium, but also one in which crises of confidence, economy, masculinity, and culture changed how filmmakers presented queer characters and how (or if) audiences received them. Film professor David Lugowski summed up queer representation in early film neatly, writing that “[a]s cinema learned to talk, so did it also ‘speak’ about the gender roles so crucial to Hollywood film.”
Cinema moved from silent film into “talkies” in the late 1920s, with Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer typically credited as the first feature to integrate sound and dialogue (it may, however, be a more complicated exercise to locate a true “first”). The late twenties also saw the onset in America of the Great Depression, and, at least as far as entertainment is concerned, many scholars link displays of sexuality and queerness in films in the late 1920s and early 1930s to a larger crisis in masculinity. Economic collapse, the story goes, leads to a broader crisis of identity and gender role. “In short,” Lugowski writes, “men found their gender status, linked to notions of ‘work’ and ‘value’ promulgated by capitalist structures and ideologies, in jeopardy.”
As film became more pervasive and culturally integrated under these circumstances, stereotypes started to be read as evidence that gender performance was equivalent to sexual orientation. Basic types in Hollywood films were clear. For men, queer types were usually either the “dithering, asexual ‘sissy,’” writes Lugowski, or “the more outrageous ‘pansy,’ an extremely effeminate boulevardier type sporting lipstick, rouge, a trim mustache and hairstyle, and an equally trim suit, incomplete without a boutonniere.” Lesbian representation favored masculine drag—tailored suits, hair cut short or slicked back, and sometimes male-coded accessories like a monocle or a cigar. “Objections arose,” Lugowski explains, “because she seemed to usurp male privilege; perhaps the pansy seemed to give it up.”
Prior to the 1930s, these stereotypes appear to have been commonly understood and deployed, for glamour, humor, and drama alike. Audiences may have responded variably—with titillation, acceptance, or shock, depending on the individual—but no one could say the film industry wasn’t inclusive of different relationship story arcs.
In a Code world, no film should risk lowering an audience’s moral standards nor should evil or immorality be presented except as a cautionary tale.
In Pandora’s Box (1929) Louise Brooks wooed a father and son as well as a countess in a tuxedo. Greta Garbo portrayed the title character Queen Christina in a 1933 film about the seventeenth-century Swedish monarch, widely assumed to have been queer. Garbo, along with Marlene Dietrich and other leading ladies such as Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, and Barbara Stanwyck, were members of a private professional group of Hollywood women—all of them quietly bisexual or lesbian—known as the “Sewing Circle.” Palmy Days (1931) features not only a proud flower-wearing “pansy” character, but drag, donuts, and a sexy Busby Berkeley dance number.
These portrayals took on new weight and context with the passage of the Hollywood Production Code. The Code, a set of self-regulatory guidelines applied to film production, was begrudgingly accepted by film execs, writes Steven Vaughn. That industry figures would accept content restrictions seems strange, until you consider that it was a hold-your-nose solution preferable to either intrusive government regulation or control by investment banks or funders, who preferred their investments be as stable as possible. The Production Code of 1930 therefore came into being, heavily influenced by religious collaborators and proclaiming two linked truths: “Motion pictures are very important as Art,” and “The motion picture has special Moral obligations.” In a Code world, no film should risk lowering an audience’s moral standards nor should evil or immorality be presented except as a cautionary tale.
The Production Code embraced a list of “don’ts” and “be carefuls.” On the “don’ts” list, films were to eliminate blasphemy and profanity, depictions of drug use, miscegenation, and “any inference of sex perversion,” which implied homosexuality. “Be carefuls” enumerated in the 1956 version of the Code urged “the careful limits of good taste” around bedroom scenes, hangings, liquor, childbirth, and “third degree methods.”
The well-known English critic Anthony Slide explains that the Code particularly targeted queer representation in film.
At first, to be honest, not much changed. Hollywood cinema remained as queer as ever, and during the harshest years of the Depression, the industry engaged in some of its most boundary-pushing and queer storytelling efforts.
“Not only does the number of incidents increase,” writes Lugowski,
but we also see more explicit references, longer scenes, and sometimes surprisingly substantial characters. Perhaps most important, the pansy and lesbian characters of the period remain, respectively, effeminate and mannish but become increasingly sexualized in 1933–34.
To wit: in 1934, Jack Warner (of Warner Brothers Studio) felt perfectly comfortable ignoring enforcer Joseph Breen’s firm letter and repeated phone calls about that year’s Wonder Bar. Starring Al Jolson and based on a Broadway musical of the same name, the film included a scene in which a tuxedo-clad man glides onto a busy dance floor and taps the shoulder of another man dancing with a blonde in finger waves and a white gown. He asks, “May I cut in?” The woman answers, “Why, certainly!” and reaches out her arms expectantly, at which point the two men embrace each other and whirl off down the dance floor. Jolson, from the bandstand, observes the exchange and quips, “Boys will be boys. Woo!”
By the end of 1934, though, the Code was more than just a feel-good document for moralists. It was enabled with specific enforcement machinery in response to religious lobbying and the threat of significant industry opposition from the Catholic church.
“[R]ather than risk possible state and federal censorship,” notes Chon Noriega, “as well as anticipated boycotts by the ten-million-member Catholic Legion of Decency, Hollywood studios proferred [sic] strict self-regulation, empowering the Hays Office—now under Joseph Breen—to enforce its four-year-old Production Code.”
Once the Production Code had teeth, filmmakers were restricted in what they could include in their work. If they violated Code standards, the Production Code Administration (PCA) could withhold its seal of approval, making distribution difficult. The possibility of appeal was slim to none, with a board of PCA directors making the call, not fellow filmmakers. In 1947, with the Code not even fifteen years in effect, writer and censor Geoffrey Shurlock noted with some pleasure that
Queer characters and storylines were less common, or circumscribed, until the Code weakened and ultimately fell in the 1960s (the success of boundary-pushing films like Some Like It Hot only helped in this regard). It remained true in film that villains, especially, were more likely to be accepted with queer coding. But a large number of films—more than perhaps one might expect—remain a testament to Hollywood’s longtime engagement with queer characters and themes. (snip)
Here’s how the deficit performed under Republican and Democratic presidents, from Reagan to Trump
This article was updated Aug. 2 to include a graph with the annual federal deficit in constant dollars.
