(Cross-posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies)
I've just read Gregory Maguire's introduction to A Wonderful Welcome to Oz, a compendium of three of Baum's Oz novels. In it, he says in passing (while talking about the gender change of the boy Tip to the girl Ozma), "...nor do I interest myself, here, in the reasons why Oz has become a metaphor for the safe and welcoming home for which gay men have long longed." This made me wonder whether there are sources which have discussed the significance of Oz for gay men in the 20th century. It's certainly entered the language — we all know what a "friend of Dorothy" signifies — but I've never seen an explanation of why Oz is so commonly connected with gay culture. (It probably has something to do with Judy Garland.) Now, obviously we can't engage in original research on this subject; so I was wondering whether there are reliable sources which have addressed this connection, and if so, what articles could or should incorporate mention of this appropriation. If Batman can sustain an entire section on Batman#Homosexual interpretations, surely there's some Oz article which has room for "the gay". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- There are numerous sources that discuss this. One i have says:
- "Film of 1939 delighting children, those young at heart, and queer-identified persons, especially gay men, for generations. The film stars Judy Garland, a gay icon.... A number of gay anaylses of the film, most notably that by Jungian writer Robert Hopcke that while this sentimental film is appreciated by many individuals, it holds a special resonance for queer-identified persons in juxtaposing everyday reality, ie homophobic, lesbophobic, biphobic, and transgenderphobic reality, represented by Kansas, to a magical land of acceptance....Queer-identified persons discover kinship in a majority of the characters [description of charaacters and why they are identified with]....When the film is shown in a theatre, like the Castro theatre in SF, it is transformed into a rite celebrating acceptance and community. "[1]
- Also (another source):
- "In recent years,queer people have begun reading texts as queer even when messages were not (consciously) encrypted by their authors. This kind of "cross-reading", according to Creekmur and Doty, in their introduction to Out in Culture, depends on camp. They eyplained the queer resonance that the movie The Wizard of Oz has for gay men and lesbians by pointing out that almost everyone in thefilm lives a double life: "It's emotionally confused and oppressed teenage heroine longs for a world in which her inner desires can be expressed freely and fully. Dorothy finds this world in a technocolor land 'over the rainbow' inhabitied by a sissy lion, an artifical man who cannot stop crying, and a butch femme-couple of witches".[2]
- I've just put these on the talk page for now. If no-one else gets to it, it write it up as a section on monday (no time now - job interview!)YobMod 06:27, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
References
Caonner & Sparks (1998), p. 349Conner, Randy P. (1998). Cassell's Encylopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit. UK: Cassell. ISBN 0304704237. Green (1997), p. 404Green, Thomas A. (1997). Folklore: an encyclopedia of beliefs, customs, tales, music, and art. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780874369861.
