Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company From the Inside Out (17 page)

This is not to say that children rebel against the reading strategy that is expected of them. Jenkins points out that “[children’s] play may and often does reinforce parental values.”72 Boys and girls who 78

“ M I C K E Y M O U S E — A LWAYS G AY ! ”

follow the example of conventionally gendered behavior and heterosexual courtship implicitly abide by the norms expressed in most mass media—watching how people kiss each other, how men are portrayed as aggressively active and how women are portrayed as patient and nurturing. But, as Jenkins goes on to point out, children’s play “also contains a countersocial potential; it may be used to express the child’s feelings of outrage over the expectations imposed upon him or her by the social formation.”73 Arguably, when proto-queer youth—whether tomboys, sissies or just young boys or girls with crushes on members of the same gender—read mass media to understand these budding feelings, they perfectly embody Jenkins’s

“countersocial potential.”

American children have been regularly exposed to Disney films and television since the early 1930s. Promoted as “family-oriented,”

parents often emphasize Disney product over most other texts. Chapter 1 described how Disney’s output foregrounds the formation of a middle-class heterosexual family as “natural” and “inevitable.” Most young viewers would more or less accept this representation of life. Yet, just as adult homosexuals often read Disney texts differently than was expected, it is not surprising to find that proto-queer individuals would do the same—especially as Disney dominated their viewing habits right at the moment when they were attempting to come to grips with recognizing in themselves a “difference” which they might not even have had an ability to name.

Two quick examples should suffice. Renowned underground comic artist R. Crumb and his dysfunctional family are the subject of the hailed documentary
Crumb
(1995). In the film, R. Crumb acknowledges that he began drawing as a child when he collaborated with his brother.

His brother loved creating comic books about the adventures of Long John Silver and young Jim from the Disney version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s
Treasure Island
(1949), which they had seen as kids. Examples of these early comics constantly emphasize the figure of Jim. Towards the end of the film, it is revealed that R. Crumb’s brother was gay, and that these early comics were an attempt to voice the brother’s boyhood crush/obsession with child actor Bobby Driscoll, who had played Jim in the film.

Another anecdote entails quite specific research into how one of Disney’s films affected children’s role models. One gay man has recounted to me how, as a grade-school student, his class was shown

“ M I C K E Y M O U S E — A LWAYS G AY ! ”

79

Sleeping Beauty
and then questioned on who they identified with. He seems to have known that the researchers were expecting most boys to identify with Prince Philip and most girls to identify with Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), although they figured that some boys would identify with the Princess and some girls would identify with the Prince. Yet, when he responded that he identified with the good (but stubborn and opinionated) fairy Meriwether, the researchers were stunned—so stunned, in fact, that his parents were called in to meet with the researchers to discuss the “oddity” of this child’s choice. Even though memory might have enlarged the scope of what this individual could possibly have known or understood as a child, if his parents met with the researchers to discuss his identification with Meriwether, then the researchers themselves were acknowledging the “queer” reading position that this child had.

As this second anecdote points out, it is important to recognize how memory affects and alters experiences. Most evidence of proto-queer adolescents reading Disney through a “lesbian/gay sensibility” comes from self-identified homosexual adults viewing their memories as “evidence” of their future adult lives. Hence, childhood experiences are shaped to fit future results. Still, such shaping should not necessarily discount claims that some young men and women used Disney films and TV shows to explore their budding sexual desires.

When Michael Nava and Robert Dawidoff, the authors of
Created
Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America,
spoke to a group of employees at the Walt Disney Company in 1994, they chuckled aloud about the importance of “Spin and Marty” in their lives. This comment elicited knowing chuckles from a number of people in the room. Similarly, at one point in Armistead Maupin’s
Tales of the City
books, the main gay character Michael (nicknamed Mouse, at least in part because his family is from Orlando, Florida, home of Walt Disney World) commiserates with his lover Jon Fielding about “Spin and Marty”:

“‘The Mickey Mouse Club’ turned you queer?”

“Well . . . You either got off on Annette’s tits or you didn’t. If you did, you were straight. If you didn’t, you had only one alternative . . .

