CAPSTONE Project

Davis - Capstone Final.pdf

“In sheer numbers, then, the homosexual is an important part of Broadway. How important is he aesthetically? Let’s put it this way: the homosexual contribution to Broadway simply cannot be overrated. Many of the best plays of the past 20 years have been written by homosexuals. Most of the major musicals of the sixties have been directed by homosexuals, the songs from most of the hits of the sixties have been written by homosexuals, the dances created by homosexuals, the clothing designed by homosexuals. In musicals, particularly, he homosexual contribution is tremendous: of the ten longest-running musicals of the decade, two, at the most, were accomplished without homosexual contribution in the writer-producer-director echelons.”

– William Goldman in The Season (1969:238)

             Musical theater is a misunderstood art form. It does not have the following or the influence on pop culture it used to but many in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community have found acceptance and support in the musical theater world. The influence on musical theater by the LGBT community is enormous but there is very little literature about how the LGBT community has been represented shows created. Unable to look at all areas of musicals from Broadway and off-Broadway to regional shows I examine Best Musical Tony Award winners from 1949-2010 and I expect to find LGBT characters evolving from basic stereotypes into characters that better represent many aspects of an LGBT individuals life.

             William Goldman in The Season (1969) discusses the 1967-68 season in New York Theater. He acknowledges the importance the homosexual plays in the theater world. The liking of musical theater is often a stereotype contributed to the gay male, yet looking at the literature there really is not much research dealing with the subject of homosexuals and musical theater. Tony Kushner (Savran, 1995), Tennessee Williams (Fleche, 1995) and other gay playwrights are represented mainly with regards to specific plays and their contributions to theater with fully “out” or closeted gay characters.

             Stereotypes whether true or false, are ways we form perceptions about the people in the world around us. And, they shape self-presentations among those to whom the stereotypes apply. Acceptance continues to increase for the LGBT community many still define the community based on these stereotypes. Gay men are believed to be more “feminine” and lesbians more “masculine,” even as other researchers have pointed out gender-related trait differences between gay men and lesbians and their heterosexual counterparts are weak and inconsistent. (Lippa, 2005) Richard Green, a leading early researcher on homosexuality, may have contributed to the formation of these stereotypes. In The “Sissy Boy Syndrome” and the Development of Homosexuality (1987), Green performs longitudinal studies with parents and kids about their thoughts on aspects of the child’s sexuality from mannerism, likes/dislikes, sexual roles, and the ways in which the parents raised their children. Concluding gay, bisexual, and transgendered men seem to be more feminine and like to dress in women’s clothes. In the media and popular culture gay men, especially, and lesbians have been portrayed in many deviant ways. Lesbian and gay characters are often shown living unrealistic lifestyles revolving around sex, alcohol, drugs and partying, further solidifying these stereotypes and misleading the public into believing that the LGBT “lifestyle” is just that, a choice and something easily changed (Chung, 2007).

             The acceptance of members of the LGBT community has seen much advancement over the last 60 years beginning with the conservative family values that followed on the heels of World War II. Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness, a disorder and an executive order signed by President Eisenhower (1953) stated homosexuality was sufficient reason to fire federal employees, and even the U.S. Postal Service to helped gather evidence of suspected homosexuals by tracing their mail. (Leder, 2006)

             A turning point for change arrived on June 28, 1969, when the Stonewall Riots in New York Cities Greenwich Village put the gay rights movement on the map: gay men and lesbians along with their allies demonstrated to the world demanding respect, rights and they were not going away. Four years later, in 1973 (Herek, 1997) the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder followed in 1975 (Conger, 1975) by the American Psychological Association. The years that followed saw an increase in openness and acceptance for the LGBT community.

             As the 1980s began AIDS began to decimate much of the gay male community, and opposition towards gay rights increased. The fight for the lives of those infected took on an importance and urgency. In the first 15 or so years of AIDS, before a cocktail was discovered in 1996 to control the disease, AIDS had become equated with gay men, although many heterosexuals were also infected. The cocktail allowed those infected to rebound and although not cured, they were able to recover and live normal lives. Since then there has been no cure found, however, new cocktails are being developed and the focus has turned back to extending gay rights, up to and including marriage equality.

