MovieChat Forums > You Can't Take It with You (1938) Discussion > Question about the usage of 'Gay' in a s...

Question about the usage of 'Gay' in a scene

posted 14 years ago by rivak2
35 replies | jump to latest

It's been a while since I saw the movie but I checked the scene again, just now.

[Edit 10/10/2010: The scene occurs at 1:55:20 (on my DVD) into the movie--pretty much at the very end of the movie, and just before Jimmy Stewart walks in to try to convince Barrymore's character to tell him where his daughter is; 1:55:42.]

When Lionel Barrymore's family is preparing to leave, a girl from the neighborhood (I don't recall her as a family member) says, "It certainly is going to be gay around here when you leave, Grandpa."

My jaw dropped when I heard that. I used captions and the word indeed was "gay." The caption reads slightly differently than I clearly heard it and I believe the caption is incorrect: "It's certainly going to be gay... [the rest as I have it above]? With the question mark at the end. I don't believe the girl was asking a question.

I realize that in the same year, 1938, Cary Grant made the "I turned gay... all of a sudden," ad-lib while wearing a dress. I've read about that one. That one I understand (or the debate anyway).

However, this is very different. Here, the word "gay" seems to be used as an antonym of itself (opposite of mirthful). I can't bring myself to believe that the word here is a pejorative. I myself have only heard that useage around 1999 althought it was around since 1985 I hear.

I'm very curious as to the meaning of the word here in 1938. [edit 10/10/10: I know "gay" meant "mirthful" and the like back then too.] I did a bit of searching and my best guess came when I found:

" A 2006 BBC ruling by the Board of Governors over the use of the word in this context by Chris Moyles on his Radio 1 show, "I do not want that one, it's gay," advises "caution on its use" for this reason:

“ "The word ‘gay’, in addition to being used to mean ‘homosexual’ or ‘carefree’, was often now used to mean ‘lame’ or ‘rubbish’."

And here I suspected that the word was meant to mean something very similar to "lame" or "unfun", possibly "depressing", however it was used that way in 1938. Also, pardon, I don't think "unfun" is actually a word in the dictionary, but it is used here and there and it popped to mind just before I wrote it.

The girl was portrayed as very sincere and she was saddened that the family was leaving.

Is it possible the word had some other meaning in 1938? Or did it have a similar meaning to the pejorative employed now but was (as it must have been) viewed as much more benign?

One alternative I can think of is that she meant they were going to have a party after they left to remember them by (and be gay, or mirthful then), but I think I'm really stretching it there. I don't see that at all as I watch the scene.

Another alternative is that I missed the meaning completely and it's much simpler than I thought, but if so, I still don't know what she meant.

Any thoughts? I'm rather stumped.

And do I get a prize for finding this? ;)

Actually, thoughts are reward enough, lol. Thanks!

EDIT: 12/2/10 It seems WOTAPAIN's explanation is very likely the correct one. The girl was employing irony.

[–] novastar_6 14 years ago

Gay used to mean happy, and bright, and colorful, like in the Christmas carol 'don we now our gay apparel'.

[–] rivak2 14 years ago

Yes, but the girl wasn't using the word to mean that. She meant exactly the opposite.

Everyone was saddened that the family was leaving so why would they be "gay--mirthful"?

She meant "gay-odd-queer-unusual-depressing-stupid". And I wasn't aware that that particular meaning was in use in 1938 for the word "gay".

To be blunt, here's an example:

Event: Someone who is a very fun person has to leave a party.

Verbal response by a person who doesn't want the "fun" person to leave:
"That's so gay." (Gay here meaning rubbish or "stupid".)

Same as: "That sucks."

How, in 1938, does "gay" mean "that sucks"?

To get the full effect one has to watch the scene which occurs at about 1:55:20 into the movie (towards the very end).

This just came to my mind. The girl "may" be saying that sarcastically. Barrymore's character sort of grunts "Bah" and he waves her off. However, I don't think that's what she's doing.

