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This paper was presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication in San Antonio, Texas August 2005.
If you have questions about this paper, please contact the author
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Thank you.
Elliott Parker
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"Perverts" on the Potomac
Homosexuals Enter the News Arena
by
Professor Rodger Streitmatter
School of Communication
American University
Washington, D.C. 20016
[log in to unmask]
office phone: 202-885-2057
home phone: 202-675-8446
Submitted for presentation to the
History Division
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
National Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, August 2005
"Perverts" on the Potomac
~
Homosexuals Enter the News Arena
Abstract
This study documents that many American publications first began
covering homosexuality as a news topic in 1950 with their reporting
on a public hearing conducted by a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate.
Further, this paper examines the content of some fifty newspaper and
magazine articles to identify some of the messages about homosexuals
that the coverage communicated to the nation's readers.
Among those messages were that homosexuals were a threat to the
nation's well-being and therefore entirely unacceptable for public
service for three distinct reasons: they could be blackmailed by
foreign agents, they lacked emotional stability, and they were
morally corrupt. A close reading of the articles also reveals that
homosexuals were depicted as being afflicted with a nauseating
disease, as being obsessed with sex, and as representing a grave
danger to boys and young men.
2
"Perverts" on the Potomac
~
Homosexuals Enter the News Arena
Several of America's leading newspapers published their first
articles about homosexuals in March 1950. The event that prompted
the stories was a public hearing conducted by a subcommittee of the
U.S. Senate. During that session, a government official mentioned
that ninety-one State Department employees had been fired because
they were "in the shady category." When one of the senators asked
the witness to clarify exactly what he meant by that phrase, the
bureaucrat fidgeted nervously for a moment—he was extremely
uncomfortable talking publicly about such an unseemly topic—and then
stated, almost in a whisper:
"They were homosexuals."[1]
That comment pushed the nation's elite news voices across a historic
threshold because, having been heard by several Capitol Hill
reporters during the public session, it could not be ignored. Even
though the newspapers feared that many of their subscribers would be
offended by reading the word "homosexuals," the competitive nature of
American journalism left the publications no choice. Each paper knew
that if it opted not to quote the statement, it ran the risk of
giving the other papers a scoop. And so, a handful of the most
important and most influential news voices of the day crossed a line
that they previously had assiduously avoided.
By no means was the morning after that public hearing the last time
in 1950 that the sensitive subject appeared in the country's
media. For that initial reference to the possibility of homosexuals
having a hand in shaping American foreign policy prompted expressions
of shock and outrage from legions of congressmen as well as other
readers, which in turn propelled myriad more articles on the
topic.[2] Indeed, by December of that year, coverage of men who were
attracted to other men—lesbians were rarely mentioned in the
articles—had expanded not only into many of the country's major
newspapers but also into several national magazines.
This paper has two major goals. First, it seeks to document that
many American publications first began covering homosexuals in
1950. This initial goal is, to a degree, repetitious of existing
scholarship in that a small number of works have made passing
reference to this coverage and its significance. The Lavender Scare:
The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal
Government by David K. Johnson, for example, stated that "in the
spring of 1950, in the wake of the [John E.] Peurifoy revelation,
homosexuality first became a national political issue."[3] Other
books that have mentioned this point include Sexual Politics, Sexual
Communities: The Making of the Homosexual Minority, 1940-1970 by John
D'Emilio and Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in
America by Rodger Streitmatter.[4]
The second goal of this paper is to move the scholarship on this
topic to a more advanced level of analysis. More specifically, the
current study does not stop with providing citations to published
articles in order to establish that leading newspapers and magazines
began covering homosexuality in 1950. Instead, this manuscript takes
the additional step of closely examining the content of those various
published articles to identify some of the messages about homosexual
men that the coverage communicated to the American reading
public. This close scrutiny illuminates several unambiguous ways in
which these influential news voices vilified their human
subjects. Indeed, it seems clear that these news articles and their
underlying messages helped to create several of the most demeaning
stereotypes about gay men that continue to exist today, some fifty
years later.
Because this manuscript makes an original contribution to the body of
scholarship vis-à-vis how the media have treated gay people, it
relies mainly on primary sources. More specifically, this study
draws upon some fifty articles that appeared in 1950 in a wide
variety of publications ranging from such elite national news voices
as the New York Times and Newsweek magazine to such metropolitan and
regional daily newspapers as the Miami Herald and the Cleveland Plain
Dealer to such general-interest magazines as Esquire and Coronet.
For a media consumer of the early twenty-first century, the most
startling aspect of these stories may be the highly derogatory words
and phrases that served as synonyms for "homosexuals." The
newspapers and magazines routinely used the terms "perverts" and
"sexual perverts," while occasionally choosing from a list of several
other derisive words: "deviates," "homos," "degenerates," "queers,"
and "fairies."
The coverage, when looked at as a whole, communicated several
messages—all of them negative—about its primary subject. More
specifically, the articles portrayed homosexuals as a threat to the
nation's well-being and therefore entirely unacceptable for public
service for three distinct reasons: they could be blackmailed by
foreign agents, they lacked emotional stability, and they were
morally corrupt. A close reading of the articles also reveals that
homosexuals were depicted as being afflicted with a nauseating
disease, as being obsessed with sex, and as representing a grave
danger to boys and young men.
