“Your bar, The Anchorman, is a gay bar.”
“Why that’s ridiculous.
Just look around.”
“Oh.
Oh my.”
I don’t mean to alarm you, but there are homosexuals lurking everywhere on television.
They’ve been there for years.
And this 1994 episode of Murphy Brown treated viewers to a heaping dose of gay lovers, queer
history, and wanton singing of showtunes.
All aboard and welcome to Matt Baume’s culture cruise, where we take a deep dive on LGBTQ
themes on TV, in movies, in books, games, and more.
In the last video we looked at a 1992 episode of Murphy Brown in which the gang learned
to get along with a gay coworker.
Now we’re jumping ahead two years to the 1994 episode “The Anchorman,” in which
gays are here, they’re queer, and everyone’s getting used to them.
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Murphy Brown’s first gay episode in 1992 introduced the main characters to an openly
gay coworker.
But in “The Anchorman,” which aired two years later, they’re about to discover a
whole bunch of gays.
The episode starts with Jim buying a bar.
His dream is to recreate his favorite hangout back when he was a young reporter in London
in the 1950s.
He decorates the place to look British, gives it a piano, a very open floor plan, and some
soundstage-bright lighting.
And what do you know, the place is a hit!
But when the gang comes to visit, they notice that something seems … unusual.
“You know, it never ceases to amaze me.
There are so many single women in this town and yet the men always seem to outnumber them
in bars.”
Yeah, what could it possibly mean?
“Murphy, you have just got to see the ladies room.
Not only is it spotless, it’s almost as if nobody’s ever used it before.”
It’s a real mystery what’s happening here.
“It’s very nice to see you Congressman Frank.
Well, okay, Barney.”
Quite the head-scratcher.
“I just wanted to ask if you’re Murphy Brown.”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“That’s great.
My lover owes me 20 dollars.”
I’ve talked before about how I like when characters use the term “lover.”
“This is Miriam Goodman.
My lover.”
It sounds super awkward and strange and I think that’s why I like it -- it really
calls your attention to the fact that what sets us apart as queer people is love, and
our desire to love and be loved despite all the obstacles thrown in our way.
It’s kind of a brag: “oh, you’ve got a husband?
Well I’ve got a lover.”
Anyway, it’s become clear that Jim inadvertently opened a gay bar.
Which means it’s time for yet another round of “I can’t believe it’s not heterosexual.”
“So you think he doesn’t know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“That this is a gay bar.
That Jim is running a gay bar.”
“A gay bar?
Why on Earth would Jim be running a -- oh my God, Jim’s gay!”
Okay, I love this joke.
Every single time there’s a gay episode on TV, some clueless straight fails to even
consider that gay people exist until they finally, shocked and wide-eyed, figure it
out.
But this time the gay episode isn’t about a person, it’s about a place, which everyone
gets except Corky who does the familiar old wide-eyed shock but manages to get it completely
wrong.
It’s a twist on the clueless heterosexual that is honestly pretty refreshing.
In fact the joke is so good it even gets a tag.
“Corky, Jim’s been married to Doris for 25 years.”
“Do you think she knows?”
At first, Jim is in some denial about who’s patronizing his bar, which to be fair is somewhat
understandable.
In 1994, there were still a lot of risks to being out and open.
A lot of queer folks had to hide for their own safety.
And as a result, straight folks just weren’t aware of how many gays were around them.
At that time, one of the few places where LGBTQ folks could safely gather, and be open
and out, were gay bars.
Which Jim has just discovered.
“Your bar, The Anchorman, is a gay bar.”
“Why that’s ridiculous.
Just look around.”
“Oh.
Oh my.”
Honestly I’m not sure what we’re looking at because it looks less like a gay bar than
an ad for Men’s Wearhouse.
Jim tries to be cool about it, but this just isn’t what he wanted when he bought the
place.
He wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the bar he loved back in London, and this is not
how he remembers things.
While Jim goes for a walk to clear his head, Corky makes friends and learns a few things.
“I just had the most wonderful conversation with that table over there in the corner.
Do you have any idea how many of history’s great men were gay?
I didn’t.
Aristotle, gay.
Michelangelo, gay.
Laurence Olivier, gay.
Or straight.
Depends on which biography you read.”
This joke seems like it’s written specifically for the gay history nerds in the audience
and I want to give it a hug.
Jim returns and he’s made up his mind to get rid of the place.
“I have no problem with this being a gay bar, Murphy.
I just don’t want it to be my gay bar.
I wanted to recreate something very special to me, and as much as I’m glad this place
is doing well it’s not what I had in mind.
… It was foolish of me to even try to recapture the past.
Can’t be done.”
So that seems to be that.
The gang heads for the exit, but Jim lingers for a moment at the piano.
He never even had a chance to play it, so they all gather around.
They’re singing “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” written by George Gershwin,
who was gay or maybe not depending on which biography you read.
It’s a song about remembering the good times even after they’re over.
“The way your smile just beams, the way you sing off key.”
Oh, but you know what happens when you start a singalong around gays.
