Bonus Video! The time Johnny Carson's gay jokes went a little too far

Adding my two cents to the Cabaret prep, be sure to track down this if you have never seen it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_and_His_Kind_(film)

Vague memories of Carson sketches, in which he uses Wayne Newton as a punchline and a catch phrase. A made-up example: "Blah blah blah with Liberace, Tiny Tim -- and Wayne Newton." I was a child staying up past my bedtime to watch a show I wasn't supposed to, so can't be sure.

Honestly, from first impressions I did think Wayne Newton might be gay. Especially when he was young, he had this very high voice and seemed very androgynous. On record, it could have been a woman singing. I’m guessing he was bullied when he was young and maybe that’s why he was sensitive about this. Carson was being a jerk! Here’s a clip from Ed Sullivan and you can see why some would think he is gay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBqgQs2JjYA

Damn it, forgot to hit shift again; okay, just one last one: in The Four Just Men, you've got Poccari, who isn't even a sidekick, he's one of the four main characters. And he's clever, competent, brave, and entirely on the side of good. He isn't good at fighting, but he's capable of getting the better of an armed man by outthinking him. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbsZhzWjuM&list=PLlJP19Lyxlu2YaCIdO_wFB6BLE1_RobAR&index=6) So you can see how they gradually work their way up to this by little baby steps, just pushing a little and seeing if they can get away with it, then pushing a bit more. And to be clear, I still think The Buccaneers was their masterwork, but there's no denying they were doing interesting stuff in all of the shows they made together.

Okay, so if you're doing a video on Cabaret, I feel the need to tell you about my personal favourite Isherwood book, Prater Violet, which is the one where he gets closest to showing a genuinely healthy gay relationship (I'm not counting A Single Man, because that's after one of them is dead and it's all in retrospect, also it was written a lot later). In Prater Violet, it's not made explicit that the fictionalised version of Isherwood and the (married) director he's working with are having an affair, but the director does write poetry about Isherwood and get jealous of him having other relationships, so... yeah. Plus, did you know Isherwood wasn't the only one writing vaguely gay-positive stuff in the 30s? There's also a book called Bullet in the Ballet which features several gay characters, none of whom are evil monsters or tortured victims. A bit weird, maybe, but nothing more than that. Anyway, having given you some info that could possibly be useful, I feel like I've earned the right to go on about my latest theory on how Sidney Cole and Hannah Weinstein transformed the standard queercoded comic relief sidekick out of all recognition. See, it starts with Friar Tuck, who is unusually competent, even saving the hero's life a couple of times (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RoMnrlruyU final scene), and unusually good at fighting, being able to match Robin himself at swordfighting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mULo4avEntM about five mins in) and wrestling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdZfVIw1Oek&list=PLgeGcX2U-sIF6_W_jcPZrK7otE8XkDLWM&index=39&t=1485s first scene). However, he almost never gets to use his fighting skills against actual baddies. Then there's Beamish, who... has way more going on than I can fit into a single sentence, but basically is also more competent, brave and good at fighting than queercoded sidekicks are normally supposed to be, and does in fact get to fight baddies on several occasions. Next up is (a heavily fictionalised version of) Macchiavelli, in Sword of Freedom. Now, queercoded good guys normally had to be silly, and both Tuck and Beamish do have quite a few silly moments. Suave, intelligent queercoded characters were normally baddies; but Macciavelli is swanning about the place, clever as you like and always in control of the situation; and while he's a bit morally complex, he's generally on the side of good. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfU-xH4xiqs&list=PL-aA9b-SUVOt32FoO9-QWwcSV8AfYgjZu&index=5)