MovieChat Forums > There's No Business Like Show Business (1955) Discussion > Steve Donahue

Steve Donahue

posted 14 years ago by dmnemaine
12 replies | jump to latest

Does anybody else get the feeling that Steve Donahue's character was a compromise by the writers who probably would really have liked to have made his character announce to his family that he's gay rather than that he wants to be a priest? Molly and Terry's negative reaction to Steve's announcement is just way too over the top for something as inocuous as entering the priesthood. It really is more the reaction that comes from many parents when a child tells them about their homosexuality. It's also very possible that it was a way for the writers to slip in a subtle reference to the coming out process of a gay person that the gay audience of the time would have picked up on because they couldn't overtly allude to it without running afoul of the censors.

[–] cluvonj 14 years ago

How interesting to find your post. I am just now watching this film for the first time and my first thought upon hearing him talk was that he was gay and when he comes in and says he has to tell them something my natural thought would be that he was gay but then of course I knew it wasnt that because of the time the film was made but what you said totally makes sense for I too thought their reaction to him becoming a priest was a little over the top. Im thinking wow becoming a priest should be a good thing not a bad thing. So what you said about the writes could be a possibility.

[–] nomen_est_omen_4 13 years ago

I always thought maybe he went into the priesthood partly BECAUSE he was gay, and they knew that. Being a priest would give him an excuse to live a life different from the norm of the day, where he would be expected to fall in love with a girl, get married and have children. He may have also been searching for answers though religion about why he felt the way he did.

[–] lightkeeper-1 12 years ago

Good point. Had this been made now, a better possibility.

[–] lrn79 12 years ago

For a modern audience we obviously think of this scene as a "coming out". We've since seen actual gay coming out scenes they play like this one in films made through the 80's, 90's and beyond. But I don't think this was the intent (even as subtext) in this film. For one thing I don't think a young man in that time (film set in the 1930's and filmed in 50's) would actually come out to his family, even a liberal show biz family.

[–] dmnemaine 12 years ago

Oh, I think it could easily have been subtextual. People at that time may not have come out to family/friends, but I'm sure that gay people of the time must have thought about what it would be like to do so. There is every possibility that the Steve Donahue story could have been a writer's way of living vicariously the fantasy of being open about his/her sexual orientation.

[–] aadamtx 12 years ago

I think the subtext is there, and others have noted that 'coming out' at the time would have been impossible or at least improbably. Interestingly enough, Johnnie Ray was openly bisexual at a time when most male/female performers wouldn't take the risk. One other possibility - perhaps the writers and director Lang simply didn't know what to do with his character, considering how the other 'children' paired off. Ray made very few film and tv appearances - perhaps his private life was just too hot for the media to handle?

[–] cnicknz 11 years ago

The thought that he would have had a "coming out" admission to an Irish Catholic family in the thirties is absurd. At that time, they would have put him into a loony bin after kicking him out of the family. I think the screenwriters chose the priest angle probably because Ray was so unsexy. They couldn't picture him with a girlfriend--although off screen Ray was indeed bisexual. Even Donald O'Connor had his own brand of boyish sex appeal, so giving him a girl to chase made sense, although Monroe does seem too much woman for him.

[–] bari2525 11 years ago

This is yet another case (so very popular over the last 20-25 years) of people so rabidly viewing history trough today's eyes. Everything is something it's not.

In that era, if you grew up in a showbiz family, and had ANY talent whatsoever for the business at all, you stayed in the business as an adult.

The church (no matter the denomination) was seen as important, but not a vocation, as that was a calling that was holy and "respectable," and even though show business was wasn't seen as bad to those that were involved in it, those that weren't still viewed it as less than savory...the two didn't mix.

Imagine the plot of "The Jazz Singer," only in reverse.

I don't act...I react. John Wayne

[–] lightkeeper-1 8 years ago

I would have enjoyed Ray's character had he come out as being gay rather than a priest. I didn't care for the song "Believe."

[–] shandy8 11 years ago

I always found Steve's parents' reaction to his decision odd (esp. Merman's tears). Most Catholic parents would be delighted to find that one of theirs had made the choice Steve Donahue did. Never made the gay connection, but it does make sense.

"What do you want me to do, draw a picture? Spell it out!"

[–] adomono 11 years ago

I watch this movie at least two dozen times, and as I watched it last night, it was the first time it ever dawned on that Steve might be gay. IMO there is DEFINITELY subtext on the subject. I noticed it for the first time last night. It's the scene right after their performance of " Alexander's Ragtime Band". The scene in the dressing room, where Johnny Ray's character Steve, tells his parents he wants to go out for a walk by himself to do some thinking. After he leaves their dressing room, they talk to each other about what's bothering Steve. And during the conversation, Ethel Merman's Character starts thinking to herself (while putting on her gloves) and says " it's not that" and a quick pause, and says"no it's not THAT either"I think she had a fleeting thought of it for a moment.

[–] dollvalley 10 years ago

Very interesting thought.
He is also never shown as having interest in girls, however the only time we see him as an adult is also the night he comes out with his big announcement.

For years he was the only character I didn't like, but now I like him, I love the songs he sings, and I do think he is very good looking, probably the best-looking out of all three men there.