Startling Revelations
To understand why homosexuality entered the news arena when it did
requires looking at the events that made Joseph R. McCarthy a
national newsmaker. On several occasions during February 1950, the
Wisconsin senator accused State Department officials of knowingly
employing members of the Communist Party. McCarthy's dramatic
charges transformed him into the chief spokesman for a virulent
campaign that he and other Republicans had designed to help the party
regain the White House in the 1952 presidential election.[5]
It was two weeks after McCarthy launched his crusade against
communists in the government that members of the Senate subcommittee
called the official in charge of security for the State Department to
testify before them. Desperate to prove to the nation's top
lawmakers that he was doing his job, John E. Peurifoy stated that he
vigorously investigated the backgrounds of both potential and current
employees. The deputy under secretary went on to say that his
vigilance had led, since early 1947, to the resignation or dismissal
of 202 undesirable individuals. To further strengthen his case,
Peurifoy then added his reference to ridding the department of the
ninety-one workers "in the shady category," which then prompted
Senator Styles Bridges, a Republican from New Hampshire, to ask the
witness to clarify that phrase, thereby leaving Peurifoy no choice
but to utter the word "homosexuals."[6]
When the three newspapers that had reporters at the hearing
published Peurifoy's quotation on the morning of March 1, they gave
it considerable prominence. The New York Times,[7] Los Angeles
Times,[8] and Washington Times-Herald[9]—the leading newspaper in the
nation's capital at the time—all placed the story on page one.
Homosexuality returned to the pages of these elite newspapers, while
also making its debut in one of the country's leading news magazines,
later that spring. The event being reported this time was another
session of the same subcommittee that had heard testimony from the
State Department's security official, but now the witness was a man
Newsweek magazine described as "tough old Lt. Roy E. Blick" of the
District of Columbia police force. The senators wanted to know more
about the homosexual population in the nation's capital, so they
turned to the head of the local vice squad. "Blick described parties
raided, officials high and low arrested, and ended with a real
shocker," the magazine reported. "There are some 5,000 homosexuals
in the District of Columbia, he testified, and 3,750 of them work for
the government."[10] (Blick later admitted that the figures were, in
fact, little more than guesses on his part that he presented to the
lawmakers because he wanted to appear knowledgeable on the subject.[11])
Coverage of the two Senate hearings showed the nation's journalists
that the sky did not fall and readers did not cancel their
subscriptions when they encountered stories about homosexuality. And
so, by the summer of 1950, articles on the topic began to dot the
pages not only of America's most prestigious dailies but also of
several other newspapers and of Time, the largest of the country's
news magazine.[12] Non-news publications also began to write about
the subject, with articles soon surfaced in The New Yorker,[13]
Saturday Review,[14] Esquire,[15] Coronet,[16] and the Saturday
Evening Post.[17]
A particularly noteworthy flurry of articles appeared in December
when a Senate subcommittee released the findings of a six-month study
of homosexuals working in the federal government. By this point,
coverage had expanded to the daily newspapers in such cities as
Miami[18] and Dallas,[19] Chicago[20] and Cleveland,[21] San
Francisco[22] and Detroit.[23] Typical of the lead paragraphs was
the one in the Boston Globe, which began, "A Senate investigating
group today labeled sexual perverts as dangerous security risks and
demanded strict and careful screening to keep them off the government
payroll."[24] The most significant specific fact in the articles was
that, during the previous four years, a total of 4,954 homosexuals
had been removed from federal employment.[25]
1950 clearly was a watershed year in the evolution of homosexuality
in the media. Propelled by the three-word statement "They were
homosexuals" that was uttered during a public session on Capitol
Hill, the concept of men being attracted to other men began to make
its first tentative appearance in America's top newspapers. As other
events occurred and as time passed, the subject gradually found its
way into more and more of the country's newspapers and
magazines. Equal in importance to the fact that the stories were
being printed was exactly what messages those articles were conveying.
Terms of Derision
The hundreds of newspapers published in the United States look to
the most highly respected dailies for guidance on what topics to
report on, as well as what approach to take in covering them. In
1950, the New York Times was the country's most prestigious
newspaper, and so it became the media outlet, more than any other,
responsible for establishing not only that it was time to start
covering homosexuals but also that the overriding tone of the stories
should be one of contempt.
