Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 24

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Popular Culture Review

course, it must ofifer representations of such sexuality, that is, of gay life.
In discussing gay life on The Simpsons, I am mostly referring to gay male
life, particularly as it centers on Waylon Smithers. Moreover, my use of the term
‘‘gay ■’ is meant to invoke the large set of styles and attitudes which make up that
elusive thing known as the “gay sensibility.” In short, the gay sensibility borrows
largely from the ironic camp associated with gay males, female movie icons, and
drag queens. It is important to emphasize, however, that the gay sensibility is not
the exclusive province of gay people. I believe that The Simpsons itself enacts and
maintains a gay sensibility by numerous means—namely, by making abundant
allusions to gay life and sexual orientation, flaunting a camp sensibility, toying
with the fluid nature of sexuality, incorporating peripheral gay characters, and
patiently charting the coming-out process on its one recurrent gay character, Waylon
Smithers. I further believe that The Simpsons, contrary to most mainstream media,
promotes a progressive political agenda by foregrounding a gay sensibility,
maintaining a gay character in a major recurring role, and overtly critiquing the
oppression of sexual “minorities” in American culture.

Homosexuality on the Periphery
Until quite recently, gay life was not widely reflected in America’s popular
arts. Over time, therefore, gay men and women have had to look very hard to find
representations of themselves, positive or otherwise. As Andy Medhurst eloquently
puts it:
Denied even the remotest possibility of supportive images of
homosexuality within the dominant heterosexual culture, gay
people have had to fashion what [they] could out of the
imageries of dominance, to snatch illicit meanings from the
fabric of normality, to undertake a corrupt decoding for the
purposes of satisfying marginalized desires. (328)
In the wake of Stonewall and the organized gay political movements of the late
1960s and early 1970s, Hollywood made some concession to the presence of
homosexual men and women in American culture. Nonetheless, during this same
time period, gay characters in Hollywood film by and large either committed suicide
or were murdered by another character. On television, something similar was
happening. As John Leo points out, during the 1970s many well-meaning and self
consciously liberal television shows tried to acknowledge gay life and offer direct
representations of homosexuality (31). Notable among these bt q AII in the Family,
Maude, and Soap, which gave us Billy Crystal as Jody, prime-time’s first recurring
gay character. However, these shows often portrayed gayness as a “problem” to be