A viral post portrays Democrats, not Republicans, as the party of fiscal responsibility, with numbers about the deficit under recent presidents to make the case.
Alex Cole, a political news editor at the website Newsitics, published the tweet July 23. Within a few hours, several Facebook users postedscreenshots of the tweet, which claims that Republican presidents have been more responsible for contributing to the deficit over the past four decades.
Those posts racked up several hundred likes and shares. We also found a screenshot on Reddit, where it has been upvoted more than 53,000 times.
“Morons: ‘Democrats cause deficits,’” the original tweet reads.
Screenshots of the tweet on Facebook were flagged as part of the company’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
At PolitiFact, we’vereportedextensively on how Republicans and Democrats often try to pin the federal deficit on each other — muddying the facts in the process. So we wanted to see if this Facebook post is true.
We reached out to Newsitics, the media outlet that Cole founded and works for, to see what evidence he used to compose the tweet and didn’t hear back. Our review shows the numbers basically check out, but they don’t tell the full story.
What even is the deficit?
Some people confuse the federal deficit with the debt — but they’re two separate concepts.
The Department of the Treasury explains it like this: The deficit is the difference between the money that the government makes and the money it spends. If the government spends more than it collects in revenues, then it’s running a deficit.
The federal debt is the running total of the accumulated deficits.
Following the money
Now let’s take a closer look at each president’s impact on the federal deficit.
To check the numbers in Cole’s tweet, we went to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which has an interactive database for these kinds of figures. Here’s what we found for each claim:
“(President Ronald) Reagan took the deficit from 70 billion to 175 billion.” This is more or less accurate. The federal deficit went from about $78.9 billion at the beginning of Reagan’s presidency to $152.6 billion at the end of it. At points between 1983 and 1986, the deficit was actually more than $175 billion.
“(George H.W.) Bush 41 took it to 300 billion.” Close, but not exactly. The number was around $255 billion at the end of Bush’s term. The deficit spiked at around $290.3 billion the year before he left office.
“(Bill) Clinton got it to zero.” This is true. During his presidency, Clinton managed to zero out the deficit and end his term with a $128.2 billion surplus.
“(George W.) Bush 43 took it from 0 to 1.2 trillion.” This is in the ballpark. Ignoring the fact that he actually started his presidency with a surplus, Bush left office in 2009 with a federal deficit of roughly $1.41 trillion.
“(Barack) Obama halved it to 600 billion.” This is essentially accurate. Obama left the presidency with a deficit of approximately $584.6 billion, which is more than halving $1.41 trillion. The deficit was even lower in 2015 at around $441.9 billion.
We had to look for more recent data to back up Cole’s allegation that “Trump’s got it back to a trillion.”
A Treasury Department statement from June put the federal deficit at about $747.1 billion so far this fiscal year. But the agency also reported that Washington is on track to post a $1.1 trillion deficit by the end of September, which backs up Cole’s claim.
After we published this story, some readers asked us to look at the annual deficit in terms of constant dollars, which adjust for inflation. Data since 1940 show that the deficit was highest in 2009, 2010 and 2011 — the height of the Great Recession and the aftermath of the 2009 stimulus package.
Presidential power
How much power do presidents have to change the deficit anyway?
The president does affect the budget by negotiating and signing appropriations bills. But there’s a lot more to it.
First, the country’s economic situation has a big impact on the federal deficit. The Great Recession affected the deficit near the end of George W. Bush’s administration and the beginning of Obama’s, said Stephen Ellis, executive vice president of the nonprofit Taxpayers for Common Sense. There was more spending on safety net programs like food stamps and Medicaid and less income from taxes.
Second, new presidents take office in January and, for the most part, inherit the budget from the previous administration for the remainder of the fiscal year — not to mention legislation passed in years prior. “Even the ‘dream budget’ that the president proposes is tied by all sorts of historical obligations and economic conditions,” Tara Sinclair, an associate professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University, told PolitiFact.
None of that is to say that the president doesn’t have any effect on the deficit, Ellis said. He used Reagan’s tax cuts and Obama’s stimulus package as examples of how the president can affect deficit spending.
The combination of spending hikes and tax cuts amplifies deficits. Trump oversaw both. While the rise in spending was bi-partisan, the tax cuts were a Republican effort that Trump championed. In the time since Trump signed his landmark Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017, the deficit has increased by more than $100 billion. A Congressional Budget Office report from April 2018 found that the law could add almost $1.9 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.
But Cole’s tweet still lacks some nuance.
Our ruling
A viral tweet made several claims about how the deficit has grown under Republican presidents and shrunk under Democrats.
On the whole, the numbers presented for each president are basically accurate. However, it’s worth clarifying that presidents alone are not responsible for the rise and fall of the federal deficit.
The tweet is accurate but needs additional information. We rate it Mostly True.
June 28, 1916 A one-day strike by 50,000 German workers was organized to free Socialist anti-war leader Karl Liebknecht, charged with sedition for his criticism of the government and the war later known as World War I. He was the first ever to be expelled from the Reichstag, the German parliament, voted out for his opposition to Germany’s role in the war. ——————————————————————————————————— June 28, 1969 Patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, being subjected to routine anti-homosexual harassment by the New York City police raiding the bar, spontaneously fought back in an incident considered to be the birth of the gay rights movement. Riot veteran and gay rights activist Craig Rodwell said: “A number of incidents were happening simultaneously. There was no one thing that happened or one person, there was just . . . a flash of group, of mass anger.” About Craig Rodwell A group of drag queens, who had been mourning the death earlier in the week of Judy Garland, mocked the police and threw things at them, and police were forced to retreat into the bar as the crowd of supporters grew; disturbances continued for days. The bar is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Stonewall and all it has inspired —————————————————————————————————- June 28, 1987 The Iranian Kurdish town of Sardasht was attacked by Iraqi aircraft with chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam Hussein had started the war expecting an easy victory against the new Shiite Islamic republic, even though Iran had three times the population. Victims of the mustard gas attack on Sarsasht, Iran ——————————————————————————————————- June 28, 2005 Seen in New York City on June 28, 2005
June 27, 1905 The IWW (Industral Workers of the World) was founded in Chicago.
