So. Your Humble Blogger had the opportunity to watch the musical of The Full Monty a few weeks ago, and since then I’ve been vaguely wanting to write a note about gay jokes. Well, about a few particular kinds of gay jokes that seem to me thematically connected. Before I begin, though, I want to be clear: I’m not making pronouncements on what is funny and what ain’t funny. I am pontificating on what I find disturbing and uncomfortable, personally. I’m curious whether Gentle Readers share my discomfort, but not as some sort of moral test, just as a shared stimulus/reaction thing.
The jokes in question are about straight men being uncomfortable with gayness. I’ll break it down into categories, because that’s my nineteenth-century-positivist way of taking the humor out of the funny:
Observed: Two straight men are interacting, and a third person observes them. The interaction is misunderstood as indicating a sexual relationship between them. Sometimes this is just misunderstood referents in conversation, but often there’s an elaborate set-up where the men are embracing or one has his pants down or some other physical embodiment. This appears to be very funny indeed; audiences howl with glee. I cringe. The humor here comes from the misunderstanding, that is, it is very important to the gag that the men not be gay. Either the men are confronted with the observer’s misapprehension (usually, I should add, positive) or we are left to imagine them appalled at being so confronted.
The joke is connected, of course, to the idea that the worst thing that a straight man could imagine is being thought to be homosexual. That’s assuming that the straight man could not imagine being homosexual, being, you know, straight. So the joke here is twofold: there’s the mistaken impression of the observer (possibly a series of misapprehensions, possibly very clever writing or slapstick to get the fellows to the point of confusion) which is a sort of Humour of Ambiguity, and there’s the idea that people think they are gay, which is a sort of Humour of Humiliation. Which, again, rests entirely on the idea that it is humiliating for people to think you are gay.
I should, however, admit that the joke is occasionally attempted when the couple being observed are a man and a woman. I have only rarely seen it done that way, and in those cases, the couple (a) appear to be engaged in completely bizarre acts of congress, such as would be humiliating to be discovered, or (2) are a potential couple, such that the point is not the humor but the romance, or (3) most amusing of all, the couple is old, and therefore it is the observer who is humiliated by the thought of older, unattractive people having sex. Despite these overlaps (and the whole thing is a variation on crosstalk), I think the joke of Straight Men Observed to be Gay is enough of a distinct category to talk about, and to view its relation to other joke categories such as…
Pretending: Two straight men jocularly pretend to be lovers, or to be attracted to each other. They amuse themselves with this banter, and therefore us. This is a surefire amusement, although not one of the Big Yuks. It must be clear, however, that this is not flirtation. The men may assume lisps, or mince, or otherwise imitate stereotypical gay men, or they may express themselves in their normal tone, but either way it cannot be humorously sustained for more than a minute or two.
I actually find this funny on occasion, if it is done well (and by well, I mean, to my taste). It is (for me) Humor of Transgression, and allows men to say and do things they wouldn’t ordinarily be allowed to. I don’t find it intrinsically funny, though. In my actual life, however, I flirt with men quite a lot, when I can, and find that amusing and entertaining. Of course, I also flirt with women and find it amusing and entertaining, when I can do so without consequence. Because I am so very straight, I flirt with straight men without consequence (at least when I am correct about their straightness). Because I am so very married, I flirt with married women without consequence (at least when I am correct about their, er, monogomosity). Connected with this proclivity of mine for my own self-amusement is my amusement at other people engaging in this sort of faux flirtation.
Unwelcome Advance: A homosexual man indicates he finds a straight man attractive, reducing the fellow to a gibbering idiot. The advance can range from an approving up-and-down to a full-bore come-on; the response can range from a quick shudder to jumping out the nearest window. This is, oddly enough, nearly identical to the Unwanted Advance joke where a sexually aggressive woman makes a pass at a straight man. I don’t find either even remotely funny.
I could imagine a version where the come-on reduces the fellow to an idiot because it is welcome, rather than unwelcome; it would be the surprise that would un-man the target, not being wrong-footed. Or, rather, it would come as a surprise to the man that the advance was welcome, as he had neither been expecting it nor wanting it, and is at one moment shocked and aroused, and of course reduced to gibbering and so misses his chance. I think I have seen this done with a woman’s advance; I am pretty sure I’ve never seen it carried off between two men.
Naked Hottie: A straight man is forced to observe a scantily-clad or entirely naked gay hunk. The humor here is that the naked hunk is entirely repulsive to the straight man. The hunk should not be engaged in any sexual act, nor should there be any question of potential sexual activity at all. The joke is that the straight fellow must see something that a gay man presumably would want to see, but his reaction (being, you know, straight) is repulsion, or nausea, or jumping out a nearby window. It must also be clear that the hunk is gay, because for reasons that passeth understanding, it is not funny for a straight man to be bothered by the sight of a naked or nearly naked straight man, in a shower, locker room or beach or (f’r’ex) coming out of a dormitory bathroom. It is also important for the humor that the naked gay man be hot, and, oddly enough, that the straight man recognize that the naked gay man is hot, although of course not responding to the hotness with anything other than revulsion.
The Full Monty musical opens with a male stripper actually stripping to a g-string; there is much hilarity in the audience, although much of the laughter is nervous. Over the course of the play, I think all the above tropes are put into play. Terrence McNally wrote the book (that is, the dialogue of the play and its scene outline); he is a gay man who often uses what seem to me to be homophobic tropes for his own purposes. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. And by works, I mean… I don’t actually know what I mean by works. I suppose I mean that sometimes people in the audience are comforted in their discomfort with homosexuality, if you know what I mean, rather than discomfited. Throughout the show (which I enjoyed, by the way, very much), I was discomfited, if you will, by the audience’s lack of discomfort with their discomfort, that is, by how completely they participated in the type of gags I’m talking about.
I wasn’t comfortable with this because all of those gags depend for their humor on it being perfectly natural for straight men to be wildly uncomfortable, to the point of panic, at the thought of their sexuality coming into question. I don’t think that the joke is on the straight man (pardon the expression), with the audience feeling superior to him because he is so bigoted and closed-minded. I think the joke is ultimately on of recognition, that he reacts the way he is supposed to react, the way people should react.
I am a straight man, myself. I would describe myself as attracted to most women and to almost no men. I am not grossed out by gay men. I don’t find the idea of a gay man being attracted to me repulsive or even particularly unpleasant. As it happens, no man has ever made a pass at me, at least not that I noticed. I am reasonably capable of finding and expressing preferences among men, as for instance, finding Jude Law cuter than Matt Damon. I am not some sort of paragon of tolerance. I am just a straight guy who isn’t grossed out by gay guys. And I find straight guys who are creeped out by gay guys to be a little bit creepy and a little bit pathetic, rather than being funny.
Now, I’ve said all that in a way that makes it clear that, however I started this interminable note, I am indeed pontificating on what should be funny and what shouldn’t, what all right-thinking people should find unfunny, and how superior YHB is to the guffawing yahoos circumjacent. And yet, seriously, am I wrong?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.