Got my hands on the very first issue of National Review --dated November 19, 1955 and costing 20 cents, thank you very much. The "Arts & Manners" column is penned by screenwriter and LAT columnist Morrie Ryskind, who writes of a trip home to New York to see some plays. His big rule: "the theater must be Fun." He offers three rules for plays to scratch off your list, to be sure you see something fun. No opening nights. No plays whose chief notoriety is offensive language. And here's what bowled me over, coming from 1955:
Plays about the plight of homosexuals. This isn't just prudishness on my part; but I think it's been overdone. Almost every other novel and every other play deals in some measure with this subject, and I'm afraid when you've seen one homosexual, you've seen them all. How about paying attention to the minorities?
Normal people have problems, too.
I thought you couldn't even say "homosexual" in polite society in 1955. Who or what besides Tennessee Williams did he have in mind?
UPDATE: ninme gets me. Commenting on my post she writes:
If you watch movies or read any books from the thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties, it’s not that surprising. But listening to the Establishment talk nowadays you’d think your perfectly well-adjusted gay friend would have been repressed into BDD and self harm if not suicidal depression just ten years ago.
My point exactly.