June 27, 1954 The first atomic power plant opened at Obninsk, Russia, near Moscow, and could generate up to 5 megawatts. The plant was ordered by Josef Stalin and—being graphite-moderated and water-cooled—could be switched to plutonium production in case it was needed. The facility was shut down in 2002.
June 27, 1954 Military action directed and funded by the CIA (Operation PBSUCCESS) forced the resignation of the Guatemalan President, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. Winner of the country’s first election under universal suffrage, and having taken office in the country’s first peaceful transition of governments, he was accused by the U.S. of Communist influence. Following the coup d’etat, hundreds of Guatemalans were rounded up and killed. Jacobo Arbenz Guzman Between 1954 and 1990, human rights groups estimate, the security forces of successive military regimes murdered more than 100,000 civilians, including genocide against Guatemalan native peoples. More about Arbenz The CIA’s own documents on the action
June 27, 1973 President Nixon’s former White House counsel, John W. Dean, III, told the Senate Watergate Committee about Nixon’s “enemies list.”He released a 1971 memo, written by presidential advisor (now Rev.) Charles Colson, proposing the use of “available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” John Dean Twenty persons were to be subjected to IRS audits, litigation, prosecution, or denial of federal grants, and an additional list contained 200 names of other individuals and organizations considered enemies of the administration. The complete Enemies List and memos from Colson The president’s misuse of government agencies and powers, in pursuing those he saw as his political enemies, was the basis for one of the articles of impeachment that forced Nixon from office.
June 27, 1978 Seven citizens of the Soviet Union sought refuge in the American Embassy in Moscow as escape from government oppression of religious minorities. The Pentecostal Christians, known as the Siberian Seven, from two families, the Vashchenkos and Chmykhalovs, spent months in the basement of the embassy awaiting permission for all family members to emigrate to the U.S. One of their sons was already in prison for defying the military draft, and another was about to reach conscription age. Recently released from prison, Baptist Pyotr Vins was twice assaulted by police after trying to arrange his family’s emigration. His father Georgi, national leader of dissident Baptists, though due for release from a labor camp, faced five additional years of Siberian “exile.” The leader of a breakaway Seventh-day Adventist group was sentenced to five years of hard labor at age 83.
June 27, 1980 President Jimmy Carter signed a measure that required approximately 4 million U.S. men age 18 to 25 to register for the military draft, and all 18-year-old males thereafter. If there were to be a crisis, registered men would be inducted as determined by age and a random lottery.
June 27, 1986 The International Court of Justice (“World Court”) decided that the United States violated international law as well as its bilateral Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Amity with Nicaragua through its use of force against the Central American country. This included a trade embargo, the mining of harbors and bombing of airfields, as well as furnishing financial, military and logistical support to the so-called Contra insurgents. The Contras’ goal was to overthrow Nicaragua’s popular left-wing government. The Court also ruled that the U.S. should compensate the country financially.The Reagan administration had originally contested the standing of the Court to rule on such an issue, and it had walked out of Court after losing the ruling on jurisdiction, despite its treaty obligation to appear. The Court’s judgment to act had been decided 11-3 on almost all counts, those voting for the U.S. position being an American, a British and a Japanese judge. THE WORLD COURT IN ACTION by Howard N. Meyer More about the Court’s decision
It happened just a few weeks ago: Jim Obergefell was moving things in his office when he came across the ashes of his late husband, John Arthur, now 12 years gone. Arthur had last wishes for his ashes. Obergefell had yet to fulfill them.
“And it struck me that, oh, I am actually now mentally, emotionally ready to take care of John’s ashes,” Obergefell told The 19th. “It was the first time that I had that feeling so clearly and so strongly.”
Obergefell, 58, is ready to move on. Not exactly from the love of his life or the history-making Supreme Court decision that came after Arthur died. But certainly from the insecurities straight America was grappling with a decade ago about same-sex unions.
Obergefell is that Obergefell: the named plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit that extended marriage equality to every state in the nation in 2015. Ten years later, he celebrates that win and the many ways it rewrote his life. And in a time when LGBTQ+ rights are again under assault, he is looking to the future — of the queer rights movement and also his own.
A journey to the Supreme Court
Obergefell’s journey to the Supreme Court was hardly destined. It began 12 years ago, on June 26, 2013, when the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that prohibited the government from recognizing same-sex marriages.
Obergefell and Arthur had been together for 21 years at the time. The two had discussed getting married before. But they wanted it to be legal, and their home state of Ohio didn’t offer same-sex marriages.
Arthur was gravely ill with ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease, and he barely left his home hospice bed.
After the ruling, Obergefell leaned over to Arthur, hugged, then kissed him.
“Let’s get married,” he said.
Arthur agreed.
The logistics were not easy. Arthur was in no shape to travel, and the couple could not wed in Ohio. Obergefell researched and found that Maryland would let him get a marriage license even with only one of them present. But both would need to arrive in the state for the ceremony.
When friends and family learned about their predicament, they pooled together money to charter a medical jet for Arthur. The two flew to Baltimore. Over the course of 45 minutes, they exchanged vows on the tarmac before flying home.
“In the days that followed, we said the word ‘husband’ hundreds of times a day,” Obergefell said on the Decidedly Podcast in 2023.
But just five days later, their joy was muted when civil rights attorney Al Gerhardstein informed them that because of Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage, Arthur would be listed as single in death.
Arthur and Obergefell were angry. The couple sued the state of Ohio in federal district court and won. Three months later, Arthur died.
The following year, Obergefell, still in mourning, lost on appeal. But he refused to believe he might lose altogether.
“I just kept going,” Obergefell said. “It was the right thing to do.”
On June 26, 2015, he won. For the country, the win was immensely practical. Many told Obergefell it gave them so much hope it saved their lives. For Obergefell, it meant a legacy for the man he loved.
