Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company From the Inside Out (30 page)

is transmitted. But the film’s overall point-of-view seems to critique this type of statement, and the line of dialogue seems to occur mainly to expose the spoiled and unfeeling nature of this rich and sheltered Beverly Hills family. Certainly, the acceptance of Max’s orientation takes up more screen time than this one comment, and the film seems to endorse this acceptance.

A later Touchstone comedy,
Big Business
(1988), also presented obvious representations of homosexuality with the inclusion of a manifestly gay male couple as important supporting characters. Chuck (Daniel Gerroll) and Graham (Edward Herrmann) play executive 156

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assistants to Sadie (Bette Midler), co-owner of a major conglomerate.

Although some viewers may not initially comprehend the two men as gay, much less a couple, as the storyline progresses it becomes impossible to understand them as anything but homosexual lovers. Chuck and Graham are introduced as Sadie walks through the corporate offices, and Chuck is the only one who seems to be able to match Sadie quip for bitchy quip. Also, both Chuck and Graham have slightly cultured and affected accents. Again, to some audience members, these details could send signals, but others would not read anything into these aspects of the characters’ personalities. Throughout the first half of the movie, it becomes clear that the two will function as a comic duo within the narrative. One is never seen without the other. In fact, the two seem to do everything together: lunch, racquetball, dinner as well as corporate dirty work for Sadie. A stronger note of the characters’ orientation is revealed when Sadie catches sight of the two of them sharing dinner.

They are seated side by side instead of across from each other. As the waiter serves them their food, Graham reacts excitedly by flitting his hands in a move perfected by 1930s “pansy” actors such as Edward Everett Horton and Franklin Pangborn.

Finally, there is no arguing with reading Chuck and Graham as a gay couple when they are shown sharing a hotel suite—as well as the king-size bed in the suite. As part of the farcical machinations of the plot, they invite Roone (Fred Ward), a country bumpkin, to spend the night sleeping on the couch in their suite. As Roone readies for bed by doing pushups wearing only pajama bottoms, Chuck and Graham

stand close together and stare agog at him. When he finishes, Roone stands and notices the silk mini-kimono that Chuck is wearing and asks him if he got it “in ’Nam.” Chuck smiles somewhat shyly and replies,

“No, Fire Island.” Even if a viewer does not know of Fire Island’s reputation as the summer beach resort for New York City’s gay population, Roone’s realization, “Don’t tell me you two guys are sleeping in the same bed together!” makes the situation plain. (Of course, Roone is too dunderheaded to put one and one together, even after Chuck looks de-sirously at him and murmurs, “Goodnight.”)

Although Chuck and Graham are not above figuring into the

ridiculousness of the farce, the film does not seem to single them out for derisive homophobic humor. If anything, the film invites the viewer to look at the farce through their eyes and see the inanity of the world they are forced to work in. For example, after Roone has spent minutes solil-

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oquizing on the rustic charm of his hometown, the film cuts to Chuck and Graham who seem to be suppressing the giggles at Roone’s cliched description, cuing the audience to laugh with them at Roone’s naivete, to read the soliloquy through the mindset of camp. The presence of such easily read gay characters in these films, like the knowledge of an openly gay artist in other Disney films of this period, seem to “authorize” a gay reading throughout the pictures. The predominantly gay male audience that was present when I saw
Big Business
in its initial release seemed to loudly share a campy enjoyment of the film and not just the presence of Chuck and Graham.

A major aspect of camp value in the film—and in
Down and Out in
Beverly Hills
—was the presence of Bette Midler. Disney and Midler almost became synonymous during the late 1980s, as she starred in a long list of films for the studio. Beyond
Down and Out
and
Big Business,
she starred in
Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune
(1987),
Beaches
(1989),
Hocus Pocus
(1993), provided a voice to one of the characters in the animated feature
Oliver and Company
(1988) and sang over the end credits to
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1996). Midler began her career by singing in gay male bathhouses in New York City, an experience that helped her to fashion a camp star persona as “the Divine Miss M.” Midler did not relinquish this image as she moved to more mainstream acceptance, thus ensuring the loyalty of her gay fans. Disney did not try to erase this aspect of Midler’s image when they used her in their films.