Beginning with its front-page article about John E. Peurifoy's
testimony at the Senate hearing and continuing through a dozen other
pieces published during the year, the Times showed its disdain for
homosexuals by consistently referring to them as "perverts." Among
the headlines the paper crafted to run above its stories in the
spring were "Inquiry by Senate on Perverts Asked"[26] and "Perverts
Called Government Peril,"[27] while the headline announcing the
findings of the Senate investigation in December read "Federal
Vigilance on Perverts Asked."[28]
The country's most respected news voice also reflected its derisive
attitude toward homosexuals by the words it chose to use in the text
of its stories. In addition to the terms "perverts" and "sexual
perverts,"[29] the Times referred to men who were attracted to other
men as "homos"[30] and "deviates."[31]
As news organs from around the country followed the Times's lead in
reporting on homosexuals, those publications repeated the denigrating
terms used in the nation's unofficial newspaper of record. Among the
headlines: "Senators Demand U.S. Bar Hiring of Sex Perverts" in the
Cleveland Plain Dealer,[32] "Probers Assail U.S. Hiring of Sex
Perverts" in the Chicago Tribune,[33] "Sex Perverts Called Risks to
Security" in the San Francisco Chronicle.[34] The country's two
leading news weeklies reflected the same contemptuous tone in the
words they chose to use as synonyms for homosexuals—Time selected
"perverts,"[35] Newsweek went with "sex deviates."[36]
Some publications determined that men being attracted to other men
represented such a horrifying threat to the social order that even
the derisive terms used in the Times and its imitators were not
always sufficiently harsh. The Miami Herald,[37] Boston Globe,[38]
and Dallas Morning News[39] all opted for the word "degenerates";
Esquire,[40] the Washington Times-Herald,[41] and the New York
World-Telegram[42] chose "queers"; and the general-interest magazine
Coronet weighed in with "fairies."[43]
"They Might Be Blackmailed by Spies"
From the moment that homosexuals made their first appearance in the
nation's elite newspapers, a major theme of the coverage was that, as
the Los Angeles Times stated in its first story, "such persons are
rated bad security risks because they might be blackmailed by
spies."[44] At a time when China's fall to communism, the outbreak
of the Korean War, and anti-communist witch hunts dominated the news,
no accusation was more damning to a government employee than being a
pawn of the enemy.
Numerous news articles described the blackmail scenario, which
contended that if the homosexuality of a State Department or Central
Intelligence Agency employee became known to an official of another
country, he would be a security threat. More specifically, the
homosexual American was vulnerable to blackmail threats because if he
refused to provide the sensitive material that an enemy agent
demanded, the foreigner could expose the shameful sexual desires of
the "pervert," thereby destroying the man's career.[45]
One of the curious points about the media attention given to
homosexuals during 1950 was that, despite the fact that the blackmail
scenario was described in dozens of stories, none of the articles
divulged the name of a single federal employee who had, in fact, been
the victim of such a threat. Indeed, none of the stories even
mentioned the name of any person who had been identified as a
homosexual. As the New York Post explained, a "pervert" who was
being removed from the government payroll received the gift of
anonymity in exchange for being willing to resign rather than fight
to keep his job. "Unless he wants to face the unspeakable disgrace
of letting his case become public," the Post wrote, "the homosexual
will sign the resignation quietly. He always does."[46]
Although none of the articles named any contemporary homosexuals,
several of them supported the consequences of blackmail by looking
back in history. During the early 1900s, Colonel Alfred Redl had
risen to the position of director of counter-intelligence for
Austro-Hungary. But when the Russians discovered that Redl was a
homosexual, they threatened to reveal his secret—unless he became an
informant. "Redl turned and for eleven years served Russia as a
master spy-within-a-spy," according to an article in Time magazine
titled "Object Lesson." The colonel's betrayal played a major role
in World War I, the story continued, because he told the Russians the
details of Austro-Hungarian and German war plans. When the
homosexual traitor's espionage became public, Redl killed
himself.[47]
"Cookie Pushers" and "Hysterical Queers"
As homosexuals moved front and center as a news topic, the nation's
newspapers portrayed them as being emotionally unstable. Some
publications communicated this weakness by describing the men as
absurdly effeminate, while others characterized them as exhibiting
such an extreme level of hysteria that they often became physically violent.
In 1950, the differing gender roles filled by men than by women in
American society were so rigid that anyone who didn't conform to the
strict definitions was automatically considered a misfit. And
according to the newspapers of the day, men who were attracted to
other men most certainly fit into this category. The most frequent
allusion to the feminine mannerisms of homosexual men came when
reporters called them "cookie pushers," a label that one story
explained as the fact "that they are effeminate fellows most at home
at a ladies' tea."[48] Other references came from newspaper
columnists. Westbrook Pegler, a Pulitzer Prize winner whose words
were published in 140 newspapers around the country, wrote that the
State Department employed so many "nances" that it was commonplace
for male employees to "call each other female names like Bessie, Maud
and Chloe" and to "write each other poetry and confidential notes so
tender."[49] Another columnist, Robert C. Ruark of the New York
World-Telegram, described a "flagrantly homosexual" military attaché
as being so confused about his gender that he "regaled strangers with
teary tales about his inability to write his boy friend every day"
and other diplomats worried that he might start "wearing a hostess
gown in public."[50]
It was also Ruark of the World-Telegram who painted one of the most
dramatic portraits of how much damage a homosexual's emotional
instability could do. "Most 'queers' exhibit a tendency to hysteria,
which means they blow their tops in times of stress," Ruark began,
then going on to describe the series of events that could unfold when
"hysterical queers" act on their compulsions. "A pervert fondles a
child. The child cries. The creep blows his roof. He is
panic-ridden and hysterically afraid of being caught. He throttles
the child." Ruark said that actions such as these were common in the
lives of homosexuals because of their inability to control either
their emotions or their perverse sexual desires. The columnist went
on to say that the large number of homosexuals in the State
Department had led to dire consequences for the country. "A great
deal of the trouble we are in, internationally, can be laid to the
tolerance of this weakness in a service which should be above
reproach."[51]
"He Throws Off All Moral Restraints"