“I made promises to John to love, honor and protect him, and I was going to keep doing that,” he said.
In the decade since Jim Obergefell won his Supreme Court case that made same-sex marriage federally legal, hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples have married in the U.S. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)
Changing history
It’s difficult to overstate the impact of Obergefell’s case on the nation or the world. Since the 2015 ruling, the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimates, 591,000 queer couples have wed, generating an estimated $5.9 billion in wedding spending for state and local economies.
It has also radically transformed Obergefell’s life. Introverted and unassuming, he has spent the last decade campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights. He helms Equality Vines, a wine company that donates its proceeds to advancing civil rights causes.
It’s a position that makes him deeply proud if not a little fatigued.
“I’m not tired of talking about it,” he said of the 10-year anniversary of the ruling. “I’m just physically tired from all of the interviews and the photographers and the speaking gigs and the events. Yes, I’m exhausted.”
For 12 years, Obergefell has kept Arthur alive through retelling their story countless times in courtrooms and for the media. That exercise, of telling and retelling, helped Obergefell process his profound loss.
But he has never recoupled. It wasn’t that Arthur didn’t want him to. In fact, Arthur told him regularly that he wanted him to find love again. He asked his friends and family to tell Obergefell that he wanted him to find love after he was gone.
“I know it was sincere, because he told me that he had other people tell me that,” Obergefell said.
It isn’t about the pressure he feels as the face of marriage equality, he said, though part of him wonders what it would be like to date after making history.
“I don’t know how to date,” he confessed. “I’m clueless when people flirt with me, and as much as I hate it, and I don’t go into any conversation or anything like this, but you know, there’s that part of me that sometimes wonders, you know, are they interested in me as a person, or are they interested in me as Jim Obergefell, named plaintiff?”
Obergefell’s name has become synonymous with marriage equality in the United States, an issue that has not always united the LGBTQ+ community. Some queer activists have argued that same-sex marriage was a misguided goal for the movement as queer youth continue to face high rates of homelessness and transgender people grapple with police violence and incarceration, among other issues.
More work to do
Obergefell, too, is worried that the needs of the community’s most vulnerable have gone unmet. He has watched horror-struck over the last five years as state legislatures have moved to restrict transgender rights.
“We need to fight for every marginalized community, because the queer community includes every marginalized community, and equality for one is pointless without equality for all,” he said. “I didn’t go to the Supreme Court just so White, cisgender, gay men like me could get married.”
Despite all of the setbacks in LGBTQ+ rights, and even threats to Obergefell’s game-changing victory, he is hopeful — and feels stronger than ever. People assume his case was difficult for him. It was, but the path was also obvious, to him and to Arthur. They loved each other.
“If we weren’t willing to fight for each other and for what was right, then what’s the point?”
I remember all this, plus it was Bill Moyers who, in the questioning concern over the passage of USA PATRIOT, reminded us that the US Flag is our (non-Bushies) flag, too. Though a good run, it’s a sad loss.
A Daily Reid: A good man has gone. (non-Bushies in peace, Bill Moyers by Joy-Ann Reid
A seminal broadcaster and a human rights champion, Bill Moyers was the best of the mainstream media Read on Substack
My mom used to watch Bill Moyers, so I did, too.
Philomena controlled The TV … meaning the television in the family room, which up until I was in high school was the only one we kids had access to. She had a small TV in her bedroom, which I can now admit I would sneak into her room and watch, sprawled out across her bed, which I carefully refluffed and reassembled when I was done. But when she was home, and not at one of her three jobs, The TV was made for the nightly news, the Sunday shows, her favorite primetime shows (Dallas, Knots Landing, Fantasy Island (I can still hear her giggling uncontrollably every time Ricardo Montalbán yelled “Tattoo! Tattoo!” as if she was hearing it for the first time) The Love Boat, The Jeffersons and All in the Family among them, plus any movie with Harry Belafonte or Sidney Poitier in it, and Nightline, which I got to watch with her, starting in the sixth grade.
And also PBS, where Bill Moyers was The Man and Bill Moyers’ Journal was must see TV. Here’s a part of his obituary from the Associated Press, as he has passed away at the ripe old age of 91.
Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary who became one of television’s most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas, died Thursday at age 91.
Moyers died in a New York City hospital, according to longtime friend Tom Johnson, the former CEO of CNN and an assistant to Moyers during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. He did not cite Moyers’ cause of death.
Moyer’s career ranged from youthful Baptist minister to deputy director of the Peace Corps, from Johnson’s press secretary to newspaper publisher, senior news analyst for “The CBS Evening News” and chief correspondent for “CBS Reports.”
But it was for public television that Moyers produced some of TV’s most cerebral and provocative series. In hundreds of hours of PBS programs, he proved at home with subjects ranging from government corruption to modern dance, from drug addiction to media consolidation, from religion to environmental abuse.
In 1988, Moyers produced “The Secret Government” about the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration and simultaneously published a book under the same name. Around that time, he galvanized viewers with “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” a series of six one-hour interviews with the prominent religious scholar. The accompanying book became a best-seller.
His televised chats with poet Robert Bly almost single-handedly launched the 1990s Men’s Movement, and his 1993 series “Healing and the Mind” had a profound impact on the medical community and on medical education.
In a medium that supposedly abhors “talking heads” — shots of subject and interviewer talking — Moyers came to specialize in just that. He once explained why: “The question is, are the talking heads thinking minds and thinking people? Are they interesting to watch? I think the most fascinating production value is the human face.”
What was great about Mr. Moyers, apart from his very human face and soothing voice, plus his eclectic work bio, which I can absolutely relate to, was his humanity. He never shied away from asserting it, for fear of being viewed as not “objective.” Here’s an example from way back in 2015:
And here he is in an excellent interview with the Great Lawrence O’Donnell, talking about the then-president, Donald Trump 1.0 and the deep, open sore that exists in place of his soul.
Bill Moyers was one of one. His crystal clear voice and integrity are an example for all of us who are toiling out here in these media streets.
