"[I was] the only child in the audience that always wondered why Dorothy ever wanted to go back to Kansas. Why would she want to go back to Kansas, in this dreary black and white farm with an aunt who dressed badly and seemed mean to me, when she could live with magic shoes, winged monkeys and gay lions? I never understood it."
--John WatersAlas, it looks like Anne Hathaway's Judy Garland project has been shelved indefinitely...
P.S. Not sure how "friend of Judy" became old fashioned code for being gay, unless it had something to do with her husband Vincent Minelli being gay?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_of_DorothyFriend of DorothyFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Judy Garland in her role as Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz is one of two likely
origins for the phrase "friend of Dorothy"
referring to a gay man or LGBT person. In gay slang, a
"friend of Dorothy" (occasionally abbreviated
FOD) is a term for a gay man. The phrase dates back to at least
World War II, when homosexual acts were illegal in the United States. Stating that, or asking if, someone was a "friend of Dorothy" was a euphemism used for discussing sexual orientation without others knowing its meaning. A similar term "friend of Mrs. King" (i.e. Queen) was used in England, mostly in the first half of the 20th century.
Origins The precise origin of the term is unknown and there are various theories. Most commonly, it is stated that "friend of Dorothy" refers to the film
The Wizard of Oz because
Judy Garland, who starred as the main character
Dorothy, is a gay icon. In the film, Dorothy is accepting of those who are different. For example the "gentle lion" living a lie,
"I'm afraid there's no denyin', I'm just a dandy lion." Others claim that the phrase refers to celebrated humorist and critic
Dorothy Parker, who included some gay men in her famous social circle.
Misunderstanding In the early 1980s, the
Naval Investigative Service was investigating homosexuality in the Chicago area. Agents discovered that gay men sometimes referred to themselves as "friends of Dorothy." Unaware of the historical meaning of the term, the
NIS believed that there actually was some woman named Dorothy at the center of a massive ring of homosexual military personnel, so they launched an enormous and obviously futile hunt for the elusive "Dorothy", hoping to find her and convince her to reveal the names of gay servicemembers.
(....)
Actress
Judy Garland is widely considered a gay icon;
The Advocate has called Garland "The
Elvis of homosexuals." The reasons frequently given for her standing as an icon among gay men are admiration of her ability as a performer, the way her personal struggles seemed to mirror those of gay men in America during the height of her fame, and her value as a camp figure. Garland's role as
Dorothy Gale in
The Wizard of Oz is particularly noted for contributing to this status.
Garland as tragic figure The tragic aspects of gay identification with Garland were being discussed in the mainstream as early as 1967.
Time magazine, in reviewing Garland's
1967 Palace Theatre engagement, disparagingly noted that a "disproportionate part of her nightly claque seems to be homosexual." It goes on to say that "[t]he boys in the tight trousers" (a phrase
Time repeatedly used to describe gay men, as when it described "ecstatic young men in tight trousers pranc[ing] down the aisles to toss bouquets of roses" to another gay icon,
Marlene Dietrich) would "roll their eyes, tear at their hair and practically levitate from their seats" during Garland's performances.
Time then attempted to explain Garland's appeal to the homosexual, consulting psychiatrists who opined that "the attraction [to Garland] might be made considerably stronger by the fact that she has survived so many problems; homosexuals identify with that kind of hysteria" and that "Judy was beaten up by life, embattled, and ultimately had to become more masculine. She has the power that homosexuals would like to have, and they attempt to attain it by idolizing her."
Writer
William Goldman, in a piece for
Esquire magazine about the same Palace engagement, again disparages the gay men in attendance, dismissing them as "fags" who "flit by" chattering inanely. He goes on, however, to advance the tragic figure theory as well. After first suggesting that "if [homosexuals] have an enemy, it is age. And Garland is youth, perennially, over the rainbow," he wrote:
Homosexuals tend to identify with suffering. They are a persecuted group and they understand suffering. And so does Garland. She's been through the fire and lived – all the drinking and divorcing, all the pills and all the men, all the poundage come and gone – brothers and sisters, she knows.Openly gay comedian Bob Smith offers a comic take on the tragic figure theory, imagining an "Elvis king" and a "Judy queen", debating the idols:
"Elvis had a drinking problem."
"Judy could drink Elvis under the table."
"Elvis gained more weight."
"Judy lost more weight."
"Elvis was addicted to painkillers."
"No pill could stop Judy's pain!"Garland as camp In discussing Judy Garland's camp appeal, gay film scholar
Richard Dyer has defined camp as "a characteristically gay way of handling the values, images and products of the dominant culture through irony, exaggeration, trivialisation, theatricalisation and an ambivalent making fun of and out of the serious and respectable." Garland is camp, he asserts, because she is "imitable, her appearance and gestures copiable in drag acts". He calls her "ordinariness" in her early
MGM films camp in their "failed seriousness" and her later style "wonderfully over-the-top." Garland herself acknowledged her camp appeal during her lifetime, saying "When I die I have visions of fags singing 'Over the Rainbow' and the flag at Fire Island being flown at half mast." Fire Island, a resort community with a large LGBT presence, is also referenced in Garland's final film,
I Could Go On Singing, described as "her most gay film" and as the film most aware of its gay audience.
Other connections between Garland and LGBT people include the slang term "Friend of Dorothy", which likely derives from Garland's portrayal of
Dorothy Gale in
The Wizard of Oz and became a code phrase gay people used to identify each other. Dorothy's journey from Kansas to Oz "mirrored many gay men’s desires to escape the black-and-white limitations of small town life...for big, colorful cities filled with quirky, gender-bending characters who would welcome them."
In the film, Dorothy immediately accepts those who are different, including the
Cowardly Lion (in a very camp performance by
Bert Lahr). The Lion identifies himself through song as a "sissy" and exhibits stereotypically "gay" (or at least effeminate) mannerisms. The Lion is seen as a coded example of Garland meeting and accepting a gay man without question.
In the 2001 documentary
Memories of Oz, openly gay cult film director and social satirist,
John Waters opined about his perceptions seeing
The Wizard of Oz as a child:
[I was] the only child in the audience that always wondered why Dorothy ever wanted to go back to Kansas. Why would she want to go back to Kansas, in this dreary black and white farm with an aunt who dressed badly and seemed mean to me, when she could live with magic shoes, winged monkeys and gay lions? I never understood it.(....)