             Sexual identity became a subject of academic research and political action, emerging from the gay movement and the feminist movement before crystallizing in  Queer Theory. Queer theory is a way for people to look at preconceived notions anew, with regards to any number of topics, from politics to art. The misconception of many people not familiar with queer theory is that it is a “gay” theory. Although this can be part of the theory basis it is no more “gay” than “feminist” theory is female. Queer theory takes issue with labels and tries to demystify and release conformity to these labels. It’s job is to look at preconceived categories we define ourselves by (man, woman, heterosexual versus homosexual, etc.) and then step back to actually look and see if they are doing more harm than good in our interactions with the world around us. Hennessey sees identity politics where identity is reified—understood to be represented in a self-evident and authentic way through one’s body—and collectivity is reduced to group affiliation defined according to the standard of authentic embodiment.” (Hennessy 1993: 964)

             Queer theory came after Feminist theory and began to take hold during the 1980s and 1990s as the gay movement obtained momentum. Society was not only confronted with a challenge to preconceived ideas about sexuality but also the 1980s brought to the forefront issues that directly affected the gay community (organization of “gay” politics, the HIV/AIDS crisis, Queer Nation). Queer theory began initially as many gay and lesbian intellectuals began to attack “the unitary gay identity construction as normative and as a disciplining force which excludes and marginalizes many desires, acts, and identities of lesbian- and gay-identified individuals” (Seidman 1996:124).

             Judith Butler’s article (1993), Critically Queer, talks about what “queer” means and the social implications. Queer theory seeks to expand the binary norms of male/female, gay/straight, because for many these labels do not fit their lives or the ways in which they think about the world. What is “masculine” for one person may not be considered that for another, and gender can, at times, get in the way of expanding how people think about this world in which we live. Queer theory is not based on gay culture; it is there to open up the possibilities and to try and look at things in a new light. Queer when used with “gay”, “lesbian”, “straight”, “female”, or “male” expands the restrictions based on the norms set by language and society and “frees” a person to look for other ideas.

             Even as queer theory is thriving on university campuses around the country there is another aspect of queer theory that has made grounds but which is also difficult. Many gay and lesbian (not to mention bisexual or even transgendered) professors are not able to be “out” on campus.  Nonetheless, Queer theory is prominent in many courses offered at colleges around the country. Queer theory has become a “hot” topic in recent years.  As Jill Dolan states, “Queer theorists can imagine a time when sexual identities will be too multiple to matter, but our culture hasn’t arrived at that utopian movement quite yet” (1998: 43). Queer theory’s goal is to shatter the binary system of thinking that society is based on (e.g. good/bad, black/white, man/woman, gay/straight). Binary systems make it difficult for those people who do not identify with either/or categories because they do not feel they fully belong to one or the other.

MUSICOLOGY

             It can be argued that musicology was the first real art form to be tackled by Queer Theory.   “The various social upheavals of the 1960s and the widespread loosening of societal restraints in the 1970s after the end of the Vietnam War were paralleled in the world of music by a gentlemanly broadening of the musical palette and diversification of scholarly and critical approaches” (Brett 1994:371). One of the main goals in applying queer theory to musicology is to look at the various representations of   queer roles and identities in music; to research music history and find a niche where queer people might belong; and to expand the experiences of music and the body. There are many who  believe that by “queering” musicology, queer theorists are trying to take something sacred and change the face of the form. This is evident with the discourse among scholars that address Schubert’s possible homosexuality and those scholars who believe he should remain sacred and untouchable in the context of queer theory.  Either way, this is one example of the way in which musicology can “forge new relations with other branches of scholarship as well as to engage with pressing contemporary cultural and social issues through music. It can also help to change the nature of ‘classical music’ as an arena of social regulation by, as it were, outing it (Brett 1994). It is a way to look at something “old” in a new way, which I believe, helps to keep the subject alive and modern.

             Another subject of music that has been examined  through the eyes of Queer Theory is Leonard Bernstein.  Hubbs describes Leonard Bernstein and his homosexuality at the time when he was most prolific. He was a “rock star” in the classical world at the time. Hubbs discusses  Bernstein’s  double life: his public heterosexual life with the career, wife and kids and his homosexual private life that did not mesh with the time or his career plans. Hubbs’s article is mainly about musicology’s “Long-standing reticence toward homosexuals and homosexuality in U.S. musical modernism.” (2009:25) She talks about how homophobia has been a part of modern U.S. culture, which was thriving during Bernstein’s most important years with large numbers of Americans labeled as homosexual being deleted from American history. This also was at the same time as the McCarthy hearings and many people in the entertainment industry being black-listed. Hubbs uses Berstein to address Homophobia and Historiography because for her, “In past accounts historiographic homophobia worked to conceal historical homophobia and its wide ranging, often unpredictable effect, and the two combined to construct a Bernstein sufficiently bohemian to merit the title genius while sufficiently heteronormative to merit national cultural-hero status” (Hubbs 2009: 42). 

