Loving Pure and Chaste from afar: Queer Coding on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (2023)

"Queer coding" is one of the most interesting ideas in media analysis, applied almost exclusively to theThe same thing piece of thought one Disney villainsone and another time. It's not a well-defined term, but I would describe it this way: Characters and relationships in art are coded as queer when they have characteristics that sound strange to at least part of the audience but are not explicitly so. It's obscene and subjective and can easily be confused with other ideas. It sometimes becomes synonymous with ideas such as queer subtext (when queer themes are found beneath the surface of an artwork that is not overtly queer) or queerbaiting (when authors poke fun at queer characters and can form relationships to serve fans). LGBT), but never move on). The queer subtext has a long history in literary studies, e.g.O Grande Gatsbyas a story of Nick Carraway's unrequited love for Jay Gatsby, while queerbaiting is a very new term that originated in fandom and is mostly used in reference to serial formats, e.g. tv shows likesupernatural(featuring the fat characters Dean and Castiel) or movie series likePitch perfect(featuring fat characters Beca and Chloe).

Queer coding is different: it doesn't have to withstand scrutiny as an argument for subtext, and it doesn't have to be self-conscious on the artist's part as an indictment of queerbaiting. It's about something more narrow and subtle: queer coding often describes stereotypical traits (e.g. flexible wrists), but it can also refer to non-descriptive traits that aren't laden with connotations of queerness in society at large. Going back to Disney villains for a second, I can sometimes see where people are coming from when reading them as queer. jafar outAladdinHe's unmarried, wears winged eyeliner, and is tongue-tied, I see. But then someone says that Hades is like a sassy gay guy and it just doesn't make sense. We are interested in something more subtle and subjective because there are many "daring" or "fast" character archetypes (black women and Jews come to mind) and characters can even be such things without fitting or relating to the archetypes. . That just might be his personality. However, even with nothing in the story to suggest it, there is something that makes Hades seem strange to some people and not to others. (He's reading me in Jewish, just for the record.) And while many queer codes can be explained as some kind of acknowledgment in the eyes of the LGBT public, this isn't the exclusive case. The characters and relationships can also seem strange to straight people.

I've been thinking a lot about queer coding since I sawMuere Mary-Tyler-Moore-Show.

Muere Mary-Tyler-Moore-Showhas a recognized place in LGBT history. "For me it was a milestone in gay television.Muere Mary-Tyler-Moore-Show. A single line of dialogue changed my entire life.said the legendary Michael Mustopeople's voiceGossip columnist, adapted from Season 3's "My Brother's Keeper". Snobbish Phyllis spends the episode angry that her visiting brother Ben hangs out with working-class Rhoda a lot, eventually confronting Rhoda at Mary's house party. She mockingly tells Phyllis that she and Ben are getting married, causing Phyllis to break down in tears. After everyone has awkwardly left Mary's apartment, Rhoda and Phyllis have the following conversation:

RHODA: Phyllis, for God's sake. I can't believe you took me seriously.

PHYLLIS: What do you mean?

RHODA: Well, Phyllis, Ben and I are not getting married. He's not my type.

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PHYLLIS: What do you mean he's not your type? He's funny, attractive, successful. He is single.

RHODA: He's gay.

PHYLLIS: He-he-he is what?

RHODA: He's gay. I thought you knew for sure, Phil, we're not getting married.

PHYLLIS: Oh, Rhoda, I'm so relieved!

Valerie Harper, the actress who played Rhoda, "he was the first person to mention the word "gay" on television" respectivelyThe lawyer. But more than just saying the word, it was groundbreaking because it showed you can be gay and have not just tolerance but enthusiastic acceptance from your family. consequences ofMuere Mary-Tyler-Moore-Showit usually ended with a short scene that served as the story's epilogue, with the credits starting to roll over the characters' faces at the end. The epilogue to "My Brother's Keeper" continues later in the night, as Mary and Rhoda clean up after the party while Ben plays the piano and Phyllis asks him to play something for her. Phyllis finding out about Ben's sexuality didn't change things one bit. He asks if she wants to hear the jingle from his dog food commercial or Mozart, she tells him to play whatever he wants, he plays a fancy song, she says she loves Mozart, he says it's his dog food. Announcement. Big laughs from the audience. Cast for credits.