Deepest condolences to Bill Moyers’ family. May his memory be a blessing … and a lesson.
June 26, 1894 Mohandas Gandhi (center) as a young lawyer in Durban, South Africa in 1894 Mohandas Gandhi, a young Indian lawyer from Porbandar in Gujarat province, urged the Natal (a province in South Africa) India Congress to run a campaign of education and peaceful noncooperation to assert and protect their rights as ethnic Indians in South Africa. Within days of Gandhi’s arrival in South Africa the previous year, though he was a British subject and South Africa was under British rule, he had been thrown off a train, assaulted by a white coachman, denied hotel rooms, and pushed off a sidewalk because his skin color defined his status and limited his rights. “Truly speaking, it was after I went to South Africa that I became what I am now. My love for South Africa and my concern for her problems are no less than for India….” – Mohandas Gandhi, 1949
“Gandhiji was a South African and his memory deserves to be cherished now and in post-apartheid South Africa. The Gandhian philosophy of peace, tolerance and non-violence began in South Africa as a powerful instrument of social change . . . This weapon was effectively used by India to liberate her people.” – The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. [King used the same techniques to combat racism in the U.S.]
“We must never lose sight of the fact that the Gandhian philosophy may be a key to human survival in the twenty-first century.” – Nelson Mandela, in his speech opening the Gandhi Hall in Lenasia, South Africa, September 1992 [source: anc.org.za] Mohandas Gandhi, 1949]
Also known as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India. He was known to the Indian people as Mahatma, meaning great-souled, a person revered for high-mindedness, wisdom and selflessness. Ghandiji adds a suffix to the last name to show respect. He was also known as Bapu which means great father.
June 26, 1918 Pacifist and socialist organizer Eugene V. Debs was arrested for having given an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, ten days earlier. He was charged with “uttering words intended to cause insubordination and disloyalty within the American forces of the United States, to incite resistance to the war, and to promote the cause of Germany,” This last was despite his repeated and vehement criticism in the speech of Germany and its landed aristocracy, known as the Junkers. “And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose — especially their lives.”
June 26, 1945 On the stage of San Francisco’s Veterans Auditorium (now known as the Herbst Theatre in the center of the War Memorial Veterans Building), delegates from 50 nations signed the United Nations Charter, establishing the world body as a means of saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The U.S. Post Office issues a commemorative envelope. The Germans had just surrendered to the Allied forces in April; the war in the Pacific continued. Read the Preamble (included is full text of the Charter) Collection of photos from Founding of the UN – San Francisco Conference (I love looking at these photos! -A.)
June 26, 1955 Flyer used to promote the Freedom Charter The South African Freedom Charter was adopted at the Congress of the People at Kliptown near Johannesburg. “We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people . . . .” The Congress of the People in Kliptown Text of the Charter:
June 26, 1963 President John F. Kennedy addressed 120,000 West Berliners and concluded his speech, “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words: “Ich bin ein Berliner!” The East German government had stopped all travel and commerce between the Soviet-controlled and the American/British/French-controlled parts of the city in 1961. west. John F. Kennedy, West Berlin, June 26, 1963 They then built a 166 km-long (103 miles) wall to separate the two Berlins and to stop emigration from east to west. Watch the speech
June 26, 2003 The U.S. Supreme Court found a Texas “anti-sodomy” law unconstitutional, overruling, and apologizing for, the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision. The 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas said that citizens have the “right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in private conduct without government intervention.” Text of the decision
June 25, 1948 The United States, Great Britain and France began the Berlin Airlift of food and supplies to the German city in defiance of the Soviet Union’s blockade of the roads. At the height of the Airlift, two groups of planes flew in four-hour blocks around the clock.While one group of aircraft was loaded and serviced, the other group was in the air. On the 264-mile route, 32 aircraft were in the air simultaneously. Supplies would be quickly unloaded and the aircraft would return for more food, fuel and other necessities for the 2.5 million West Berliners. It was the most ambitious aerial supply operation in history. The Soviet blockade was not lifted until the following May but the airlift continued for four months more. Berliners watch a plane involved in the Berlin Airlift bringing food and supplies About the Berlin Airlift
Queer History 745: Patricia Highsmith – The Brilliant Fucking Architect of Queer Hope by Wendy🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🌈 Read on Substack
In the suffocating landscape of 1950s America, when being queer could land you in a mental institution, prison, or worse, one woman sat down at her typewriter and decided to tell the truth. Patricia Highsmith didn’t just write a fucking love story—she carved out a piece of literary real estate where lesbian love could exist without punishment, where two women could find each other and actually keep each other. In a world determined to erase queer joy, she smuggled hope onto bookshelves disguised as pulp fiction.
But let’s not paint Highsmith as some sanitized literary saint. This woman was complicated as hell, brilliant as fuck, and carried enough psychological baggage to sink a goddamn ship. She was an alcoholic, a recluse, and often cruel to the people who loved her. She was also one of the most important queer voices of the 20th century, whether she wanted that label or not. Her story isn’t just about one woman’s struggle with her sexuality—it’s about the price we all pay when society forces us to live fractured lives, and the revolutionary act of refusing to let that fracture define us.
The Making of a Literary Badass
Mary Patricia Plangman was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on January 19, 1921, into a world that would spend the next several decades trying to convince her that everything she was constituted a crime against nature. Her parents, Jay Bernard Plangman and Mary Coates, divorced before she was born, and her mother married Stanley Highsmith when Patricia was three. The family moved to New York, where young Patricia would grow up surrounded by the kind of suffocating heteronormative expectations that could drive anyone to drink—and eventually did.
From childhood, Highsmith knew she was different, and not in the precious, special-snowflake way that adults like to romanticize. She was different in the way that made her feel like she was constantly walking on broken glass, knowing that one wrong step could cut her to pieces. She was attracted to women in an era when that attraction was classified as a mental illness, when “treatments” ranged from electroshock therapy to lobotomies. The psychological pressure of living with this secret would shape not just her personal relationships but every fucking word she ever wrote.