According to the laws in place in 1950, any man living in
Washington, D.C., who had sexual contact with another man had
committed an indecent act and would be punished with a $500 fine and
six months in jail. But, based on the articles in the era's
newspapers and magazines, the immorality being practiced by these men
extended well beyond sex acts.[52]
One damning accusation was that most homosexuals were
un-American. The New York Post stated, "Perverts are very
susceptible to Communism,"[53] while the Washington Times-Herald made
the same connection by running an editorial cartoon in which the
president placed communists and homosexuals in the same category—the
caption had Harry S. Truman telling his assistants, "Report to me on
the traitors and queers in my administration."[54] The Washington
Daily News made the linkage in its extensive coverage of a State
Department employee known as "Case No. 14." During a period in
American history when so much as being acquainted with a communist
was sufficient grounds to have a person fired, the paper stated that
the "flagrantly homosexual" translator "had extremely close
connections with other individuals with the same tendencies and who
were active members of Communist front organizations."[55]
Disloyalty to the government was not the only type of immoral
behavior that media outlets attributed to men who were attracted to
other men. "Once a man assumes the role of homosexual, he throws off
all moral restraints and indulges in other vices," according to
Coronet.[56] The magazine then provided a profile of one such man,
identifying the New Yorker not by name but as "a lanky, unshaven
derelict who peddles dope." According to the article, the man set
his sights on the son of "a prominent business leader whose name is
familiar to millions," getting the younger man drunk and then
seducing him. The drug dealing "sex aberrant" then extorted
thousands of dollars from the father, Coronet said, by threatening to
destroy the family's good reputation if the financial demands were not met.[57]
Esquire reported on a similar category of corruption, except that the
"heinous shake-down racket" that was the magazine's focus required
the efforts not of a lone homosexual but of three "queers" working
together. The first member of such a gang would engage a
heterosexual man in conversation in a public park and then invite the
guy to his apartment for a drink. Soon after they arrived, a
boyish-looking homosexual would suddenly appear and throw himself on
the heterosexual man. Just as quickly, the third gang member would
arrive on the scene, dressed in a police uniform, and purport to
arrest the heterosexual man on charges of indecent behavior with a
minor. The victim was so fearful of having his life ruined that he
offered to pay the "officer" a large sum of money in exchange for his
release. Esquire reported that homosexuals were carrying out this
scam across the country, with victims having included a Boston hotel
owner who paid $200,000 and a Midwestern university professor who
mortgaged his home to pay "the pervert hustlers."[58]
"The Nauseating Disease"
The main thrust of the earliest newspaper and magazine coverage was
to alert the public to how men who were increasingly being referred
to as "perverts on the Potomac" were threatening not only America's
foreign policy but also the nation's social order as a whole. But
while exposing this danger, some of the articles also made at least
some reference to exactly why homosexuals had come to be the way they
were—and what could be done about it.
The most frequent approach the publications took in trying to help
their readers understand this previously unmentionable presence in
society was to compare it to another problem that the country had
been forced to deal with in the not-too-distant past. "The sex
deviation themes," Coronet wrote, "have remained screened behind the
curtain of propriety, as venereal disease was a generation
ago."[59] Facing "the problem of perversion," the New York
World-Telegram stated, "is as much overdue as our realization that
syphilis and gonorrhea were something more than 'social' diseases, to
be hushed behind the hand."[60]
With regard to what caused a person to be attracted to members of
the same sex, the publications emphasized that it was definitely not
a genetic trait. "They are not born that way," the New York Post
bluntly stated.[61] Reporter Max Lerner then went on to use layman's
language to describe the medical community's current thinking on the
subject. "The scientists see homosexuals as cases of 'arrested
psychological development.' It is like the case of a record that has
got stuck somewhere." Lerner then went on to articulate the most
widely held theory as to what causes "the nauseating disease" to
afflict a particular individual. "Psychoanalysts stress family
relations—an overly protective mother, a cold and hostile father."[62]
The Post also tackled the question of exactly how many American men
were attracted to members of their own sex. As his source, Lerner
turned to Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, published in 1948 as the
first comprehensive look at sexual practices in the United States,
which is generally referred to as the Kinsey Report.[63] To complete
the study, Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey of Indiana University had interviewed
12,000 American men, finding that, as Lerner reported, "10 percent
were 'more or less exclusively homosexual' for at least three years"
of their lives. "This figure has shocked many people," the reporter
continued, but then said that the findings of his own journalistic
investigation—interviews with dozens of psychiatrists,
psychoanalysts, clergymen, and law enforcement officials—were
consistent with the one-in-ten ratio.[64]
While the various newspapers and magazines occasionally acknowledged
that they were not sure what caused same-sex attraction or how many
Americans were afflicted with the disease, they all spoke with a
single voice when it came to the form of treatment the country's
homosexuals should seek. Time magazine stated, using the medical
jargon of the era, "Sexual deviation as a symptomatic disorder in
both sexes is curable. Sexually aberrated individuals can be treated
by psychoanalytic psychotherapy."[65]
"The Homosexual Is Always on the Prowl"
Publications that reported on homosexuals did not portray their
subjects merely as men who were attracted to other men but as
depraved misfits who were so promiscuous that their pursuit of erotic
pleasures dominated their lives. One paper wrote that, "The
homosexual is always on the prowl,"[66] and a second said, "The
homosexual will go to any limit to attain his abnormal purposes."[67]
Despite these and other statements about an insatiable lust
propelling these sexually obsessed men, none of the publications
described the illicit acts themselves. This was an era when censors
refused to allow the word "pregnant" to be spoken on the television
program I Love Lucy, even though star Lucille Ball clearly was about
to give birth; executives at CBS feared the word would conjure up, in
the minds of viewers, images of a man and woman having sexual
intercourse.[68] And so, when the country's news outlets spoke of
sex between men, they did not use explicit terms but relied on
euphemisms—all of them negative.