“The way you haunt my dreams, no no they can’t take that away from me.”
And so it goes, late into the night with the Jim Dial Gay Men’s Chorus.
Two important realizations happen at the end of the episode.
One is that gay bars are better than straight bars.
And the second is that Jim’s memory of the past might not be entirely complete:
“Back then we had people like John Gielgud, Somerset Maugham, composer Benjamin Britten.”
“You know, Jim, all those men are gay.”
It’s true!
John Gielgud was a great actor of the 20th century.
Benjamin Britten was a great composer.
Somerset Maugham was a playwright and spy, the inspiration for James Bond, and once described
himself as a quarter normal and three-quarters queer.
And there’s more:
“James Baldwin, Christopher Isherwood..."
"Both gay."
"Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams, a busboy named Quentin Crisp.”
“Gay gay gay.”
“I guess I did a better job recreating the old place than I thought.”
James Baldwin, Christopher Isherwood, and Noel Coward were fantastic writers.
Tennessee Williams was a playwright.
Quentin Crisp was … well, it’s hard to categorize Quentin exactly, but here’s how
he described himself, as portrayed by John Hurt in a film version of Quentin’s autobiography:
“You cannot touch me now.
I am one of the stately homos of England.”
He must’ve made some busboy.
In the 1950s, queer folks had to maintain a certain level of secrecy -- John Gielgud,
for example, never publicly came out even after he was arrested for cruising.
"I'll alert the media."
Other public figures went to great lengths to maintain the illusion of heterosexuality.
Even Liberace sued someone who suggested he was gay.
“I think in the 50s, any publicity along those lines was very daring and it called
for defense.”
But by the 1990s -- which was only 40 years later, not a huge amount of time -- gays could
be at least a little more open, gathering in public places and talking openly about
lovers.
Jim’s discovery, that there were gays around him the entire time and he didn’t even know
it, flows from the 1992 episode.
In that one, some characters assumed that if someone doesn’t explicitly say that they’re
queer then they must be straight.
Jim assumed that he was hanging out with straight people like him.
But it turns out that gays have always been there, whether he knew it or not.
The episode’s also a rebuke of nostalgia -- yearning for a thing that might not have
ever existed in the way you think you remember it.
Jim can bring back the superficial elements of the bar, like the decor and the piano -- but
it won’t feel the same, because it was part of a time and place that just no longer exists.
Times have changed.
On the topic of times changing, there was also a bit of gay content in the recent reboot
of Murphy Brown.
Twenty years have passed and the gang’s back together.
In Season 11, Episode 7, they’re all going to a fancy black-tie dinner, and Miles invites
new character Pat.
For reasons that are never explained, Miles insists that they go suit shopping together.
And the result is this sight gag.
The weirdest part about this is that Miles is wearing a suit that’s almost identical
to Murphy’s, 22 years earlier in The Anchorman.
I think she wore it better.
Anyway, Pat’s ex is working at the banquet, and there’s a brief misunderstanding:
“When you said you wanted to see someone older, I didn’t think you meant grandpa
Dorothy here.”
Now let’s see -- it’s been twenty years, are we going to go back for one more drink
from the “I can’t believe it’s not heterosexual” well?
Of course we are.
“Oh!
I get it.
You’re gay.
Well, good for you.
That’s, that’s great.”
The look that Miles gets from both characters in this scene is deserved.
Why, Miles, why are you doing this again?
It’s the year of our lord 2018 and sitcoms are still giving us the clueless heterosexual
who forgets that queer people might possibly exist.
But just when I was feeling exasperated about the return of the trope, Pat expressed his
exasperation too:
“How did you not know I was gay?”
I feel like this isn’t just Pat talking to Miles, but gay people talking to television
in general.
Stop being surprised that gay people exist!
Gay people are out everywhere now.
Gay bars don’t have to be secret hideouts.
The Liberaces of the world no longer have to sue gossip columnists to protect their
secrets.
Later, Miles gives Pat a ride home from the banquet, and Pat brings the waiter with him.
Miles is clearly a little uncomfortable, but at least this way he’s not going to forget
that gay people exist.
In the quarter century since Murphy Brown first tackled the topic of gays, a lot has
changed about the way that queer people live.
Back then, it was a lot more dangerous to be out.
So when a queer person did make themselves known, it was a bit shocking.
But these days we don’t have to be quite so invisible.
And that’s thanks to queer people who were open at work.
Who gathered together to socialize.
Who openly expressed affection around other people.
Every time a queer person asserted their very existence, they became a bit more of a part
of everyday life.
With each day that goes by, the closet moves closer and closer to being an artifact of
the past.
And with any luck, it’s one classic that’ll never get a reboot.
Land ho!
We’re pulling into port.
Thanks for cruising along with me!
And thanks to everyone who makes the Culture Cruise possible with a pledge of a dollar
or more a month on Patreon.
Visit patreon.com/mattbaume or click the link in the description to check out some of the
backer rewards.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m needed at the local heterosexual newsman’s bar.
"What'll I do with just a photograph..."