It's a gay acceptance fantasy. It was fantasy then, and if it's less fantasy now, it's still too much fantasy for many. I often think about howLGBT people are overrepresented among homeless youthbecause they are often kicked out by their parents or have to run away from abuse. I think of the victims of serial killer Bruce McArthur,who, thanks to police negligence, was able to kill people in Toronto's gay community with impunity for years. I'm thinking about howThe US Transgender Homicide Rate Is Soaring, even when people complain that the promotion of LGBT rights has gone too far, that everything is a slippery slope in this or that nightmare of reactionary shit. There is value in fantasies when they give us something to look forward to, and in that sense,Muere Mary-Tyler-Moore-ShowThe gay episode of remains an important moment in LGBT history, at least in the media.

When Mary Tyler Moore died last year, the ramifications of that episode were discussed in numerous articles. There were even some cute articles from older gay men about how Moore's character Mary Richards had been somewhat iconic to them. He had left his hometown to start over in the big city, an easy subject for young gay men in their 70s or today. The first iteration of the theme song, with lyrics directed towards Mary, says, "You can make it after all", but as the series progresses and Mary becomes more confident and comfortable in her new life, it changes: "You'll make it that." ". anyway." This is evident with other female-led shows and movies that have had large gay followings over the years.the golden girls.Death becomes her.Dynasty.gray gardens.And grandma. etc.

I watched the last season ofMuere Mary-Tyler-Moore-Showwhen the tributes, opinion articles, etc. began to flow. I was surprised that no one was talking about the gayest character on the show, Murray Slaughter.

Murray is Mary's colleague and friend, a writer for the news station where she works. He is also, it should be clear, not gay. He is happily married to Marie, with whom he has two children. He is just as likely as the show's other male characters, head writer Lou Grant and host Ted Baxter, to notice the appeal of the female characters, including Mary. She never expresses her attraction to men at any point in the show. In fact, in a late episode, he confesses to Lou that he is secretly in love with Mary. Murray is, by any sane recitation of the facts of his life, heterosexual. But from the moment I started the show until the moment I ended it, I was continually amazed at how gay I was.

It's hard to describe why. Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author ofMary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And All the Great Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a ClassicShe writes that Murray was originally "based on [series co-creator James L.] Brooks' gay colleague on CBS News, who kept a pair of ice skates in his desk drawer for lunchtime visits to Rockefeller Center." , but that notion of the character was quickly abandoned, especially when an unintuitive casting choice was made for his character. Gavin MacLeod originally auditioned for the role of Lou Grant, which matched his filmography. His career up until then consisted mainly of military duties: he was part of the cast ofArmada de McHalebefore leaving in season two to appear in the war moviethe sand pebble, and appeared in several episodes ofHogans Heldenthan several different Nazi military officers.

But he saw something in Murray that would become Mary's working enemy: a heart beneath the sarcasm that set him apart in the pilot script. He asked to audition for Murray at the last second, despite a great reception at his audition for Lou, and got the part. It definitely brought warmth to her portrayal of Murray. Conceived as an enemy, this character took on the role of mother hen for Mary: whereas Lou was a stern and gruff father figure, Murray was comforting and supportive. With his position as a confidant and non-sexually threatening performer, Murray's role is inMuere Mary-Tyler-Moore-Showhe is basically the gay best friend. He just fits the archetype better with his humor. He's witty and sarcastic, like most characters, but MacLeod's speech readings are archaic and even a little eccentric. It's a horrible, sexist word, applied only to men to pejoratively compare them to women, but insofar as it's useful to describe a particularly gay idea of ​​cheek and bite, "bitty" is the term that defines Murray's humor, more likely. and those consistent traits clearly code him as weird, at least to me.