In fact, her image perfectly fit into the bright, garish look of the comedies Disney was turning out during this period—a look that also verged on camp.

The “high-concept” farces that Disney produced (mainly under the Touchstone label) during the late 1980s reveled in a highly colorful
nouveau riche
visual design that carried from one film to the next. The pinks and taupes of
Down and Out in Beverly Hills
were followed by the bright primary colors in
Ruthless People,
the colorful comic book murals in the penthouse setting of
Three Men and a Baby
(1987) and the vibrant costumes worn by Midler in
Big Business.
The lively colors stood out usually against a lot of white walls and furniture, and the films invariably employed high-key lighting to create an airy sunny atmosphere. Overall, the visual design of this string of comedies blended well with the farcical narratives to fabricate an almost cartoonish world within a live-action feature. In this setting, Midler’s diva antics were not only acceptable but almost demanded.

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Although such production design holds much in common with

other media texts of the mid-1980s (such as the TV series,
Miami Vice
and
Moonlighting
), the ultimate referent that these films seem to have is the TV series
Dynasty.
In
Down and Out,
when Jerry claims he once dated actress Linda Evans (who played Krystle Carrington), the entire cast is entranced to think that he knows a star from
Dynasty. Big Business
features a clip of
Dynasty
’s Alexis Carrington (played by Joan Collins) giving a speech to a board of executives, a speech that Bette Midler’s character later uses at a stockholder’s meeting at the climax of the film.
Dynasty
had a huge gay male following. Gay bars stopped everything to air episodes of the series on Wednesday nights. They watched partly because one of the main characters was gay but mainly because of the “high-diva” antics of villainess Alexis and virtuous Krystle. At least once each season, audiences could look forward to a knock-down, all-out catfight between the two—usually involving torn clothes and getting muddy or sopping wet. Drag queens often looked to the costume design of the show for inspiration (and the wealth of padded shoulders lent itself easily to drag). The costumes added to the overall look of the series: ostentatious, over-the-top, in-your-face wealth that bordered on the absurd.

In picturing the lifestyles of the rich and famous with the same visual design, Touchstone’s comedies during the Reagan presidency also evoked a milieu ripe for gay appreciation. Certainly, gay “touches”

seemed to fill
Down and Out
beyond Max’s inclusion in the storyline.

The film lingers over Nick Nolte’s bare behind when he strips down. An obviously gay hairdresser undertakes to spruce Jerry up after the family adopts him. Little Richard plays the Whiteman’s next door neighbor in full snoopy-diva mode, and enters the film dressed in a leopard print silk mini-robe. The film does provide him with a wife for the final New Year’s Eve party, but a wife never mentioned until her appearance and with whom he spends barely any time during the party.

The adoration of the series’ divas by many gay men could also find parallels in Touchstone films through Midler. As Sadie in
Big Business,
Midler seems to be specifically channeling Alexis Carrington. She wields power with wicked glee, zinging nasty one-liners and getting sexually aroused by thoughts of corporate mergers. She stalks the hall-ways in her stiletto heels, barking out orders and shredding employees with biting criticism. “Is this how we dress for the office?,” she asks a female employee wearing a black and red print dress, “You look like a

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blood clot!” Sadie’s costume design is itself an ongoing joke in the film.

Midler makes her first entrance in the film as the office elevator doors open to reveal her in an absurdly broad-rimmed black hat and power red suit with the requisite ’80s padded shoulders. She changes from one outrageously
outré
outfit to another, ending in a tight black skirt and a pink jacket with padded shoulders and big black polka dots!