[–] novastar_6 14 years ago

More likely she said the place would NOT be very gay without them around. This is one movie that you can see it on TV, several times, you can watch the tape, you can even watch the DVD, and the quality is not excellent...every time it's on TV, the sound cuts out, the picture freezes, in the TV, little parts are jumped over so words are missing, etc.

[–] rivak2 14 years ago

I appreciate your reply. You appear to have misread my intitial post. What I heard was confirmed by the subtitles. It's at 1:50:20 of the movie (one hour, fifty minutes, twenty seconds). It might be a good idea to watch that scene. It's very clear. It's not cut, and it's not jumpy.

What she said: "It certainly is going to be gay around here when you leave, Grandpa."

What the subtitles say she said: "It's certainly going to be gay around here when you leave, Grandpa?"

Those with the DVD can easily find it.

[–] stevenvh 14 years ago

Yes, but the girl wasn't using the word to mean that. She meant exactly the opposite.

That's what you say when you're being sarcastic. Like when you're talking about a really bad film (not this one!): "Yeah, that was a great film!"

--
Rome. By all means, Rome.

[–] tmf_scipio 14 years ago

sounded to me like she said: "isn't"

[–] novastar_6 14 years ago

Yeah, and subtitles are not always right. Watch Uncle Buck with the subtitles on, very seldom on the money with what's being said.

[–] rivak2 14 years ago

Well, tmf_scipio , I'll have to quadruple check then to make sure I heard it right. I'll post soon.

[–] tmf_scipio 14 years ago

I'll check my copy too.

But, I did take her to mean "fun," not flaming homosexual (which, in context, doesn't make any sense).

Besides, it's a good excuse to watch an excellent movie again.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] HunterSVonnegut 14 years ago

My jaw dropped when I heard that. I used captions and the word indeed was "gay." The caption reads slightly differently than I clearly heard it and I believe the caption is incorrect: "It's certainly going to be gay... [the rest as I have it above]? With the question mark at the end. I don't believe the girl was asking a question.

Yes, the line is clearly, “It’s certainly going to be gay around here when you leave , Grandpa” but it has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality. It was sarcasm or irony (or whatever the proper term for expressing yourself by saying the opposite of what you really mean) for crying out loud. It also clearly wasn’t asked as a question. “Gee Grandpa, is there going to be more sodomy and fellatio around here now that you’re leaving?” I apologize in advance if I’ve somehow come off as rude but come on. It really isn’t obvious that the girl was sadly saying that it wasn’t going to be happy, lively and mirthful in the neighborhood after he leaves?

[–] rivak2 14 years ago

"I apologize in advance if I’ve somehow come off as rude but come on."

You have, and I accept your apology ;) Your explanation sounds very plausible to me. It's probably the correct one.

I asked the original question because, in this day and age, what the girl said sticks out like a sore thumb. Back then it most likely was as you say. I thought that perhaps the phrase was inserted by the director or writer as an "inside joke", if that's the appropriate term ("joke" may not be the appropriate term). I was curious if anyone knew whether the term/phrase was in very limited usage back then (which seems unlikely to me). Your explanation is "now" the much more likely one.

Thanks again. I think you've nailed it.

[–] HunterSVonnegut 14 years ago

Glad I could help and welcome to the IMDb community.

[–] curiousandcutekitty 14 years ago

You said yourself that there are often errors in the subtitles, and that the subtitles did not say exactly what you heard. Odds are, both you and the subtitles are not hearing simply two letters to make "is" "isn't". There's no way it could have meant that back then.

"I give myself very good advice... but very seldom follow it!" - Alice in Wonderland

[–] rivak2 14 years ago

I know what I heard. What I heard did not significantly change from what was written in the subtitles. I thank everyone for their thoughts, but unless future posters are 90+ years old and can shed some light on this without guessing, it would be a good idea for future posters to actually view the scene themselves.