The dozen articles in a New York Post series on homosexuality,
published in July 1950, were bursting with such language. One story
called sexual encounters between men "twisted sex,"[69] and another
dubbed the bars and restaurants frequented by homosexuals "dens of
iniquity."[70] Sex between men was often referred to as "unnatural
practices."[71]
On some occasions, Post reporter Max Lerner conveyed the unspeakable
nature of homosexual sex by saying that such activity was far too
offensive for any decent medium of communication to discuss, even in
veiled terms. Lerner built one of his articles around an interview
with Roy E. Blick of the District of Columbia vice squad. "When I
came into Blick's office," the reporter wrote, "he was in the midst
of a phone conversation about homosexuals which would have been
wonderful detail for a documentary, except that no one would dare put
it on the screen."[72]
Other publications used this same beyond-the-limits-of-respectability
technique. In its article headlined "Perverts Called Government
Peril," the New York Times stated, "The country would be more aroused
over the tragic homosexual angle of the situation if it were not for
the difficulties the newspapers face in adequately presenting the
facts, while respecting the decency of their audiences."[73]
Some newspapers opted to give their readers a sense of the scandalous
nature of homosexual activities by quoting extensively from the
members of Congress who were leading the effort to remove such men
from the government. When Rep. Arthur Miller proposed amending a
bill by specifically stating that no federal funds would be
appropriated to the project until it was certain that only
heterosexual employees would be hired, the Washington Times-Herald
reproduced his every word. "There are places in Washington where
they [homosexuals] gather for the purpose of sex orgies, where they
worship at the cesspools and flesh pots of iniquity," the Nebraska
congressman was quoted as saying. "There are restaurants downtown
where you find male prostitutes. They solicit business for other
male customers. They are pimps and undesirable characters."[74]
"A Sinister Threat to American Youth"
A few publications went a step further than depicting homosexuals as
sexually obsessed, reporting that many of the men had such
out-of-control libidos that they coerced underage boys into having
sex with them. In keeping with the language limitations of the era,
the word "pedophilia" never appeared in print, even though that
clearly was the phenomenon that the newspapers and magazines were
talking about.
During the spring and summer of 1950, only a few passing references
were made to the topic. Saturday Review magazine criticized
homosexuals for their "recruiting of boys,"[75] and the New York Post
series stated that "some sexual deviates may find themselves so
compulsively drawn to homosexual practice that they seduce and abuse boys."[76]
And then, in September, Coronet published a blockbuster article
titled "New Moral Menace to Our Youth." The eight-page piece began
by describing the typical homosexual as a "hip-swinging,
falsetto-voiced man" and then reported that, "No degenerate can
indulge his unnatural practices alone. He demands a partner. And
the partner, more often than not, must come from the ranks of the
young and innocent." The magazine then went on, in a strikingly
alarmist tone, to articulate the enormous scope of what it called "a
sinister threat to American youth," stating that, "Each year,
thousands of youngsters of high-school and college age are introduced
to unnatural practices by inveterate seducers."[77]
The most powerful sections of the Coronet exposé were the profiles
of young victims.
John was "a shy lad" who, when denied membership in an exclusive club
at his Eastern prep school, "ran tearfully to a faculty member." The
male teacher was "more than solicitous," the article stated. "He
persuaded John to forget his disappointment in a whirl of new
thrills—thrills which made John feel far superior to his untutored
classmates." The teenager continued to have sexual encounters once
he left school and returned home for the summer, the story stated,
and was soon arrested for indulging his "abnormal habit" with a
delivery boy.[78]
A second of the youths whose journey into homosexuality came to life
in the pages of Coronet was a teenager who lived on the West
Coast. "Instructed by an older comrade in the grosser points of
perversion," the piece stated, "the lad had gone on to organize a
'clientele' of his own, composed of boys his own age." This
particular profile concluded with juvenile court officials not
knowing what to do with the sixteen-year-old when he appeared before
the judge and boasted, with no sense of shame, "I'm a male
prostitute. These fellows pay me to play around with them."[79]
Perhaps the most compelling of all the profiles was one of a
Philadelphia youth who was only eleven when a man approached him on
the school playground. "He told me that if I'd take a ride in his
car he'd buy me a whole box of candy," the adolescent boy said. The
child was soon "enticed into perverted acts," the magazine article
reported, and for the next several weeks "the terrified lad continued
to spend nightmarish hours with his seducer." At the time the piece
was published, the young man was under psychiatric
care.[80]
After summarizing these and other individual case studies, the
author of the Coronet article concluded with some overall
observations. "The shock and mental confusion suffered by youthful
victims of such sordid experiences cannot be over exaggerated," he
wrote. "Psychiatric case histories bear eloquent testimony to the
thousands of warped lives that follow in the wake of associations
with perverts."[81]
In the First Stage
Perhaps the single most stunning illustration of the degree to which
homosexual men were vilified in the nation's newspapers and magazines
in 1950 is the casual use of the term "pervert" to describe men who
were attracted to other men. That reporters and editors, including
those working for the prestigious New York Times, blithely used such
a pejorative word—both in the texts of their stories and in
headlines—symbolizes the utter disdain with which this highly
stigmatized segment of the population was viewed by the news media
and, presumably, society writ large. The journalists occasionally
using other derisive terms—"deviates," "homos," "degenerates,"
"queers," "fairies"—reinforces the point.