             In What’s Queer about Musicology Now? Lewis (2009) moved the discussion towards a clear definition of queer theory, which is  in fact past its prime. Many feel that queer theory is outdated and has been replaced with a more global outlook. However, “the editors of Social Text argue that it is precisely the ability of queer studies to engage intersectional modes of analysis that is responsible for its continuing vitality and critical edge” (Lewis 2009:45-46). Another aspect of queer theory that is missing is the look at lesbianism and femininity. Most people lump all queer individuals into “gay” but in fact gay men and lesbians as well as bisexuals and transgendered individuals are different in their own ways. It is precisely these differences that give queer theory its staying power, according to Lewis. It is simple for many to only look at one aspect of queer theory at the expense of another: “transnational queer critique that has the potential to further reinscribe the kind of binary sex-gender system in which femininity is automatically conflated with passivity, powerlessness, and immobility” (Lewis 2009:47). She argues for the need to debate between what it means to be “gay,” “lesbian,” versus “queer.” The goal  of queer theory is to challenge the notions of a binary sex-gender system (heterosexuality and homosexuality) in order to view the world in less mutually exclusive and more multilayered terms.  Queer theory breaks down preconceived notions and allows for more “portability” because of its de-emphasis on conforming to certain “given” identities and ideas.  . Queer theory musicologists must tackle the resistance they face with an emphasis on education and respect so that queer theory can continue to survive and offer new ways to look at the new global world.

FILM AND TV

             Moving pictures (movies) and television have become part of the foundation of every Americans life. They are what we turn to in order to escape   from the lives we live. Stephen Cohen takes a look at the very lucrative and successful “Road to” movies of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. He argues that the string of 1940s movies were “queering” relationships by placing the duo in different situations surrounding their friendship: cross-dressing, fighting over girls, jokes about marriage between two grooms without a bride, (1999). These films came on the heels of WWII which, because of the close quarters of the military, gave “official sanction to the male couples, the military buddy system structured masculinity in terms of same-sex bonding, problematizing what we no longer take for granted as the heterosexual/homosexual binarism that differentiates between “normal” and “deviant” masculinities according to sexual orientation.” (Cohen 1999: 24) Cohen argues that these films looked at male friendships in ways that most would not see as abnormal but when you step back they were very different than the male-male relationships of the past.

             Eric Savoy’s essay, “That Ain’t ALL She Ain’t,” discusses the movie musical Calamity Jane. According to Savoy, Calamity Jane is transformed from “a young woman whose gender aspirations are firmly masculine, predicated upon both her male homosocial profession as stagecoach guard, and her rather ambivalent, but decidedly immature, sexuality – into what the film understands as “a proper woman.” (1999:152) The musical is, in part, about the transformation of a tomboy, Calamity Jane, into a normal, female, heterosexual role. Savoy discusses the relationship between Calamity Jane and her female friend, Katie Brown. It can be seen as a possible “lesbian” relationship just as Cohen talks about Hope and Crosby’s friendship being seen as a “gay male” relationship in their movies. It is easy to look at these films now and see these new interpretations, but this is a retrospective reinterpretation viewed after all of the changes in societal norms over the past 60+ years.

             Television, especially recently, has had a huge impact on the visibility of gays and lesbians ever since Ellen came out on her 1990s sitcom. Christopher Kelly’s article on Salon.com claims that ““Will & Grace” changed nothing”; he talks about how “Will & Grace” creators, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, changed television with the creation of “Will & Grace.” Their most recent series, “Partners”, looks at the bond two male friends (one gay and one straight). Kelly calls the series “”Will & Grace” with a gender reassignment” (2012). Here he questions if in fact “Will & Grace” has actually done any good or has it actually done more harm, in the eyes of how gay characters are portrayed in sitcoms. He draws on comparisons between earlier shows, such as “An Early Frost” (1985) and “Dynasty,” which dealt with “closet cases” and possible homosexual tendencies used to keep viewers coming back, as part of the dramatic cliffhanger. The relationships in “Will & Grace” between Will and Jack’s corresponding female friends was never about pity. They always looked at being gay as just another aspect of the characters’ lives, and this could be said to be what made it a groundbreaking sitcom. However, Kelly (as a gay man) believes that although “Will & Grace” touched on many issues that the gay community has to deal with it might have negated many of those strides through the “deliberately politically incorrect comedy it used.” This is where the question lies about the sitcom doing more harm than good; could the stereotypes from “Will & Grace” have taught heterosexual viewers a way “to process and ultimately compartmentalize gay people”?

Kelly also compares how other shows such as “Queer Eye For the Straight Guy’ (2003), Bravo’s “Boy Meets Boy” (2003), Logo’s “The A-List” (2010-11), Andy Cohen’s “Watch What Happens: Live,” “Glee,” and “Modern Family:” the only sitcom in which Kelley believes “at least tries to put forth an original, idiosyncratic male-male relationship” (2012). He  argues that it is precisely the stereotypes (which many gay men cling to) that show creators use to further marginalize homosexuals and makes the point that lesbians remain almost invisible on television.

