Signs You’re About To Be In A Sinister Homoerotic Subplot In A Midcentury Drama

by Mallory Ortberg · January 14, 2016

Your hair is immaculately slicked back, except for a single curl that falls over an eyebrow. Your left eyebrow.

You have an unusually attractive cigarette lighter you cannot stop fingering. It is mother-of-pearl.

You offer a crying woman your handkerchief, but there is no sympathy in your voice.

rope

Why, you’d do anything for your friends.

A whimsical little piccolo note plays whenever you enter the room.

You think blackmail is such an ugly word.

You have a suggestion you think may prove mutually beneficial to the two of you.

Jimmy Stewart looks faintly disgusted with you.

You met the protagonist in Monte Carlo, although they don’t remember it until you remind them.

When you cross your legs to lean back in your chair, you do so deliberately.

You answer the door in a silk kimono. It is not the only Orientalist note in your wardrobe.

You are removing a pair of gloves very slowly.

You’re afraid they would all find you terribly boring. Why would anyone ever want to talk to you? Plain, unassuming, tongue-tied, unambitious old you. Why, you wouldn’t even know the first thing to say.

You are nobody’s fool and you never take your coat off indoors.

You can barely conceal your dislike for dogs; it is the only crack in your exceedingly pleasant facade.

You are perfectly polite and accommodating, and yet people still dislike you.

addison

You are nothing like the rest of them. How dare you suggest it. How dare you!

You have two emotional settings: unshakeable calm and hysterical fury. You cycle through them at an increasingly rapid rate.

You think murder is such an ugly word.

Perhaps you can be of some assistance in this delicate matter.

Whenever possible, the cinematographer makes sure there is a shadow falling halfway across your face.

You begin to lose your famous composure when a social rival mentions your humble upbringing…on a farm.

You wear your unremarkable-colored hair in a set of neat crown braids or in a close, almost boyish, crop. The necklines on your dresses are always too high and the hemlines always crooked.

In almost every shot, you are framed within a doorway.

The camera lingers on your receding silhouette as you disappear into an unlit side street.

You think bribe is such an ugly word.

There is no joy in your eyes when you water-ski.

You are both impeccably and yet somehow also unwholesomely dressed.

[Image via]

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

99 Comments

  1. Chase +136

    “There is no joy in your eyes when you water-ski.”

    Would you mind telling me me what film this is so I can watch it immediately?

    2. Erica_Stratton +4

      It HAS to be an early Bond film. If that’s the wrong time period, let me continue in my ignorance. 😛

  2. lordpuddleglum +165

    You have a suggestion you think may prove mutually beneficial to the two of you

    A+ pickup line. Will use in the future.

  3. thewhelk +126

    Thank you for this helpful guide, I am sometimes lax in appearing in the manner I wish to present myself

    1. Unreadaethel +55

      When in doubt, just act like Hannibal Lecter’s person suit, and you will have successfully presented sinister, homoerotic, and slightly anachronistic, all at once.

        2. thewhelk +23

          Always opposition yourself so that the overhead light turns your eyes into ghoulish sockets

  5. Unreadaethel +170

    You hand your guests a cocktail in a manner somehow both inviting and threatening while maintaining unblinking eye contact.

    1. thebeagee +54

      You didn’t even have to mix the cocktail. The shaker was just sitting there full of drink this whole time. You did add a little garnish, though. *waggles eyebrows*

        1. thebeagee +21

          Now you’re just making me think of Anthony Dimmond. “I’m here to help you untwist…to our mutual benefit.”

  6. hithisisnom +103

    You never smile. A smile may creep across your face, or tug at the corners of your lips, or suggest itself in your eyes, but that is quite a different matter altogether.

        1. Vicki +13

          Honestly the innate glee of typing that was lifted to divinity at the joy of someone else quoting that part of Rope first.

  8. grumblyqueer +83

    You’re awfully fond of your walking stick- why, it’s never out of your hands- and you do love a good cigar. You also love guns, knives, and any other phallic object that can cause bodily injury.