At Barnard College, Highsmith studied English literature and began to understand that stories could be weapons—tools for survival in a hostile world. She was already writing, already crafting the psychological precision that would make her famous. But she was also falling in love with women, conducting relationships in shadows and whispers, learning the exhausting choreography of the closet that would define her entire adult life.
After graduation, she moved to Greenwich Village, ostensibly to pursue her writing career but really to find some semblance of community among other artists and outcasts. The Village in the 1940s was one of the few places in America where queer people could exist with some measure of freedom, though even there, the threat of police raids and social destruction loomed constant. Highsmith found work writing for comic books, including scripts for Captain America and other superheroes—ironic, considering she was creating stories about characters who could live openly as their authentic selves while she remained trapped behind a mask of heterosexual respectability.
The Birth of Lesbian Literary Revolution
In 1951, while working at Bloomingdale’s during the Christmas rush—because even future literary legends had to pay rent—Highsmith had an encounter that would change queer literature forever. She served a beautiful blonde customer buying a doll for her daughter, and something about the interaction sparked what would become “The Price of Salt.” Later, walking through the city, Highsmith felt what she described as a “strange happiness” and knew she had to write this story.
But let’s be clear about what she was attempting: in 1952, lesbian novels ended one of two ways—with the queer character dying or going insane. Those were the only narratives society would tolerate. Happy queers were not allowed to exist in fiction because they weren’t allowed to exist in real life. Publishers, critics, and readers had been thoroughly conditioned to expect punishment for sexual deviance. A lesbian love story with a happy ending wasn’t just revolutionary—it was practically seditious.
Highsmith wrote “The Price of Salt” under the pseudonym Claire Morgan because she knew that attaching her real name to a lesbian novel would be career suicide. Even with the pseudonym, the book was relegated to the pulp fiction ghetto, sold alongside other “deviant” literature in bus stations and drugstores. The literary establishment wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, and most critics dismissed it as sensational trash designed to titillate straight male readers.
They were wrong, and they were missing the fucking point entirely.
“The Price of Salt” tells the story of Therese Belivet, a young woman working in a department store who becomes infatuated with Carol Aird, an elegant older woman going through a divorce. What follows is a love story that unfolds with the psychological complexity and emotional honesty that would become Highsmith’s trademark. But more importantly, it’s a love story where both women survive, where love is possible, where the ending doesn’t require sacrifice or punishment.
The novel found its audience despite the literary establishment’s best efforts to ignore it. Queer women passed dog-eared copies between friends, smuggled them in suitcases, hid them between mattresses. For the first time, they could read a story where people like them weren’t doomed, where lesbian love wasn’t portrayed as inherently tragic or destructive. The psychological impact was immeasurable—here was proof that queer happiness was possible, that their desires weren’t automatically poisonous.
The Psychological Architecture of Survival
Understanding Highsmith’s impact on LGBTQIA+ people requires understanding the psychological landscape they were navigating in mid-20th century America. This was an era of institutionalized homophobia so complete and systematic that it’s hard to imagine from our current perspective. Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness. Same-sex relationships were illegal in every state. Queer people were barred from government employment, discharged from the military, subjected to police harassment, and often rejected by their families.
The psychological effects of living under this kind of systematic oppression were devastating. Queer people internalized shame, developed elaborate systems of concealment, and often struggled with depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. The absence of positive representation in media and literature reinforced the message that queer love was inherently destructive, that happiness wasn’t possible for people like them.
Into this psychological wasteland, Highsmith dropped a fucking bomb of hope.
“The Price of Salt” didn’t just tell queer women that love was possible—it showed them what that love might look like. Carol and Therese weren’t tragic figures destroyed by their desires; they were complex, flawed, human women who found each other and fought to stay together. The novel’s ending, with Therese choosing Carol over societal expectations, was nothing short of revolutionary.
But Highsmith’s psychological insight went deeper than just providing positive representation. She understood the specific ways that homophobia warped relationships, the paranoia and secrecy that poisoned even the most genuine connections. Carol’s ex-husband uses their daughter as leverage, threatening to take the child away if Carol doesn’t renounce her “perversion.” The constant threat of exposure hangs over every tender moment, every stolen glance, every whispered conversation.
This wasn’t melodrama—this was documentary realism for queer people living in the 1950s. Highsmith captured the specific psychological toll of living in the closet, the way fear could poison love, the exhausting vigilance required to maintain a double life. But she also showed that despite all this, love could survive, relationships could endure, happiness was fucking possible.
The Ripple Effects: How One Book Changed Everything
The immediate impact of “The Price of Salt” was profound but largely invisible. Queer women didn’t write letters to newspapers praising the book—that would have been social suicide. Instead, they quietly bought copies, passed them along to friends, and felt something shift inside themselves when they read about Carol and Therese’s love story.
Dr. Eli Coleman, a sexologist who has studied the impact of literature on LGBTQIA+ identity formation, argues that positive representation in fiction serves a crucial psychological function for marginalized communities. “When people see themselves reflected positively in stories,” Coleman explains, “it validates their experiences and provides a roadmap for possibility. For queer people in the 1950s, who had almost no positive representation anywhere, a novel like ‘The Price of Salt’ could literally be life-saving.”
The psychological impact extended beyond individual readers to the broader cultural conversation about homosexuality. While the book didn’t immediately change mainstream attitudes—that would take decades—it planted seeds that would eventually bloom into the gay rights movement. Young people who read Highsmith’s novel grew up with the revolutionary idea that queer love didn’t have to end in tragedy, that happiness was possible for people like them.
This shift in narrative possibilities had profound philosophical implications. If queer love could be portrayed as beautiful, complex, and worthy of a happy ending, then the entire moral framework that condemned homosexuality began to crack. Highsmith wasn’t just telling a love story—she was challenging the fundamental assumptions that justified queer oppression.
The Complex Psychology of Patricia Highsmith
While Highsmith was creating revolutionary representation for other queer people, her own relationship with her sexuality remained deeply complicated. She never publicly came out, never became an activist, and often seemed uncomfortable with the idea that “The Price of Salt” had become a touchstone for lesbian readers. This wasn’t just garden-variety internalized homophobia—though that was certainly part of it—but a complex psychological response to a lifetime of navigating hostile territory.