THEATER

             Vaudeville, minstrel shows, revues, and the Follies are some examples of the many different theatrical conventions that have contributed aspects to the musical theater. In contrast to a play, a musical is able to add music and dance to a play in order to heighten the many character emotions normal plays cannot. The audience is crucial to whether a show lives or dies. As an audience member we are transported in a musical to different times and places through the magic of song, dance, and sometimes spectacle. The theater has always been a place for people to congregate and take part in something that is a direct reflection of the times or times past in order to drop out for an hour or two and sometimes even forget about their own problems; the musical theater continues to be such a medium.

             Borroff’s (1984) indicates that the term “musical comedy” was first used in 1897 in the United States in the show The Belle of New York. From 1897 on, musical comedy would be a specific art form that mixed music and straight plays. Initially lighthearted, musical comedies were nothing compared to the many serious musicals written beginning in the middle of the twentieth century and continue presently. In the early part of the twentieth century “musical comedy” relied on a play, throwing in a song here and there for purely value. This changed when composers began to write music moving the story and the characters forward.

Musical theater allowed many people on the outskirts of society to take part. Many considered it a safe place for all types of people especially gays, lesbians, transgendered, and those that felt “different” to be a part of. Many of  musical theater’s greatest composers and performers are part of the LGBT community, and depending on the times in which they lived, developed a way of talking about subjects not talked about openly through euphemism and song.

             Queer theory has made musical theater themes and trends more complex by examining them in new and controversial ways. In this context queer refers to different and is not slang for gay or lesbian. Many researchers examine a specific show illustrating how the characters, when looked at in the traditional musical theater form, form “different” or “queer” relationships; others decide to take a look at how the form of the genre lends itself to different interpretations; even more extreme are those researchers that look at well-established composers of the past, for instance Schubert, and come to the conclusion that his music was an extension of his sexuality and should therefore be part of the discussion (even though there is no consensus on this debate of sexuality). Overall, however, no one has systematically examined how gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people have been represented in the Musical. This is where I have decided to begin my inquiry.

             Queer theory has allowed for studies into many different areas such as cross-dressing in the theater of the English Renaissance. Even though cross-dressing during medieval times was commonplace it involved “the testing and contesting of conventional social roles and cultural categories such as race, class, and gender” (Clark 1997: 319). Cross-dressing has been cast in a more stereotypical role presently, as many attribute the characteristic to the LGBT community based on the norms of a binary system. The first real musical to deal with a gay couple La Cage Aux Folles (1983) still uses drag as a major component in the relationship and the whole piece. It might not necessarily be a bad thing that gay’s are not represented in musicals because gay men can see their own lives in the characters being written about.

Gay theater stems from two events in gay history: first, the premiere of Mart Crowley’s play The Boys in the Band (1968), and second, the riots marking the birth of the gay rights movement in 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village (Helbing, 1981). If, the plays of the 1970s were a way for gay men and lesbians to finally see themselves represented onstage in ways they agreed with and at times did not, then the emphasis of conservatism at the beginning of the 1980s made it difficult for another generation of gay people to acknowledge their homosexuality openly” (Helbing 1981:38).  Helbing concludes with a section about “Gay Performance” which is a totally different genre that emphasizes “some aspect of outrageous, outlandish costumes and sets, movie references, puns, intentionally “bad” acting and camp to create highly theatrical and stylized performances” (Helbing 1981:43).

             Torsten Graff (2001) believes that queer theory is characterized by a profound neglect of drama. Performance has taken center stage and pushed drama into the wings. Graff argues that for many queer theorists, “gay drama has always been helplessly caught up in the conventions of American naturalistic drama” (2001:13). They fail to take on gay issues in a “gay” way. However, if you look at many of the plays produced by such playwrights as Tony Kushner (Angels in America), Nicky Silver, and Terrence McNally they have been instrumental in defining a community and their struggles.

             Gay men have been particularly central to musical theater. Jo Schuman Silver (2012) credits four musical theater creators who have left lasting impressions to the form: Michael Bennett, through his choreography and especially his Pulitzer Prize winning musical “A Chorus Line,” who later would succumb to AIDS; Tommy Tune, who has done it all from performing to directing, all the while being openly gay in the theater world; Jonathan Larson whose musical “Rent” was the first to  tackle AIDS not only in the gay community but also in the straight community; and, Elton John who has always had a flair when performing and has had a couple of hits on the Broadway stage (Silver, 2012).