Dynasty
was important in the 1980s more to gay male culture than to lesbian culture, thus again implying that the value of these Touchstone comedies to non-straight audiences was limited to gay men. The inclusion of Lily Tomlin as Midler’s co-star in
Big Business
may suggest a possible lesbian audience for the film. (Tomlin’s name has figured in rumor mills within lesbian and gay communities for years.) Yet, Tomlin’s presence is a slim thread to hang a lesbian reading of the film upon, particularly in the face of much more obvious aspects of the film tied to gay-male culture.

Further, it must be recognized that while Touchstone comedies acknowledged the presence of gay men, their appearance in these films was not always completely accepting. Often, homosexuality functioned as a quick titillating joke in the overall storyline. When Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, as two aging recently released convicts, visit their old neighborhood bar for the first time in years in
Tough Guys
(1987), a few minutes pass until they realize that the bar now caters to gay men.

In fact, they don’t catch on until one customer asks Kirk to dance and their waiter blows him a kiss from across the room. Kirk and Burt escape as quickly as possible. Similarly, in
Off Beat
(1988), when Judge Reinhold’s character unthinkingly follows his best friend into a group shower and hugs him in gratitude, the rest of the men in the locker room watch in amazement. Eventually, Judge realizes what this must look like and hightails it out of the shower. In both cases, the joke is made to distance the male friendships in these two films from being read as homosexual—they’re just friends, because look how embarrassed they are over being thought to be gay.

This is definitely the case with the first Touchstone film to make over $100 million in its initial release,
Three Men and a Baby.
Although the narrative deals with three single men living together and raising a child, the film constantly works to quell the homosexual implications.

The opening credits sequence parades a line of uncredited actresses through the penthouse apartment that Peter (Tom Selleck), Michael (Steve Guttenberg) and Jack (Ted Danson) share, to underline that these 160

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men have girlfriends,
lots
of girlfriends. This type of thing recurs throughout the film, particularly in a Central Park montage where the three men realize that the baby attracts women in droves.

Yet, even as the film protests (almost too much) that this is a heterosexual world, the film revels in the campy visuals common to Touchstone comedies of this era. Their upscale apartment is decorated with brightly colored murals painted by Michael (who is a comic strip artist).

The film also continuously engages in farce. During one of these moments, Jack, the biological father of the baby, is dressed in drag. In a somewhat remarkable ending, the final conflict of the baby’s mother Sylvia (Nancy Travis) returning to claim her child is solved by having the woman move in with the three bachelors without being romantically involved with any of them, creating a very nontraditional family unit. The “queer” implications of the basic premise were also touched on in the sequel,
Three Men and a Little Lady
(1990), directed by Emile Ardolino. Jack again dresses in drag, this time as Carmen Miranda, and the little girl, now five years old, pointedly asks why none of the men are married, eliciting loud stammers from all three. Ultimately though, the sequel also reasserts heterosexuality, as Peter marries Sylvia at the end of the film, attempting again to quell the “queer” potentiality of the picture.

As the 1980s became the 1990s, these “buddy” relationships became more prevalent at Disney, but often focusing on much younger men than before. Featuring cute “pin-up boys” as the main characters, the films usually provided scenes that required them to take their shirts off.

Although probably hoping to attract high-school girls, such casting also caught the attention of a number of gay men as well, an effect that some reviewers seemed to realize—especially since the main emotional attachments in the films were usually between the male characters. Although these films still placed some signifiers to make the lead characters “ostensibly” straight, the attempts were often extremely incidental to the main narrative.

The first in this string of films was
Dead Poets Society
(1989), the first Touchstone picture ever to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award and a surprise summer box-office hit. While Robin Williams, as an unconventional English Literature professor at an all-male college preparatory during the 1950s, is the film’s ostensible star, most of the story focuses on a group of his students. Amongst these students are roommates Todd Anderson, played by Ethan Hawke, and Neil Perry,

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