Highsmith’s personal relationships were often tumultuous and self-destructive. She drank heavily, maintained emotional distance even from intimate partners, and seemed to prefer the company of her numerous cats to most humans. Friends and lovers described her as brilliant but difficult, generous but cruel, capable of profound empathy and stunning callousness sometimes within the same conversation.
This psychological complexity was both a source of her literary genius and a reflection of the damage caused by a lifetime in the closet. Highsmith had spent so many years concealing her true self that authenticity became nearly impossible. She developed what psychologists call “minority stress”—the chronic psychological tension experienced by stigmatized groups who must constantly monitor and modify their behavior to avoid discrimination.
The effects of minority stress on LGBTQIA+ individuals are well-documented: higher rates of depression and anxiety, difficulty forming intimate relationships, substance abuse, and a persistent sense of alienation from mainstream society. Highsmith exhibited many of these symptoms throughout her life, but she also channeled that psychological complexity into her writing, creating characters whose inner lives were as intricate and contradictory as her own.
Her later novels, including the famous Tom Ripley series, explored themes of identity, deception, and the psychology of outsiders—all subjects she knew intimately from her own experience as a closeted lesbian. While these books weren’t explicitly queer, they were infused with the psychological insights that came from a lifetime of living on society’s margins.
Social Impact: Cracking the Foundations of Heteronormativity
“The Price of Salt” didn’t exist in a vacuum—it was part of a slowly building wave of cultural change that would eventually reshape American attitudes toward sexuality. But Highsmith’s contribution was unique in its subtlety and psychological sophistication. Unlike the explicitly political gay rights literature that would emerge in later decades, her novel worked by stealth, smuggling queer humanity into mainstream consciousness through the back door of popular fiction.
The book’s classification as pulp fiction was actually crucial to its impact. While “serious” literature was consumed primarily by educated elites, pulp novels reached a much broader audience. Working-class people, teenagers, small-town residents—people who might never encounter openly queer individuals in their daily lives—were reading about Carol and Therese’s love story. The seeds of empathy were being planted in unexpected soil.
This demographic reach had significant social implications. When the gay rights movement began to gain momentum in the 1960s and 1970s, it wasn’t starting from scratch. Thanks to novels like “The Price of Salt,” millions of Americans had already been exposed to positive portrayals of queer relationships. The ground had been prepared, even if most people didn’t realize it.
The philosophical implications were equally profound. For centuries, Western society had constructed elaborate theological and pseudo-scientific justifications for condemning homosexuality. These arguments depended on portraying queer love as inherently unnatural, destructive, and incapable of producing genuine happiness. Highsmith’s novel didn’t engage these arguments directly—it simply rendered them irrelevant by showing that none of them were true.
Carol and Therese’s relationship was portrayed as natural, nurturing, and fulfilling. They weren’t predators or victims, sick or sinful—they were simply two women who fell in love. This narrative simplicity was actually a sophisticated philosophical assault on the entire edifice of heteronormative ideology.
The Continuing Revolution: Highsmith’s Legacy in Contemporary LGBTQIA+ Culture
When “The Price of Salt” was reissued in 1990 under Highsmith’s real name with the new title “Carol,” it found a new generation of readers who could appreciate its revolutionary impact. The AIDS crisis had decimated the gay male community, and lesbian feminism was providing crucial leadership in the broader LGBTQIA+ rights movement. Highsmith’s novel was rediscovered as a foundational text, a reminder of how far the community had come and how much further it still needed to go.
The 2015 film adaptation, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, introduced Highsmith’s story to an even broader audience and sparked new conversations about queer representation in media. The film’s lush cinematography and devastating emotional honesty brought Carol and Therese’s love story to life for a generation raised on increasing LGBTQIA+ visibility but still fighting for full equality.
For contemporary LGBTQIA+ people, particularly young people struggling with their sexual or gender identity, Highsmith’s work continues to provide crucial psychological support. In an era of increasing political backlash against queer rights, when transgender youth face legislative attacks and gay marriage remains under threat, the simple existence of stories like “Carol” serves as a reminder that queer love has always existed, has always been beautiful, and has always been worth fighting for.
The psychological impact is particularly powerful for young people from conservative backgrounds or regions where LGBTQIA+ visibility remains limited. Reading about Carol and Therese’s love story can be the first time these individuals encounter the revolutionary idea that their desires are valid, that happiness is possible, that they aren’t broken or sinful or destined for tragedy.
The Philosophical Architecture of Queer Joy
Highsmith’s greatest achievement wasn’t just creating positive lesbian representation—it was constructing a philosophical framework for queer joy that transcended the specific circumstances of her characters. “The Price of Salt” argues, through narrative rather than polemic, that love itself is the highest human value, that authentic relationships matter more than social approval, and that individuals have the right to pursue happiness even when that pursuit challenges conventional morality.
This philosophical stance was radical in 1952 and remains challenging today. American society continues to struggle with the tension between individual freedom and social conformity, between traditional values and evolving understanding of human sexuality and gender identity. Highsmith’s novel doesn’t resolve these tensions—it simply insists that love transcends them all.
The book’s ending is particularly significant in this regard. Therese’s choice to pursue a relationship with Carol isn’t portrayed as a rejection of society or a declaration of war against heteronormativity. It’s simply a young woman choosing love over fear, authenticity over approval, joy over safety. The philosophical implications are profound: if individuals have the right to pursue happiness, and if love between consenting adults is inherently valuable, then society’s objections become irrelevant.
This isn’t the angry politics of later gay liberation movements—it’s something more subtle and perhaps more subversive. Highsmith wasn’t arguing that society should accept queer people; she was arguing that queer people didn’t need society’s acceptance to live full, meaningful lives. The audacity of that position, especially in 1952, cannot be overstated.
The Psychological Legacy: How One Story Saves Lives
The most important measure of Highsmith’s impact isn’t literary criticism or sales figures—it’s the immeasurable number of LGBTQIA+ lives that have been saved by her willingness to imagine queer happiness. In a community where suicide rates remain tragically high, where young people continue to face rejection and violence for their sexual or gender identity, stories matter in ways that straight, cisgender people often struggle to understand.