I'm not putting anyone down, and I "do" thank everyone, but everyone's just guessing and no one confirmed that they actually viewed the scene in question. Watch the scene. You might be surprised :)

[–] dionblackler 14 years ago

I just finished watching the film, and I too was struck by the odd usage of 'gay' to mean 'not good/fun' in that scene. It doesn't seem like she was being sarcastic, though that does seem to the most plausible explanation.

[–] zbacku 14 years ago

In 1938 the ONLY meaning of the word 'gay' was 'happy' and 'light' 'bright'
Nothing more, nothing less

[–] wallace569 14 years ago

Not true actually. According to the trivia for Bringing Up Baby (1938):

David's response to Aunt Elizabeth asking him why he is wearing a woman's dressing gown ("Because I just went gay all of a sudden!") is considered by many film historians to be the first use of the word "gay" in its roughly modern sense (as opposed to its archaic meaning of "happy, carefree") in an American studio film. Among homosexuals, the word first came into its current use during the 1920s or possibly even earlier, though it was not widely known by heterosexuals as a slang term for homosexuals until the late 1960s. The line was not in the original shooting script for the film; it was an ad lib from Cary Grant himself.

"You want to save humanity but it's people that you just can't stand". - John Lennon

[–] princesskf 14 years ago

Just reran this scene several times. The character's inflection and deadpan delivery (morose, sad) clearly indicate a type of facetious statement, but not in a snarky way. "It sure will be fun without you" delivered in a depressed state clearly implies just the opposite. That is how this character delivers the line to Grandpa.

"I know the night-time . . . it does funny things to you."

[–] rivak2 14 years ago

And, of course, this is probably the most probable scenario. How I wish someone from that movie was alive to shed some light.

[–] rivak2 14 years ago

Yes, you see, I think this is very possible; that the usage of "gay" here may have its roots in the 1920s, as you say, and may be "an inside comment" by the director, as I suspect.

I'd bet some money that the director was throwing a curve, or a strike right down the middle, depending on who took note of the line.

I'm not being negative; just saying it's interesting.

Such a shame that no one from that time is alive to inform us further.

[–] ppllkk 12 years ago

Not a current thread, but quite an interesting one.rivak2 wrote:

I thought that perhaps the phrase was inserted by the director or writer as an "inside joke", if that's the appropriate term ("joke" may not be the appropriate term).

It certainly could be, and I think that joke is the appropriate term. There is an improbable number of movie titles with the word "Gay" in them in the 30s and 40s. See:imdb.com/title/tt0029947/board/inline/110327077?d=192720369#192720369I amuses me to believe, without any evidence, that at least some of them are inside jokes. They would not have to be double entendres referring to something in the film although obviously they could be. Just slipping "Gay" by the censors, who were unaware of its homosexual connotations, in the title of the film was a joke in itself.wallace569 wrote:

Not true actually. According to the trivia for Bringing Up Baby (1938):

The trivia section does not get how the word "gay" was used in homosexual communities at the time of the movie quite right."Gay" was only used by homosexuals and their friends with homosexual implications in the 20s and 30s. Unlike today, "gay" was not used by them to designate all homosexuals. That usage was unknown to people who had no contact with homosexual communities, i.e. almost everyone including the censors."Gay" was the term used by the "fairies" to describe themselves and their lifestyle. The "fairies" were the subgroup of homosexual men who were obviously effeminate, given to wearing makeup and flamboyant clothing, including female clothing when they could get away with it, and in general fitting the stereotype that screams, "I'm gay."A popular entertainment in New York was to go to cafeterias that were open into the wee hours of the morning and watch the fairies antics. Or better, watch the fairies perform for them. I can see how the word could have come to mean lame or rubbish or ridiculous, but I don't have any evidence that it did so at the time.The word "gay" was also used by non-obvious homosexuals as a code word to determine the preferences of a new acquaintance. "Do you know of any gay bars," would amend completely different things to a straight man and a gay man. See the excellent book:Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chaunceyamazon.com/Gay-New-York-Culture-1890-1940/dp/0465026214/ref=sr_1_1?s=b ooks&ie=UTF8&qid=1362587660&sr=1-1&keywords=gay+new+yo rkIt is a fascinating piece of social history even if you have no specific interest in gay history.For easy markup in Firefox & Opera, see http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/42255

[–] nammage 10 years ago

Wrong. It also meant "frivolous" as used in "Bringing Up Baby", which also came out in 1938.