Spin and Marty.
God, I used to agonize over that show!”

“I’d almost forgotten about that.”

“That’s because you identified with Spin. Those of us who identified with Marty will never, ever, forget it.”74

80

“ M I C K E Y M O U S E — A LWAYS G AY ! ”

“The Adventures of Spin and Marty” was a continuing serial that was broadcast as part of
The Mickey Mouse Club
television show in 1955.

Based on the novel
Martin Markham,
the serial told the story of city-bred Martin Markham’s summer at a dude ranch. As the summer progresses, he learns to drop the chip from his shoulder and become “a regular guy”—Marty instead of Martin. The serial increased the role of Spin, another boy at the ranch who most of the kids acknowledge as the most

“regular” guy at the Triple R Ranch. The relationship between Spin and Marty develops from guarded antagonism on Marty’s part to minor jealousy on Spin’s part as Marty learns the ropes (somewhat outshining Spin) to eventual close friendship.

The increased role of Spin makes sense when looking at Marty’s persona in the early stages of the narrative. Before Marty even arrives at the Triple R Ranch, the ranch hands discuss him. Logan, the head of the ranch, tells his assistant, Bill Burnette, “I wanted a chance to talk to you about him—but I really don’t know myself . . . yet. . . .” When Bill asks what it is that Logan “doesn’t know,” Logan responds, “Well, he’s a little different from the rest of ’em. Might be some sort of a problem for you.” It is just at this point that Marty is driven up by his English valet, Perkins. Marty steps out in suit and bow tie with a fedora on his head. When Bill greets him with “Hi, Marty,” the boy responds in very precise diction, “Excuse me, sir—but my name is Martin.”

Possibly worried that young male viewers would have a hard time identifying with someone so clipped and cultured, Spin was provided as a “butch” alternate figure. A natural athlete and a minor star at the ranch, Spin represents the ideal boy that Martin needs to become. The main narrative focuses on “masculinizing” Marty. In fact, Burnette declares as his mission, “I’ll
straighten
that boy out if it takes all summer!”

Throughout the early episodes of the serial, veiled references to Marty’s

“sissy” persona constantly crop up. It is revealed that he is afraid of horses, that (to quote Marty himself) “I don’t know much about stuff like Spin there—sports, I mean,” and that he has been raised by a stern grandmother with the implication that this is the source of his “problem.” (In the 1950s, controlling mother figures were commonly blamed for turning their sons into homosexuals.)

Just like Maupin’s character Michael, many adult gay men who were kids during the 1950s
did
strongly identify with Martin’s persona and predicament. Since the serial eventually aims to makeover Martin into Marty, the early episodes work to make the viewer feel for Martin,

“ M I C K E Y M O U S E — A LWAYS G AY ! ”

81

even as the viewer dislikes the airs he puts on. In one dinner sequence, Martin is asked to stand up and introduce himself. As the other boys whisper somewhat audibly words like “drip” and mutter nasty jokes, Martin tries to gain some respect by claiming to play polo. This gambit only works somewhat. One boy comments, “He looks like the kind of guy who plays polo.” Spin responds, “Yeah, maybe that’s what’s wrong with him.” And, when Bill confronts Martin privately about the boast, the boy stresses the reason for such a lie: “I just didn’t want the guys to think . . .” The rest of the sentence is too overwhelming to be spoken, and the pain and psychological motivation for this sequence probably resonated in the minds of a number of young proto-queer boys.

Amusingly, the attempt to “butch” up the story and shift the focus slightly away from the manners of Martin during the early stages of the narrative causes its own problems—or delights, depending on who’s doing the reading. For, with the emphasis on the relationship between Spin and Marty, proto-queer boys were capable of reading a prepubes-cent romance between the two. The feelings that each character calls up in the other certainly make the relationship more intense than most boy-boy relationships represented in children’s media. Throughout the narrative, the two are constantly watching each other. First, Martin envies Spin’s natural athleticism and popularity. Although obviously thinking Martin a little odd, Spin unaccountably starts to defend him to the other guys—but always outside of earshot of Martin. When Marty starts to gain confidence on his horse, and win over some of the kids at the ranch, Spin watches with admiration but also a little fear that his position as “star” of the ranch is in jeopardy. At a certain point in the later half of the serial, places are somewhat switched, as Marty rescues a little boy on a runaway horse and Spin injures a horse accidentally while trying to play hero. When Spin falls from his pedastal a bit, Marty feels safe enough to make friendly contact with him at last. After watching Spin in secret for a bit, Marty approaches him saying, “I never thought a guy could make a mess of things like I always do.” Marty actually is willing to sacrifice winning a prize at the rodeo just so Spin can win—