Dr. Ryan Watson, who studies the relationship between media representation and LGBTQIA+ mental health, explains: “For young people questioning their sexuality or gender identity, seeing positive representation in media can literally be the difference between life and death. When you’re told by your family, your school, your church, and your government that you’re fundamentally wrong or broken, finding stories where people like you are happy and loved can provide the hope necessary to survive.”
“The Price of Salt” has been providing that hope for over seventy years. It sits on countless bookshelves, gets passed between friends, appears on recommended reading lists, and continues to whisper the same revolutionary message to each new generation of readers: you are not alone, your love is valid, happiness is possible.
The novel’s impact extends beyond individual readers to the broader cultural conversation about LGBTQIA+ rights and representation. Every positive portrayal of queer relationships in contemporary media owes a debt to Highsmith’s pioneering work. Every time a young person sees themselves reflected positively in a book, movie, or television show, they’re benefiting from the foundation she laid in 1952.
The Ongoing Fight: Highsmith’s Relevance in Contemporary Struggles
As LGBTQIA+ people continue to fight for full equality and acceptance, Highsmith’s work remains remarkably relevant. The psychological insights she provided about the costs of closeting, the importance of authentic relationships, and the possibility of queer joy continue to resonate with contemporary experiences.
Young transgender people facing legislative attacks and social rejection can find solidarity in Therese’s struggle to live authentically despite social pressure. Gay men navigating family rejection might recognize themselves in Carol’s battle to maintain relationships with her loved ones while refusing to deny her true self. Lesbian couples fighting for the right to parent can draw strength from Carol and Therese’s determination to build a life together despite legal and social obstacles.
The philosophical framework Highsmith constructed—that love transcends social convention, that individual happiness matters, that authenticity is worth fighting for—remains a powerful tool for contemporary LGBTQIA+ activism. While the specific battles have evolved, the underlying struggle between individual freedom and social control continues.
Perhaps most importantly, Highsmith’s work reminds us that representation matters, that stories have power, that the simple act of imagining queer happiness can be a revolutionary force. In an era when politicians and pundits continue to debate the “appropriateness” of LGBTQIA+ visibility, her novel stands as proof that queer people have always existed, have always loved, and have always deserved the chance to pursue happiness.
Conclusion: The Fucking Beautiful Truth
Patricia Highsmith died in 1995, long enough to see some of the changes her work helped create but not long enough to witness marriage equality, widespread LGBTQIA+ representation in media, or the growing acceptance of transgender rights. She remained complicated and contradictory until the end—a brilliant writer who struggled with intimacy, a queer pioneer who never fully embraced that role, a woman who gave hope to millions while often seeming to have little hope for herself.
But her legacy isn’t diminished by her personal struggles—if anything, it’s enhanced by them. Highsmith’s psychological complexity, her understanding of the costs of closeting, her ability to create characters who were both strong and vulnerable, all stemmed from her own experiences navigating a hostile world. She transformed her pain into art, her isolation into empathy, her struggle into a story that continues to save lives.
“The Price of Salt” stands as proof that individual acts of courage can have ripple effects that extend far beyond what their creators ever imagine. When Highsmith sat down to write about Carol and Therese’s love story, she probably thought she was just crafting another novel to pay the bills. Instead, she created a piece of revolutionary literature that challenged fundamental assumptions about sexuality, provided hope to countless individuals, and helped lay the groundwork for the LGBTQIA+ rights movement.
In a world that continues to tell queer people that their love is wrong, that their happiness is impossible, that they should be grateful for tolerance rather than demanding full equality, Highsmith’s novel remains a radical document. It insists that queer love is beautiful, that happiness is possible, that authenticity is worth any price society might demand.
That message, delivered with all the psychological sophistication and emotional honesty Highsmith could muster, continues to resonate with each new generation of readers who discover that they are not alone, that their love is valid, and that despite everything society might tell them, happiness is not only possible—it’s their fucking birthright.
The woman who wrote comic book heroes while hiding behind a mask of heterosexual respectability ultimately became a hero herself, not through superhuman powers but through the simple, revolutionary act of telling the truth about love. In doing so, she proved that sometimes the most powerful weapon against oppression isn’t anger or violence—it’s the audacious insistence that joy is possible, that love conquers all the bullshit society tries to pile on top of it, and that everyone deserves the chance to pursue their own beautiful, complicated, fucking magnificent version of happiness.
June 24, 1948 In Washington, D.C. President Harry Truman signed the Selective Service Act, creating a system for registering all men ages 18-25, and drafting them into the armed forces as the nation’s military needs required.
June 24, 1948 In Germany, the Soviet Union denied permission for Allied (U.S., France or Great Britain) forces to travel over Soviet-controlled territory to reach Allied-controlled West Berlin; the roads were allegedly closed for repairs and electricity was cut off to West Berlin. This was a blockade of food and all other supplies to the western enclave within East Germany and its population of more than two million.
June 24, 1970 The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The resolution, which had authorized the president “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States,” was used by President Lyndon Johnson, absent a formal congressional, and constitutional, declaration of war, to justify open-ended pursuit of war in Vietnam. The resolution was passed in August, 1964 following a provocation by the U.S. destroyer Maddox in North Vietnamese territorial waters, which was portrayed as aggressive military action by North Vietnamese PT boats.
June 24, 1980 A general strike was held in El Salvador against death squads, primarily military or paramilitary units carrying out political assassinations and intimidation as part of the Salvadoran government’s counterinsurgency strategy. Salvadoran death squad destroying a village The U.S. government helped fund and train Salvadoran police forces. Questioned about the nature of the aid in a Senate hearing, Undersecretary of State for Latin American Affairs Elliott Abrams said, “I think that government has earned enough trust, as I think we have earned enough trust, not to be questioned, frankly, about exporting torture equipment. But I would certainly be in favor of giving it to them if they want it.” Noam Chomsky on El Salvador
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