-Nam

[–] wmm575 13 years ago

The language is very fluid and, as you will see in many older movies, our national "patois" changes frequently. I grit my teeth a bit whenever I hear "swell" in a movie but that was just a predecessor to the more mundane "awesome" now replaced by "cool". "Gay" was and still is a perfectly legitimate word meaning "happy" or "exciting". There was no connotation to its current, and to me misleading, usage, as the whole subject of homosexuality was so avoided. And movies were so much more innocent then. I may a bit older than the writer who began this thread, but, now in my early 60s, I've seen language change so much that things said in the 1920s are no more comprehensible to a kid of today than his aberrated, garbled English would have been understood to someone 80 years ago.The academic argument is whether the dictionary should be "prescriptive" or "descriptive". I'll take the former to retain some regularity to and respect for our language.

[–] BlondeVixen 11 years ago

<I grit my teeth a bit whenever I hear "swell" in a movie but that was just a predecessor to the more mundane "awesome" now replaced by "cool".>

But none of those are as irritating as "It's like, I'm like, he's like, she's like, like, like, like" almost every other word. That also was the case with "you know, you know" in between almost every other word. At least people years ago could but together a sentence without using words so redundantly.

[–] bruno-32 10 years ago

This is funny...I think I read somewhere that the 'gay' community after watching that scene where Cary Grant yelled out " I suddenly went gay" as he was caught wearing his wife's nighties..as a description of their lifestyle...They were always looking to find ways to be happy, cause most of them weren't at that time, so they 'adopted' that word. Also, at that time of Grant's remark, there were rumors that he and Randolph Scott, the western actor, were room mates at that time and that meant something 'gay' about that. If you watch those old movies of the early 30's you could hear that word mentioned quite a bit. I also recall after watching it recently a movie that Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr made, "I Take This Woman", where Hedy, the recipient of some bad news, yelled out to her escort " I just want to go out and be gay ".

[–] fanaticita 10 years ago

I'm a fan of 1930s -1940s films and I've found that the word "gay" is used often to express happiness, pleasure, contentment, satisfaction, cheerfulness, merriment, joy, joyfulness, joviality, glee, delight, good spirits, lightheartedness, well-being, enjoyment; exuberance, exhilaration, elation, ecstasy, jubilation, rapture, bliss. It was NOT yet used as a term for homosexuality.

[–] Fred-333 10 years ago

Gay did not mean queer or homosexual in those days. In any case this is one of the best movies ever - enjoy it. Actually you sound rather strange talking about a Board of Governors and such.

[–] odo5435 10 years ago

For crying out loud...

Why all this debate over the use of an innocent word that has had a none too significant change of meaning over the last 40 or 50 years? The word meant 'happy' then and it still means 'happy' today; with a further definition that's evolved in that time. Everyone, scholars included, accept that the meanings of words change over time. How many of Shakespeare's words mean what they did when they were written?

At around 43:00 minutes the excellent Charles Lane (as tax inspector 'Henderson') mentions something along the lines of "that will/would never happen in these here 48 United States". Should we go back and change the meaning of that reference also?

It's becoming more and more annoying that people try to retrofit modern mores into movies from a different era. What would be the reaction if, say, 80 years from now, someone tried to re-interpret 'The Dark Knight' as a poor imitation of real events.

Grow up and accept that films are mostly a reflection of the times in which they were made. If that's not possible, stick to watching the CGI action driven fluff that abounds today and which does not contain any plot that you need worry your blinkered minds about.

That wasn't very sporting, using real bullets.

[–] nammage 10 years ago

The word "gay" has been around since the 1100's. It in the 1850's it was used in place of "prostitution". It's had a changing life.

-Nam