Another significant aspect of this early coverage is that it helps a
modern-day observer of the American culture understand how a laundry
list of negative stereotypes about homosexual men came to be widely
accepted. In the wake of the three words "They were homosexuals"
being spoken in a public session on Capitol Hill,
mid-twentieth-century publications communicated that men who were
attracted to other men could not be trusted because they were
vulnerable to blackmail by foreign agents, because they lacked
emotional stability, and because they were morally corrupt. In
addition, the 1950 newspapers and magazines also portrayed
homosexuals as being afflicted with a social disease and as being
obsessed with sex—many of them to a degree that they represented a
grave danger to the nation's boys and young men.
For those readers who are interested in case studies of the influence
that the media have on society, these various articles challenge one
of the widely held tenets of the discipline of communication:
All publicity is good publicity.
This belief evolves from the argument that it is better for a
particular topic to be talked about—even if it is criticized or
portrayed in a negative light—than for that topic to be
invisible. The prospects for a political newcomer being elected to
office, for example, are generally thought to improve if his or her
name becomes known to voters, even if that knowledge emerges through
criticism coming from the better-known candidates. This same
principle is sometimes restated as: It is better to be deplored than ignored.
After reading about how homosexuals were initially treated when they
were thrust into the news arena in 1950, however, it is difficult to
see how they could possibly have benefited from the plethora of
denigrating articles that were written about them. Had homosexual
men not been better off remaining in the shadows than being perceived
as so despicable that they were a threat to the country's foreign
policy as well as to American youth?
One way to gain a sense of the potential benefits of this early media
treatment of homosexuals, as negative as it was, is to consider the
comments of two early advocates of women's rights. In 1852 when the
New York Herald, then one of the country's largest and most
influential newspapers, disparaged one of the movement's early
women's rights conventions as the "Woman's Wrong Convention" that
proved the country's "political and social fabric is crumbling," many
activists were disheartened.[82] But the visionary Elizabeth Cady
Stanton took a different position. "Imagine the publicity given to
our idea by thus appearing in a widely circulated sheet like the
Herald," she wrote. "It will start women thinking, and men too; and
when men and women think about a new question, the first step in
progress is taken."[83] Lucretia Mott, another early women's rights
advocate, expressed a similar sentiment. She first acknowledged that
mainstream newspapers had "ridiculed and slandered us." But Mott
then went on to say that she had become convinced that the press goes
"through three stages in regard to reforms; they first ridicule them,
then report them with comment, and at last openly advocate them. We
seem to be still in the first stage."[84]
In 1950, homosexuals also were in the first stage.
That particular positioning may have a useful application for
scholars. An emerging trend among authors who study and write about
gay men and lesbians has been to identify and critique the increased
visibility that their subjects have been experiencing in recent
decades.[85] Most notable among these works have been the two books
Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America by
Larry Gross[86] and All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in
America by Suzanna Danuta Walters.[87] Both of these large-scale
studies document how gay men and lesbians have been gaining a larger
presence in the culture in general and in the mainstream media in
particular. The dual coming out of comedian Ellen DeGeneres on the
cover of Time magazine and of Ellen Morgan as the first gay leading
character on a network television series in 1997, for example,
receives considerable attention in both books.[88] The two studies
also discuss the role that news coverage of the AIDS epidemic played
in drawing public attention to the gay community in the 1980s,[89]
the significance of such major motion picture success stories as
Philadelphia,[90] The Birdcage,[91] and My Best Friend's Wedding,[92]
and the importance of the network television program Will & Grace
becoming part of NBC's "must-see" lineup in the final years of the
twentieth century and remaining there in the early years of the
twenty-first.[93]
The current study can provide context for the growing body of
scholarship vis-à-vis this recent increase in visibility. For the
1950 articles, their matter-of-fact references to "perverts" and
"deviates," and their pejorative messages about homosexual men
provide a mid-twentieth-century base line that demonstrates how
dramatically the media depictions of gay people have changed in
slightly more than half a century.
[1]
Willard Edwards, "Didn't Mean to Condone Hiss, Acheson Says,,"
Washington Times-Herald, 1 March 1950, A1; "Senators Hear Acheson
Deny Condoning of Hiss," Los Angeles Times, 1 March 1950, A1; William
S. White, "Never Condoned Disloyalty, Says Acheson of Hiss Stand,"
New York Times, 1 March 1950, A1.
[2]
On coverage of the subcommittee session prompting outrage among
congressmen and readers, see David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare:
The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal
Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 2.
[3]
Johnson, The Lavender Scare, 5.
[4]
John D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of
the Homosexual Minority, 1940-1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1983), 41-43; Rodger Streitmatter, Unspeakable: The Rise of
the Gay and Lesbian Press in America (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1995), 17.
[5]
For the first story about McCarthy's accusations, see Frank
Desmond, "M'Carthy Charges Reds Hold U.S. Jobs," Wheeling (West
Virginia) Intelligencer, 10 February 1950, 1. On McCarthy's
anti-communist campaign, see, for example, Edwin R. Bayley, Joe
McCarthy and the Press (New York: Pantheon, 1981); Arthur Herman,
Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most
Hated Senator (New York: Free Press, 2000); Ellen Schrecker, Many Are
the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998).