    If a lady, however, you loathe phallic objects as you loathe men. Perhaps you may briefly make use of one- as you may with a man- but before long you must cast the unwieldy thing aside and pursue your true desires- also as with a man.

      1. jenvega +24

        Basically everything Clifton Webb says and most of what Vincent Price says in that movie, but to state the obvious: Vincent Price.

  13. dersteckdose +24

    I would be ever so grateful if some kind soul(s) could direct me to any mid-century dramas that Mallory may be alluding to…

    2. Mallory O +87

      Mostly Rope, Rebecca, Strangers On A Train, The Ripley novels, All About Eve, Leave Her To Heaven, a few Agatha Christie novels, The Maltese Falcon, In A Lonely Place, Young Man With A Horn

      1. alder_tree +18

        My roommate would like to point out that several of these are written by Patricia Highsmith.

    3. Unreadaethel +63

      The Maltese Falcon has some lovely examples, as well as marking the time when “gunsel” passed into semi-popular use, but everybody thought it meant “gunman” instead of “passive partner in gay sex.”

      1. plspassthePinot +17

        The plot of this movie is as follows: “Two brilliant young aesthetes, Brandon Shaw (Dall) and Phillip Morgan (Granger), strangle to death a former classmate, David Kentley (Dick Hogan), in their apartment. They commit the crime as an intellectual exercise; they want to prove their superiority by committing the “perfect murder”.”

    8. malsperanza +7

      Tea & Sympathy, most of Lilian Hellman’s plays, the bowdlerized films of Tennessee Williams plays, where homoerotic plots get hidden as subplot.

      ETA: Also Red River and any other movie featuring Montgomery Clift or Alan Ladd or James Dean … well, all westerns actually … ahh the hell with it: any Hollywood movie made between the Hayes Code and 1962.

  14. halloweenjack64 +76

    You’re part of a mixed-gender trio of friends, and when the other two pair off, you’re jealous… of one of them.

  16. Loren_Ipsum_ +50

    A+ picture from All About Eve. The first time I saw it, even though I was pretty young, I remember being shocked when Addison DeWitt told Eve they were going to be a couple. She laughed in his face and he slapped her and I thought “okay I’m with Eve on this one, that is straight up nonsense”

    1. thewhelk +9

      Okay I admit it took an embarrassingly long time to realize they where going to be a bearding couple WETHER SHE LIKED IT OR NOT. Granted I was like 22 when I figures this out but that still feels late.

  17. typewriterandgramophone +23

    You didn’t do it…but you thought about it.

    (CORONET BRAIDS! My hair’s long enough, but it won’t *stay*!)

    1. alder_tree +9

      When my hair was down to my ass I sometimes wore it braided and pinned on top of my head. My hair is really straight and slippery. So many pins. SO MANY.

    2. mspym +3

      I only have the faintest hope of achieving this IF i plait and pin it while it is still wet. Otherwise there’s no show.

  18. Theo_Winterwood +65

    You are both impeccably and yet somehow also unwholesomely dressed.

    I have found my new life goal.

  22. Chance_Hale +32

    [The set of supporting characters who wear boutonnieres] minus [the set of supporting characters who carry machine guns in instrument cases]

  23. redheadedwolf +28

    You are perfectly polite and accommodating, and yet people still dislike you.
    Bob Benson! (I loved him, as did many viewers, but not many of his coworkers…except Joan.)

    Yes, a number of these are life goals.