             Over the past few decades, more and more openly gay playwrights are having their material produced regionally and on Broadway. Michael Billington (2012) of the Guardian says the gay theater movement has been going strong for the last 40 years. It emerged in the 1970s with the founding of such theater groups as Gay Sweatshop (Britain) and the Gay Theatre Alliance (US). The AIDS crisis was another big moment in the development of the gay theater movement and produced such works as Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America and Jonathan Larson’s Rent.

            Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes has earned critical acclaim as rescuing American theater (Savran, 1995). The production is part of  been a trend of plays and musicals that appeal to a common denominator in the theatergoing public to last for years on Broadway.  While many critically acclaimed shows have not lasted a couple of months, leading many to believe that American theater is dead and soon to be extinct,  Angels opened on Broadway in a string of shows appealing to the masses through spectacle: Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, The Phantom of the Opera. Many in theater community had begun to mock these types of shows. Angels dealt with identity politics, liberal pluralism, and attacked many of the norms that society was trying desperately to hold on to (Savran, 1995). The show casts many minority groups (gays both out and closeted, Jews, and Mormons) in roles that  go against everything we have known or wanted to believe. A mixture of fantasy and real life issues, “Angels sets forth a project wherein the theological is constructed as a transcendent category into which politics and history finally disappear…Angels finally sets forth a liberal pluralist vision of America in which all, not in spite but because of their diversity, will be welcomed into the new Jerusalem” (Savran, 1995). Angels, I believe, showed the world the edge of where theater can take us. It is not something that is static and simple, but a medium that requires the use of as many theater conventions as possible without getting cluttered. 

             Musical theater is filled with “queer” characters participating "in an endless play of masks and mirrors, and yet, paradoxically, their insubstantiality continually calls into question what is meant by reality” (Morris, 2004: 151). Making the point that time plays a role in the musical theaters themes Sam Biederman (2010) asks where are the gay musicals? It has only been recently that homosexuality has been making large strides but in the golden age of musicals (1940s-1960s) homosexuality was not discussed in daily life let alone in theater; even though many of the great musical creators of that time were homosexuals, dealing with those issues on a personal level. Show Boat (1927, South Pacific (1949), and West Side Story (1957) all deal with interracial love stories and have had many effects on the art form. Even though the creators of the first two shows are not gay they used other aspects of life such as race and class, in which difference can be substituted for “gayness” (Biederman 2010).

             Wolf in , “We’ll Always Be Bosom Buddies”: Female Duets and the Queering of Broadway Musical Theater, posits that the female duet, which has been integral to the musical form since the 1950s, “troubles the integrated musical’s heterosexual closure, at once signaling and perpetuating its failed heterosexuality” (2006: 353). Her main example is the song Bosom Buddies from Mame in which Wolf suggests represses the true relationship of the piece as being between Vera and Mame. She illustrates that midcentury musical theater’s major and minor female leads evolved in structure from operas two diva’s fighting over one man to the musical’s “diva’s” coming together in a display of their “sameness” even when their characters are opposites. Wolf calls this the queering of the Broadway Musical and divides the female duets into two categories: the queer collaborative duet, underlining the women’s voices differences and sameness; “how their characters are different but in agreement” (2006:361), and the queer pedagogical duet, where one character teaches the other a lesson and the relationship is solidified when the “learner” confirms the lesson learned (normally at the end of the song).

             Traditional musical theater normally revolves around the relationship between the leading heterosexual couple in the musical. Almost always the shows have a center conflict that keeps them circling each other throughout the show and in the end the guy always gets the girl. In Kiss Me Kate (1949) Fred Graham and Lillie Vanessie are divorced and starring in a musical version of William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. After many theatrical antics they realize they still love each other by the end of the show. In Hello, Dolly! Horace Vandergelder has hired Dolly Levi, a matchmaker, to find him a new wife but after many mismatches Horace realizes Dolly is the woman for him. In “Defying Gravity”: Queer Conventions in the Musical Wicked, Stacy Wolf posits “Wicked makes a fascinating, perhaps surprising, contribution to the queer performance archive” (Wolf 2008: 5) through the relationship between the female leads. She suggests that it is the traditional aspects of musical theater formula that Wicked is based on  that allows the “newly gendered and queered content and relationships” (Wolf 2008:6) to make the show a success both theatrically and financially. She discusses the conventions of heterosexual romantic relationships in the mid-twentieth-century musical being based on the differences between the pair that ultimately lead to the formation of a union. Wicked, she argues, uses this convention, however, instead of the romantic relationship between a heterosexual leading couple as the focus of the show it is a same-sex relationship between the two leading female characters (Elphaba and Galinda) that is more traditional. Fiyero has romantic scenes with both leading ladies but the conflicts presented are between Elphaba and Galinda. Wolf states that audience and critics take away many aspects from the show. The critics look at the show through the eyes of spectacle and marketing do not really appreciate it. The audience sees the musical as one about female friends, competitors or conspirators. “But if one sees them through the conventions of musical theatre upon which Wicked is built, they look like a queer couple.” (Wolf 2008:20)

