That’s So Gay
This undoubtedly will affect how all men interact as we go forward. It’s unclear to me the genesis of how Bert and Ernie became to be universally acknowledged as closet living roommates, all the while operating under the cover of teaching ABC’s to kids. It’s as if you owned a drinking establishment, when all of a sudden, it came to be frequented by gay males and voila, it’s now a gay bar.
Male-male bonds have been around for thousands of years before now coming under the revisionist scrutiny of our modern sensibilities. Now, all of sudden we have to look more closely at some of these classic partnerships to see what subtle undertones we’ve been missing all these years.
What about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Butch? Sundance? Riding around on bicycles? Hmm. What about Felix and Oscar, probably the model for the Bert and Ernie relationship. One guy was very neat. Starsky and Hutch? Didn’t one of them always wear very tight pants?
This scrutiny will extend to the sporting world as well. Do football players really have to huddle together before every play? Has anyone noticed where the quarterback’s hands are on the scrimmage line? Even some of the expressions attached to the game are possibly racy in this new light. Do the uniforms have to be so snug? Why are there tight ends? Wide receivers? Why are some players slow to get up from big dog piles after a tackle? It’s like a light has been turned on!
Hockey doesn’t escape without some questionable images either. The standard mobbing and fondling of a player after a goal is scored. He shoots, he scores? This has been under our noses for generations and we’re just catching on to it now! In professional golf, player/caddie teams are legendary including up until recently, Woods/Williams. Caddies are known for carrying around the players’ bags and of course holding their putters. At the amateur level, golfers are known to hang out regularly with their usual foursome, previously considered male bonding. Hmm.
Seen through the new enlightened prism of modern culture, very few sports activities escape the vast net of possible gay undertones. Let’s not even talk about wrestling.