Sick and Dirty – Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness – Michael Koresky

Sick and Dirty gives us wonderful insight into of the years of the notorious Hays Code and its impact on the portrayal of LGBTQ characters, in film, which was to allow no hint that anything exists but heterosexual people. In fact, this very readable book is even more enjoyable in exposing the ingenious way the messages of famous plays and movies meant to have gay characters that are not altogether evil still manage to give sympathetic points of view. I was a kid who grew up in the fifties and sixties and who enjoyed acting and reading plays. I received a large book of famous plays as a gift at about age 14 when I had at most an understanding of what people meant when they called someone a faggot but had no idea I knew any gay people. In that book was Lillian Hellman’s “The Children’s Hour.” I read and reread it. Seven years later, Lillian Hellman was the graduation speaker at my conservative central Pennsylvania college, my grandmother sputtering throughout. And my older sister had come out, which grandma did not know.

So opening Sick and Dirty and finding a beloved and very familiar play was the first subject was personally exciting. And, guess what? I never saw the movie. that decided the “lie” told about the spinster ladies running a school would be a love triangle involving a man instead of a lesbian love affair. I love that Koresky took several films very familiar to those who enjoy classic films and famous directors and examined how the directors and writers, while horribly kowtowing to the Hays folks and the Catholic Church, tried to make good commercial movies that did not totally demolish the overall themes. There are no heroes here, but Koresky then points out that as it got safe enough, the movies that should have been made in the forties and fifties were made in the sixties and seventies and the movies that should have been made in the seventies were made in the nineties (Think, Philadelphia). Is that okay? Nope. But this is business and the movie industry will not courageously turn on a dime.

All the while, without sounding preachy or pontificating or professorial, Koresky produces an incredibly engaging and thoroughly researched and thoughtful discussion in a short and powerful book. Read it.