76
Popular Culture Review
Russo writes that during the 1950s, censors forbade direct references to
homosexuality in movies. Russo suggests that screenwriters learned to write
between the lines about homosexuality.^^ Eric Savoy typifies Calamity as a
butch lesbian and insists that Day often played characters that challenged
compulsory heterosexuality.^^ Apparently, the gay community agreed vsdth this
interpretation. The song “Secret Love,” taken by the homosexual community to
mean the secret love between Calamity and Katie, was a huge hit in fifties gay
bars.^*
Calamity probably was a lesbian character, and so was Katie. Katie was
a showgirl’s maid with a shady past and a questionable relationship with her
employer, diva Adelaid Adams. In Katie’s first scene backstage with Adelaid,
she asks her mistress whether she would recommend her for a small part on the
stage. Adelaid rebuffs her. “You’re not serious, Katie . . . ” she says, eyeing the
young woman’s body, “. . . My dear, it isn’t just your voice, it’s . . . well, your
other equipment is hardly adequate.” Katie pouts, and Adelaid places her fingers
gently under Katie’s chin and reassures her: “Aw, cheer up. Maybe I’ll send for
you when I get to Paris.” Then she smiles, and says “Goodnight, darling,” as she
exits. The relationship is clearly more than that of a maid and her employer.
Remember—Katie was also associated vsdth drag queen Frances Fryer!
Another troubling specter in Calamity Jane is the all male city of
Deadwood. This was positively un-American. Biskind points out that in the
films of the fifties men did not belong in groups without women. “Most films
wanted them married,” says Biskind, “not alone or hanging out with other men.
Men without women. . . were usually bad, except in circumstances where it
couldn’t be helped, such as w ar..
This problem remains unresolved in
Calamity Jane, except for Bill Hickok and Lt. Gilmartin, who marry.
There are several suggestions in the film some men in Deadwood are
attracted to each other. A drunken miner winks at Francis Fryer during his drag
performance, and two Sioux Indians fondle Fryer in the stagecoach upon his
arrival in Deadwood. There is also a hint about the relationship between Golden
Garter owner Henry Miller (called Milly) and Fryer. When Fryer tries to inform
Milly that Katie Brown is not Adelaid Adams before her opening performance,
he stammers, then offers to have “two fast horses at the stage door,” suggesting
an elopement should the crowd decide to run them out of town.
The heterosexual men in Calamity Jane were handsome, sensitive, and
clueless about women. This was new in the films of the 1950s. Tough wartime
heroes were out of style.^° Keel does not play Bill Hickok as a tough gunfighter.
He is a reluctant gunslinger who fires only once during the film and that only to
save Katie fi*om embarrassment ^^^len she tries to shoot a glass out of Calamity’s
hand to prove herself Calamity’s equal.^^
To explain why Americans saw same-sex marriages and communities
as dangerously deviant during the Cold War, historian Elaine Tyler May points
to the foreign policy of containment popularized by John Foster Dulles. This