[6] White, "Never Condoned Disloyalty," A1.
[7] White, "Never Condoned Disloyalty," A1.
[8] "Senators Hear Acheson," A1.
[9] Edwards, "Didn't Mean to Condone," A1.
[10] "New Shocker," Newsweek, 29 May 1950, 18. For other coverage
of the hearing, see William S. White, "Inquiry by Senate on Perverts
Asked," New York Times, 20 May 1950, A8.
[11] Max Lerner, "Blick of the Vice Squad," New York Post, 18 July 1950, A2.
[12] "New Stripes," Time, 24 July 1950, 18.
[13]
Richard H. Rovere, "Letter from Washington," The New Yorker, 22
April 1950, 103-10.
[14] K.C. McIntosh, "Greek Way of Life," Saturday Review, 11 March
1950, 24-25.
[15]
Lloyd Wendt, "The Vilest of the Rackets," Esquire, April 1950, 53, 140-42.
[16]
Ralph H. Major, Jr., "New Moral Menace to Our Youth," Coronet,
September 1950, 101-08.
[17] Joseph and Stewart Alsop, "Why Has Washington Gone Crazy?,"
Saturday Evening Post, 29 July 1950, 20-21, 59-61.
[18] "U.S. Urged to Screen Employees," Miami Herald, 16 December 1950, A4.
[19]
"Probers Ask Tossing Out of Perverts," Dallas Morning News, 16
December 1950, A2.
[20]
Willard Edwards, "Probers Assail U.S. Hiring of Sex Perverts,"
Chicago Tribune, 16 December 1950, A2.
[21] "Senators Demand U.S. Bar Hiring of Sex Perverts," Cleveland
Plain Dealer, 16 December 1950, A4.
[22]
"Sex Perverts Called Risks to Security," San Francisco Chronicle,
16 December 1950, A9.
[23] "Senators Hit Perversion in Capital," Detroit Free Press, 16
December 1950, A19.
[24]
"Senators Demand Perverts Be Kept Off U.S. Payroll," Boston Globe,
16 December 1950, A2.
[25]
Edwards, "Probers Assail," A2.
[26]
White, "Inquiry by Senate," A8.
[27]
"Perverts Called Government Peril," New York Times, 10 April 1950, A25.
[28]
"Federal Vigilance on Perverts Asked," New York Times, 16 December 1950, A3.
[29] For examples of the terms "perverts" and "sexual perverts"
being used in the New York Times, see "More Confusion Over McCarthy
Case," 30 April 1950, D1; "Perverts Called Government Peril," A25;
White, "Inquiry by Senate," A8; William S. White, "M'Carthy Asserts
Budenz Named Red in Acheson Office," 26 April 1950, A3.
[30] For examples of the term "homos" being used in the New York
Times, see "More Confusion Over McCarthy Case," D1.
[31]
For examples of the term "deviates" being used in the New York
Times, see "Federal Vigilance on Perverts," A3; White, "Inquiry by Senate," A8.
[32]
"Senators Demand U.S. Bar," A4.
[33]
Edwards, "Probers Assail," A2.
[34]
"Sex Perverts Called Risks to Security," A9.
[35]
"The Abnormal," Time, 17 April 1950, 86.
[36] "New Shocker," 18.
[37]
"U.S. Urged," A4.
[38]
"Senators Demand Perverts Be Kept Off U.S. Payroll," A2.
[39] "Probers Ask Tossing," A2.
[40]
Wendt, "Vilest of the Rackets," 53, 14-42.
[41]
"Bergen Tells Charlie" (editorial cartoon), Washington
Times-Herald, 31 March 1950, A14.
[42]
Robert C. Ruark, "Abnormal Humans," New York World-Telegram, 23
March 1950, B1.
[43]
Major, "New Moral Menace," 102.
[44] "Senators Hear Acheson," A1.
[45] For examples of articles describing the blackmail scenario, see
Edwards, "Probers Assail," A2; Ferdinand Kuhn, "Denounces Disloyalty
in Testimony to Senators," Washington Post, 1 March 1950, A2; John
O'Donnell, "Capitol Stuff," New York Daily News, 24 March 1950, 4;
Bert Wissman, "Inquiry May Touch on Red Blackmailing," Washington
Times-Herald, 24 March 1950, A1.
[46] Max Lerner, "The Washington Sex Story: Panic on the Potomac,"
10 July 1950, New York Post, 4.
[47] "Object Lesson," Time, 25 December 1950, 10.
[48]
Lerner, "Washington Sex Story: Panic on the Potomac," 24.
[49] Westbrook Pegler, "Fair Enough," Washington Times-Herald, 31
March 1950, A14.
[50] Robert C. Ruark, "Hierarchy of Misfits," New York
World-Telegram, 24 March 1950, C1.
[51] Ruark, "Abnormal Humans," B1.
[52]
"To Close Sex Law Loopholes," Washington Evening Star, 16 December 1950, A4.
[53]
Max Lerner, "'Scandal' in the State Department," New York Post, 16
July 1950, A2.
[54]
"Bergen Tells Charlie" (editorial cartoon), Washington
Times-Herald, 31 March 1950, A14.
[55]
Peter Edson, "How Sen. McCarthy Spilled the Beans," Washington
Daily News, 9 March 1950, 5.