but Spin calls Marty on his sacrifice and makes him do his best. Both end up winning prizes, and the two are shown at the end of the series lovingly brushing down their horses in adjoining stalls and smiling at each other—obviously having become “fast friends.” The intensity of the friendship was made even more explicit in the sequel to the serial.

The popularity of “The Adventures of Spin and Marty” necessitated 82

“ M I C K E Y M O U S E — A LWAYS G AY ! ”

“The New Adventures of Spin and Marty”—and, this time, the slightly older boys would meet girls from the all-girl dude ranch across the lake.

Marty enjoyed the girls’ company, and Spin’s desire to leave the girls could easily be read as jealousy over the potential competition for Marty’s attention.

The focus on male relationships increased in Disney’s output during the 1950s, due mainly to an increase in live-action production that tended to emphasize action and adventure rather than fairy-tale fantasy. The success of such live-action productions as
Treasure Island
(1949) and
Old Yeller
(1957), as well as the “Davy Crockett” episodes of the
Disneyland
TV series, spurred further “Boys’ Life” stories, stories that often had the potential to fodder the imaginations of proto-queer young men as much as “Spin and Marty” did. Certainly, R. Crumb’s brother’s fascination with Bobby Driscoll in
Treasure Island
helps support this contention. Films such as
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
(1954),
Tonka
(1958),
Almost Angels
(1962) and
Savage Sam
(1963) and TV series such as “The Hardy Boys” serial on
The Mickey Mouse Club
and
Zorro
(1957–59) had barely any women at all in the cast. Consequently, the deepest emotional bonds were forged amongst the male characters, often with some startling implications for those who chose to find them. In
Swiss Family
Robinson,
for example, Tommy Kirk and James MacArthur play brothers who come upon a young woman disguised as a boy. Both find the boy strangely appealing and have trouble coming to terms with their hormonal reactions until the ruse is revealed.

An even longer sustained reading can be applied to the little-known
The Light in the Forest
(1958) starring James MacArthur as a white boy raised by Indians who is recaptured and must readjust to his new environment. Throughout the film, MacArthur’s character rebels by peeling off his confining clothes and running off to wrestle and swim with his male Indian friend. It is only with the stern but loving hand of the Army camp commander (Fess Parker) that the young man begins to revise his attitude. It is an uphill battle, though, as a remarkable sequence in which the commander forces the boy to take a bath is supposed to demonstrate. In the scene, MacArthur sits in a small iron washtub with his knees sticking out, and Parker actually reaches between the boys’ legs to get the soap and lather up his chest! Later, as MacArthur’s character begins to look up to the commander, the camp holds a dance and one of the activities involves fighting for a prize, which the winner will give to the one he cares for most. MacArthur, of

“ M I C K E Y M O U S E — A LWAYS G AY ! ”

83

course, wins and immediately hands it to Parker. The rest of the crowd laughs and explains that it is meant for a
girl,
assuming that MacArthur just didn’t understand. Such a moment makes it all the more plausible to read the feelings the boy has for the commander as an adolescent proto-queer crush.75

This is not to say that Disney had no place for girls in the 1950s. On the contrary, one of the girls in the “Spin and Marty” sequel was played by the biggest star to come out of
The Mickey Mouse Club
—Annette Funicello. Funicello would eventually star in her own serial within the show, called simply “Annette.” Just as “Spin and Marty” was supposed to appeal to boys’ love of outdoors and playing cowboy, “Annette” followed a number of narrative conventions of the women’s film genre—