             Edith Borroff sums up the musical theater well when she states, “we are all the high life of My Fair Lady and the low life of Guys and Dolls; we are all the bumptious Harold Hill and the prim Marian. Valid human expression is not subject to national borders but speaks eloquently for the whole of humanity. The dramatic and musical scope and coherence of these musicals have produced a vigorous and compelling art, whose ideals define a classicism of form in musical theater, a splendor of American culture” (1984: 108).

             Where queer theory has given us wonderful and different interpretations of musical theater and other creative art forms, we need a more systematic analyses of the musical and theater in general. Just as there are many theories about Musical Theater, the gap in information about how the musical theater has represented LGBT characters provides an opportunity for much needed research

RESEARCH AND METHODS

Purpose

            As we see above many scholars have looked at specific shows or authors and the way in which their characters, or the structure of their shows or compositions, have allowed for broader “queer” interpretations of these relationships. I would like to reiterate that “queer” does not necessarily mean homosexual, although it can be understood that way, but different.

             Because my own background is mainly in music and theater (musical theater), I find the topic very fascinating.   This is not just a hobby; it is my vocation. I have worked professionally and continue to work in the business. As I prepared for this research I was amazed to find a lacuna in the research on   musical theater. There are a number of studies, which provide   insight to the topic and a couple of books, but no systematic analysis of musicals and how they represent “gay” or “queer” characters.

             Content analyses have been executed  for children’s books (Pescosolido et al 1997),   Fractal analysis of Pollock's drip paintings (Taylor, Micolich and Jonas 1999), and music videos (Baxter 1985; Sommers-Flanagan, John Sommers-Flanagan & Davis; 1993), but there are no analyses of musical theater and the characters that are created.

             The purpose of this analysis is to enhance our understanding of the genre and how it has changed over time. How have LGBT characters, a large section of the musical theater community, been represented over time? A systematic analysis of the representations of LGBT characters in musicals from 1949-2010 will fill an important gap and contribute in a complementary way to the preexisting literature.

Paradigm

            Musical theater is an art form that is a mixture of both drama and opera; a form that looks at the emotionally high points of a characters life and places them onstage for all to see. The characters and their lives are what drive the musical and therefore play the most important role in the musical as an art form. The audience is also important because without them there would be no need to present any form of art.

            The LGBT community has been part of the theater world, and especially the musical theater world, for a very long time. Many have turned to it in order to escape rejection. It can be said, especially for many gay men, that the musical theater is their art form, one they uniquely understand and others dismiss. One important  stereotype is that if you are male and like musicals you must be gay because no straight man would be caught dead attending one, let alone enjoying it. Why is it then, there are so few LGBT characters  in the musical theater? We know they are there, but when asked most,   can only remember a handful, especially from the more distant past.  The goal of this research is to explore when gay characters began appearing in musical theater and how they have changed (or not) over time. In the past 60-70 years we have seen many milestones in the equal treatment of the LGBT community. We have been witness to the struggle for these rights through community struggles such as the AIDS crisis and even recently watched as the United States population that things homosexuals should be allowed to marry has passed 50%. How have LGBT characters in musical theater changed in tandem with these events over time?

Study Design

            This research executes a quantitative content analysis on how the LGBT community has been represented in Best Musical Tony Award winning musicals from 1949-2010. While the study is descriptive, it shows how musical theater has changed over this period with regards to the LGBT community in tandem with broader changes that affect this group.

Sample: 

              Two shows per decade were selected because of time constraints.   The sources include published scripts, Internet databases, Wikipedia articles, films and other information.  These were used to compile the most accurate information possible about the shows studied  A coding manual [see appendix] was developed to examine the 63 musicals; codes include such information as the name of the show, how many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered/transsexual characters are in the show, the date the show opened on Broadway as well as the year the show won the Tony Award. I then provide a close examination of approximately 12 of those shows with and without LGBT characters and code them according to specific characters within the show. This provides the data for analyzing  changes in the representation of LGBT characters   over the 61 years in this study.   Characters were recorded by name and then coded  as to type of role they play   (Major, Minor, Cameo) and then the occupation, sexual orientation, stereotypes and LGBT issues associated with the role.   A BEM Androgyny score was calculated for many of the characters.  

