A politically-incorrect non-political post

There's a lot going on in the news that I should talk about, and will...later. But right now, I need to ask a pop-cultural question. This blog usually publishes non-political posts on the weekends, but this matter can't wait.

Can someone explain to me why gays choose certain women as gay icons? Particularly women who, back in the 60s, used to appeal to straight men (or boys, as I was then)?

It has come to my attention that Julie Newmar has a considerable gay following. See, for example, here and especially here. The latter presumes that the very name of Newmar may be considered a test for gayness: If you smile fondly when she is mentioned, then you must, perforce, be the sort of man who wants to have sex with other men.

However, there is one almost fool-proof way you can determine if someone is on the gay side of the scale and it comes down to two all-important words: Julie Newmar. How someone reacts to the name Julie Newmar is incredibly revealing. Anyone with a decent percentage of gay in them loves her. For older and younger gay men alike (thanks to retro television networks) Julie Newmar has been the first gay icon for most gays since the sixties.

Say what?

Look, unlike the fellow who wrote those words, I'm old enough to remember the 60s. And I can assure you, Julie Newmar had legions of heterosexual fans back then. In fact, it would have boggled our brains to learn that homosexuals might find any reason to admire her.

For most pre-pubescent boys of my generation, our first sight of Julie Newmar in her Catwoman costume was the moment we instantly left the "girls, yuck" stage of sexual development. Suddenly, we got it. Even if the facts of life had not yet been explained to us, we got the message. Biological programming kicked in.

I'm asking about Julie Newmar because I recently caught a chunk of the 1959 film version of Lil' Abner, in which Julie plays Stupefyin' Jones. (The film also features Stella Stevens and Leslie Parrish, who were similarly astonishing.) She was indeed stupefying. I'm trying to figure out what more a woman could do (at least in 1959 terms) to appeal to a heterosexual male audience.

C'mon. Look at her. Gay visitors to this site, let me ask you: If you really are gay, then just what is it you propose to do with a woman who has that kind of body?

On a related note: A correspondent has also directed my attention to the IMDB's section on Bye Bye Birdie, a film I've never seen beyond the first few minutes. This reaction floored me:

in the 7th grade, our music teacher made us watch this. i am a guy, so i had to hate it like all the other boys. but i was pretending. oh, how i loved it...especially ann-margret! i am gay so that might explain it a little. but i bet even the straight boys dug ann-margret.

EVEN the straight boys? What the hell...?

I'd like someone to tell me when -- and how, and why -- Ann-Margret became a gay icon. We're talking about the same Ann-Margaret who played JFK's birthday a year after Marilyn Monroe did the honors. We're talking about the same Ann-Margret who was Jack Nicholson's ultimate lust object in Carnal Knowledge.

Let me explain something: When the late Ken Russell put Ann-Margret in a tight dress and had her undulate her way through a ton of chocolate sauce and baked beans, he didn't make all of that happen in order to please a bunch of gay guys. That was not his intended audience.

The "Ann-Margret as gay icon" thing seems recent. No-one thought of her that way back in the 1960s or 70s. The MST3K crew didn't make any jokes along those lines when they riffed Kitten With a Whip.

I'm not here to pick fights with the gay community. I simply want to return to the old system, when gay men fixated on the kind of women that most straight men didn't particularly want to sleep with. Rosalind Russell, for example: She was a fine actress and a very nice lady (I met her once), but even in the movies she made in her prime, she never did much for me sexually. Same goes for Barbara Streisand. Bette Davis was attractive for maybe three or four years very early on, and then she built the rest of her career on pure brio and bitchiness.

As far as I am concerned, the gay community can have those actresses.

But the ultra-curvy sex goddesses of my boyhood -- sorry, but those women were (and are) for us straight guys. They were and are the stuff of our wretched and politically incorrect fantasies.

If the gays have commandeered Julie Newmar and Ann-Margret, what's next? Do they get Marilyn Monroe? Sophia Loren? Will they go after the Bond girls? What about all of those pneumatic Hammer beauties -- Valerie Leon, Veronica Carlson, Ingrid Pitt?

Are people going to say "Oh, he must be gay" if they catch me leafing though vintage issues of Playboy?

And what will the future bring? Will Megan Fox and Sophia Vergara one day be placed in the "gays only" category? I've watched Jennifer Connelly's roller skating scene in Career Opportunities about a hundred times -- is there something gay about that?

Who makes these decisions?

Added note: It seems that Judy Garland -- once considered the ultimate female fetish object for gay men everywhere -- has lost that status in recent years. Fine by me. Frankly, I always thought that she was quite charming and lovely in those movies she made with Mickey Rooney, and I'll always love her in Meet Me in St. Louis. (There. I said it and I'm standing by it.)