[56] Major, "New Moral Menace," 104.
[57] Major, "New Moral Menace," 103.
[58] Wendt, "Vilest of the Rackets," 140.
[59] Major, "New Moral Menace," 105.
[60] Ruark, "Abnormal Humans," B1.
[61]
Max Lerner, "'Scandal' in the State Department," New York Post, 11
July 1950, 5. On homosexuality not being a genetic trait, see also
Major, "New Moral Menace," 105.
[62] Lerner, "'Scandal' in the State Department," 11 July 1950,
5. On protective mothers causing their sons to become homosexual,
see also Major, "New Moral Menace," 106.
[63]
Alfred C. Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia:
W.B. Saunders, 1948).
[64] Max Lerner, "'Scandal' in the State Department," New York Post,
12 July 1950, 5, 34. On the percentage of homosexuals among American
men, see also Major, "New Moral Menace," 102. The Kinsey study
defined adult men as those between the ages of sixteen and fifty-five.
[65]
"The Abnormal," 86.
[66]
Max Lerner, "'Scandal' in the State Department," New York Post, 16
July 1950, 2.
[67] "Move to Bar Perverts from ECA Beaten," Washington
Times-Herald, 1 April 1950, A2.
[68]
Louis Chunovic, One Foot on the Floor: The Curious Evolution of Sex
on Television from I Love Lucy to South Park (New York: TV Books, 2000), 34.
[69] Max Lerner, "'Scandal' in the State Department," New York Post,
21 July 1950, 2.
[70]
Lerner, "'Scandal' in the State Department," 21 July 1950, 26.
[71]
Major, "New Moral Menace," 102.
[72] Max Lerner, "'Scandal' in the State Department," New York Post,
18 July 1950, 2.
[73]
"Perverts Called Government Peril," A25.
[74] "Move to Bar Perverts from ECA Beaten," Washington
Times-Herald, 1 April 1950, A2.
[75] McIntosh, "Greek Way of Life," 25.
[76]
Max Lerner, "'Scandal' in the State Department," New York Post, 11
July 1950, 5.
[77]
Major, "New Moral Menace," 102.
[78] Major, "New Moral Menace," 102-03.
[79]
Major, "New Moral Menace," 104.
[80]
Major, "New Moral Menace," 104.
[81]
Major, "New Moral Menace," 104.
[82]
"The Woman's Rights Convention—The Last Act of the Drama," New York
Herald, 12 September 1852, 2.
[83] Miriam Gurko, The Ladies of Seneca Falls: The Birth of the
Woman's Rights Movement (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 104.
[84] Lucretia Mott, "National Convention at Cincinnati, Ohio," in
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage,
eds., History of Woman Suffrage (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1881), 164.
[85] On gay men and lesbians becoming more visible in recent
decades, see, for example, Edward Alwood, Straight News: Gays,
Lesbians, and the News Media (New York: Columbia, 1996), especially
14-15, 315-328; Jess Cagle, "America See Shades of Gay,"
Entertainment Weekly, 8 September 1995, 20-44; Larry Gross, "What Is
Wrong with This Picture? Lesbian Women and Gay Men on Television,"
in Queer Words, Queer Images, R. J. Ringer, ed. (New York: New York
University Press, 1994), 143-156; Larry Gross and James D. Woods, "Up
From Invisibility: Film and Television," in The Columbia Reader on
Lesbians & Gay Men in Media, Society, & Politics, Larry Gross and
James D. Woods, eds. (New York: Columbia, 1999), 291-296; Darlene
Hantzis and Valerie Lehr, "Whose Desire? Lesbian (Non)sexuality and
Television's Perpetuation of Hetero/sexism," in Queer Words, Queer
Images, R. J. Ringer, ed. (New York: New York University Press,
1994), 107-121; Andrew Kopkind, "The Gay Moment," The Nation, 3 May
1993, 1; "Marguerite Moritz, "Old Strategies for New Texts: How
American Television Is Creating and Treating Lesbian Characters," in
Queer Words, Queer Images, R. J. Ringer, ed. (New York: New York
University Press, 1994), 122-142; Peter M. Nardi, "Media," in Gay
Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, George E. Haggerty, ed. (New
York: Garland, 2000), 579-582.
[86] Larry Gross, Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the
Media in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).
[87] Suzanna Danuta Walters, All the Rage: The Story of Gay
Visibility in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
[88]
Gross, Up from Invisibility, 156-163; Walters, All the Rage, 81-94.
[89]
Gross, Up from Invisibility, 143-147; Walters, All the Rage, 137-140.
[90] Gross, Up from Invisibility, 146-147; Walters, All the Rage,
137-140. Philadelphia, which was released in 1993 by TriStar
Pictures, starred Tom Hanks as a gay man suffering from AIDS who had
been fired from his law firm.
[91] Gross, Up from Invisibility, 72, 178; Walters, All the Rage,
140-141. The Birdcage, which was released in 1996 by MGM Studios,
starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as flamboyantly gay men.
[92] Gross, Up from Invisibility, 178; Walters, All the Rage,
156-157. My Best Friend's Wedding, which was released in 1997 by
TriStar Pictures, starred Rupert Everett as an openly gay man.
[93] Gross, Up from Invisibility, 179-180; Walters, All the Rage,
100-101, 108-109. Will & Grace has been airing weekly on the NBC
network since 1998.
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