    1. louisagiffard +9

      BOB BENSON! I invented a term that I would like to see used by as many people as possible – Bensoning. Basically, when you bend over backwards to help your crush by doing as many favours for them as possible, in the vain hope that they’ll somehow magically fall in love with you. It’s different to friend zoning – detailed further in this post 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/InfamousSphere/posts/465…

      Also I reviewed all of Mad Men’s queer characters if you’d like to see here 🙂 https://youtu.be/t4LsXNpJf1w

        2. louisagiffard +7

          OMG *YOU* wrote Bob Benson hits on everyone? I loved that fic! 😀

          I should probably contribute to the Mad Men fic community, I know they never had screen time together but I’m really surprised that no one’s shipped Bob Benson and Sal.
          There aren’t really many Sal fics, to be honest, and most of them are just talking about what happened verbatim in the show and they’re really depressing 🙁

          Basically there’s not enough Mad Men fic. Although I was delighted by all of those OT3 Peggy/Ginsberg/Stan ones. That was a pairing I hadn’t even thought of.
          Here’s my AO3 page if you’re interested, although I’ve barely written anything. http://archiveofourown.org/users/BristlingBassoon

          1. thewhelk +4

            OMG thanks! Yeah Mad Men has like, surprisingly little fic considering how popular it was. (WAS, sigh)!

          2. louisagiffard +8

            Maybe it was popular with the sort of people who don’t write fics. Like men who take themselves very seriously and idolise Don Draper for being cool. I think also with Mad Men there was a lot of archive panic going on – especially for younger people who might have wrote fics, why would you get into it when you have to start from the beginning? I edited two episodes of my show on it (linked a couple of comments up) so I know for sure that there are 72 hours worth of show to watch, 92 episodes. Also Mad Men was really mean to people’s feels, the first couple of episodes made almost everyone out to be a deeply unpleasant character, and the show was full of a lot of unnecessary Don shit, so maybe some of the people who might have written fanfic gave up before they really got into it.

            I think also when a show’s more popular with women it’s more likely to have more fics. Compare Mad Men to Downton Abbey – they probably had a similar viewership, but Downton Abbey has a billion more fics.

    2. louisagiffard +7

      Also if you found Bob Benson super charming and lovely, go and watch the suite of three episodes of Happy Endings starring James Wolk. Basically, he’s a very Benson-esque character, in that he’s the Perfect Boyfriend. He’s so perfect that everyone falls in love with him and wants him around all the time, and the guy he’s dating, Max, is kind of suspicious about how perfect he is.
      I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the performance that inspired Weiner to hire him to play Bob Benson.

  24. testingwithfire +11

    May I recommend George Sanders’ autobiography to anyone who can find it. I think it’s out of print but AbeBooks or your local library might have it.

  27. kayloulee +15

    Whilst walking from your car to your house in the rain, your valet holds an umbrella for you.

    OR

    You hold your employer’s umbrella for him as he leaves his car and walks to his house, in the rain.

    (My year 12 English teacher told us all that the villains in The Big Sleep were coded as gay. We, as a class, were befuddled. It was the valet / chauffeur’s JOB to hold the umbrella! I’m still not sure about the whole situation. But this post makes it seem increasingly likely.)

    1. louisagiffard +14

      Here’s another sign that you’re in a sinister homoerotic subplot in a mid-century film. You’re a valet.

      Well, it was definitely the case in The Servant (which is a really unsettling and cool movie, definite recommend.)

  28. hlmorris85 +12

    *runs off to watch Rope again*

    I’ve been ascribing queer narratives to the movies that run on mute at the gym (Drumline, anyone? I only saw 20 minutes on silent, but those 20 minutes were super gay.) so apparently I need something in my life where it’s closer to text than subtext.

  29. OlyOop +19

    You can’t resist delivering a devastating bon mot, even when you know that your departing lunch guest is teetering on the edge.

  33. gioconda +8

    You have chilled lobster salad with toast points for two and a bottle of Scotch sent to your private compartment.

  38. Lily +4

    You are entirely too attached to your walking stick.

    You live with another “spinster.” (Bonus points if you are actually in a book written by Agatha Christie, rather than a movie. More bonus points if you live on a farm.)

    Also? If disgusted Jimmy Stewart refers to Rope (the second photo) then it’s more about committing murder for theoretical philosophical reasons than gay subtext.