Population and Sample

            The population included Tony Award winning Musicals from 1949 through 2010. There are 63 winners over the 61 years selected  The data include the  number of characters based on opening night credits (ibdb.com), cross referenced with other websites (i.e. stageagent.com), other published materials as well as with licensing companies websites , where applicable (mtishows.com, etc).  The cast lists were condensed to the smallest number of characters in part through the elimination ensemble characters such as , dancer, singer, waiter, or policeman with the exception of ensemble roles that are LGBT characters. The goal is to examine if and how types of LGBT characters has changed over time.

             Shows that are not book shows (book and music are created for a specific show) were eliminated, along with revues (Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Jerome Robbins’ Broadway), where the material used is largely taken from other show or a composer’s lifetime and combined to create a new show with or without a storyline.     

Data Analysis Plan

            The data analysis aims at examining how musicals have changed over time: how many LGBT characters they have, what LGBT issues they deal with, how large the LGBT parts are (major, minor, cameo), etc in order to get a better understanding of how this genre has changed over time.

              Tonyawards.com and the Internet Broadway Database were used to collect Tony Award year, opening night dates, and characters for each show being looked at. I will then count specific characters based on the literature (libretto) and examine each using a BEM Androgyny Score. This provides an estimate of character traits in conventional terms (Feminine, Nearly Feminine, Androgynous, Nearly Masculine, Masculine). Note: The term “feminine” refers to personality traits and does not refer to “effeminate” qualities. Just because a person is effeminate in action does not necessarily mean they are feminine.

Bias

             What makes this study unique is its reliance on research methods based in Sociology. Most actors, performers, and people in the theater are taught to look at character and plays through the eyes of the characters.   Sociology is a great discipline for examining   how the characters interact and how they change with changes in the social context. This is something added to what is taught in acting classes, where we  worry mostly about how we react to the other actors playing across from us. The  more systematic sociological approach to the analysis of these musicals  allows  a broader audience to glimpse behind the scenes into the world of musical theater  representations of the LGBT community.

Assumptions

             My hypothesis that LGBT characters are more truthful or “real” in more recent shows than those of the 1940s and 1950s requires  understanding that the time period from 1940-the present has had significant political and social changes for the LGBT community. Therefore,  this research sometimes examines earlier literature through the lenses of “possibilities” as opposed to outright LGBT characteristics or “outness.”

RESULTS

The Shows

             Figure 1 illustrates that the Post World War II era included no openly LGBT characters in any of the Best Musical Tony Awarding winning shows. Beginning in 1970 one character was part of a Best Musical Tony winner and LGBT characters slowly began to be represented. There was only one Bisexual character during the AIDS crisis and there were no Trans characters at all.

  Figure 1 – Shows representing LGBT characters by Era.

             Of the 63 musicals analyzed, only 10 shows had LGBT characters. The first Best Musical Tony Award winner to have an openly gay character was Applause[1]: Duane Fox, a hairdresser. Applause even had a scene in a gay bar, another first for a musical. A Chorus Line, which looks at the lives of dancers auditioning for a job, was the next musical to have gay characters. The 80s lost steam for gay representations, even as La Cage aux Folles was mainly about a gay romance and a drag club. The 90s saw two musical winners that showed different sides of the sphere: The Kiss of the Spider Woman, based on 1976 novel by the writer Manuel Puig, and Rent, based on Puccini’s La Boheme. Beginning in 2001, LGBT characters were represented in 5 out of 10 of the Best Musical Tony Winners.

  Figure 2 – The 10 shows with LGBT characters; Tony Award Year; and number of homosexual, bisexual, and trans characters.

         Although LGBT characters have been represented in the Best Musical Tony winners, Figure 3 shows the breakdown of the LGBT characters in the 63 musicals. Shows that have homosexuals far outnumber bisexual and trans characters, which are not even represented.

  Figure 3 LGBT character breakdown by sexual orientation. 10 shows contained homosexuals and 1 show contained a bisexual character.

The Characters

        Figure 4 illustrates, of the 17 LGBT characters analyzed, gay men are the most represented orientation in the LGBT community, followed by lesbians (2) and bi men (1). There are no representations of bisexual females, or trans individuals, male or female.

  Figure 4 – The 30 characters analyzed and sorted by sexual orientation.

        The character type of the 30 characters analyzed break down into: 17 Major, 12 Minor, and 1 cameo. Table 2 illustrates that during the AIDS crisis, gay men, were no longer just minor characters in Tony Award winning musicals. They began to take major roles during this time and continue to have both major and minor roles.

  Table 1 -   Breakdown of characters by Sexual Orientation, Era, and character type.

  Table 2 –  Breakdown of the 30 characters analyzed by sexual orientation and androgyny scores.

         Table 2 shows how the characters fell on the BEM Androgyny Score and further categorized by sexual orientation. Of the 13 gay male characters analyzed 5 were androgynous with 4 being “Nearly Feminine” and Feminine on the scale and 4 “Nearly Masculine” and Masculine on the scale. For lesbians they scored in the “Nearly Masculine” category and the single Bisexual male was masculine.

  Table 3 - Breakdown of the 30 characters analyzed by Era, BEM score Categories, and Sexual Orientation.

        Table 3 illustrates how the 30 characters analyzed scored on the androgyny scaled categorized by Tony Award Era and further broken down by sexual orientation. We can see that gay men are represented in all of the eras from Stonewall through the present and they have characters that scored in all of the androgyny categories with the most being androgynous. Lesbians were only represented during the AIDS crisis, and during the last year of that era, 1996, in Rent. 

  Figure 5 LGBT Issues of the 14 LGBT characters analyzed.

        The LGBT issues analyzed were based on the issue that the character dealt with the most.

        Rent is a musical that deals with many aspects of the AIDS crisis: drug use, sex, and both heterosexual and homosexual individuals. AIDS is part of all 4 of the LGBT characters in Rent, however Angel’s storyline, ending with his death from AIDS, is critical to the musical. He is the character that is more defined by AIDS.

        Romantic love is apart of the majority of the characters storylines and the most important to 7 of the characters analyzed. Angel’s lover in Rent, Tom Collins, deals with his finding and loosing romantic love, just at Maureen and Joanne strive to keep their relationship together through all of their trials and tribulations. Molina and Valintin are cell mates in The Kiss of the Spiderwoman and although Molina is gay and searching for romantic love, Valintin, by the end is questioning his ideas about who he loves, the girl on the outside or Molina. Ernst is the youngest character, an adolescent, dealing with romantic love and is still in school. He falls for Hanschen, who is obsessed with sex; the 1 character dealing with carnal love.

        Coming out or staying in the closet is represented in 5 of the characters analyzed. Duane Fox, the hairdresser in Applause, finds himself keeping a couple different personas that he is hesitant to show everyone. Paul and Greg in A Chorus Line, talk about their struggles with their sexuality. Greg, while having sex with a woman, realizes that he is gay, and Paul is “outed” to his parents when they come to drop off his luggage at the theater he is working when they see he is a drag performer. Both of these episodes are important for who the character is. Although Albin is out and proud, La Cage aux Folles deals with his struggles to be put back in the closet in order to meet his son’s fiancés very conservative parents. Rod, a closet gay republican in Avenue Q, is the character that represents the greatest conflict with coming out and acceptance of his homosexuality. He works in the business world, loves musical theater and is not out to anyone. His storyline deals with aspects of coming out such as daydreaming about the crush he has on his roommate, creating a girl friend that is never around (she supposedly lives in Canada), and finally coming out to his friends. 

  Figure 6 – LBGT stereotypes of the 14 LGBT characters analyzed.

           The stereotypes that represent the LGBT characters are the most recognizable. A cross-dressing man was the largest stereotype represented with 4 of the characters being represented in this category. Promiscuous sex, Effeminate Males, Masculine Females, followed each with 2 characters. Characters obsessed with beauty and loving musical theater only had 1 per category and 2 characters were not represented by the stereotypes analyzed.

            Figure 7 illustrates the occupational breakdowns of the 30 characters analyzed. Of the characters analyzed 11 held jobs in the arts and entertainment industries while 7 characters had jobs in other areas or were unknown. Rounding out the last 12 characters we see that 3 are in education, 2 characters are in each of the following: business, Fashion/Hair, and students and the final 3 characters represent Entrepreneurs, Government, and the unemployed.

  Figure 7 – Analyzed Characters by occupation.

            Figure 8 further breaks down the occupations of the characters into their sexual orientations. Art and Entertainment category represent 6 of the LGBT characters (5 gay men and 1 lesbian). The Fashion/Hair category has 2 gay men and is the most stereotypical occupation for gay men out of the categories. There is a 23-year gap between the hairdresser, Duane Fox, in Applause (1970) and window dresser, Molina, in The Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993). In those years 5 of the 6 characters are performers: the 3 gay male dancers in A Chorus Line and Albin and Georges in La Cage aux Folles. The 6 remaining gay men, all who are in shows that opened in 1996 and beyond have more variety: 2 Students, 1 in Education, 1 in Business, 1 Unemployed and 1 Other. Both the second lesbian in Rent (1996) and the single Bisexual male, Valintin in The Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993), falls into “Other.” 

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