Not only does it read queer despite being straight, but it's one of the episodes that most relies on his heterosexuality, where he gets more gay. "Murray in Love" is the episode where Murray confesses to Lou at a bar that he has a crush on Mary and plans to tell her. Lou asks where this is going to lead:

LOU: I mean, what if you do? What happens next?

MURRAY: Why does something have to happen?

LOU: All right, Murray, listen. Loving someone has certain consequences.

MURRAY: No, not necessarily. Not that kind of love. You know, Lou, I still believe a man from afar can love pure and chaste. Why not? Why can not you? I think it can.

LOU: "Puro e casto de longe." Isso de uma música?

Murray: Sim.

LOU: What's the name of the song?

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MURRAY: "The Impossible Dream."

Throughout the episode, his longing for Mary takes on an odd quality of innocence and self-harm that makes me think of a long-closed gay man professing his love for a man. He never mentions sexual attraction to Mary. "All I want to do is touch her face, Lou, that's it, just touch her face, just touch her," he says, reaching out to touch Lou. Lou wipes her hand. "All I want to do is touch him, touch him," and back to Lou. Lou cleans it up again. The bartender approaches Murray. "Listen kid, not in this place." (Muere Mary-Tyler-Moore-ShowHe doesn't make a lot of gay jokes, but he does make a lot of gay bar jokes.) Referring to a musical:man of the stain, as the source of a line about how he can just live with his desires and remain the family man he's supposed to be, the scene couldn't be more lighthearted, except for being explicitly gay, of course. It's so easy to imagine the episode exactly the same, except Mary is replaced by a male colleague.

And it's not that Murray's frankness isn't attractive in the context of the show. He doesn't look fake in his love for his wife or his inconsistent looks at other women. But many closeted gays are closeted convincing. One of the most interesting things about Sal demad MenSo he sounds like the rest of the guys at work when he makes lewd comments about his co-workers. If the audience didn't know that Sal is gay, if we didn't have explicit scenes to prove it, it's easy to imagine that he wouldn't be gay in general. At best, he might not seem as jolly as Murray.

I know I'm not alone in this. Although his name did not appear in any articles written in the last year, research for this article yielded dozens of forum posts in which people listed Murray among fictional characters they considered gay. There are many characters like that who, for obvious and inexplicable reasons, read all kinds of people like that. Characters that are never implied in the narrative to be gay, but there's just something about them. Some of the most common examples are intimate friendships between men that have an indescribable erotic or romantic charge: Mark and Eduardo inla red social, Félix and Oscar inthe odd pair, and, most famously, Bert and Ernie insesame square. But there are also characters that people consider gay for, I don't know, reasons. ripley outForeigner. Luke Skywalker. Velma is worn outScooby Doo. Sometimes you can point to something even if it's shallow or formulaic, but most of the time it's just an unshakable feeling that the character is gay.

I can't say for sure why Murray seems gay to me. Many of the character traits I've listed are also present in other characters who don't read queer in the same way: friend ofDie Dick-Van-Dyke-Showwith his dark exterior hiding a warm heart and a dry, caustic wit. (His comments about Mel's conceit almost perfectly mirror Murray's comments about Ted's vanity.) It's not just about Gavin MacLeod, either:your character insidethe love boatmostly reads like an idiot. And, of course, many other people, including gay people, sawMuere Mary-Tyler-Moore-Showover the years without reading him as a closeted gay. And still.

For this reason, I think queer coding is a useful idea and I hope that in the future it will be more scrutinized by pop critics rather than - and I can't stress this enough -fast exclusively To be necessary to discuss Disney villains. It's been incredibly frustrating over the last few years as I've looked to past critical writing to help me unpack and sift through my reading of Murray to discover it's almost entirely about villains. I have no problem talking about the bad guys of queer coding, of course, but queer coding has broader facets than just teaching boys to be wary of stereotypical queer traits like effeminacy in men or gender ambiguity in anyone. There may not be many queer coded heroes to write about for the same reason there are so many queer coded villains, but there is a whole spectrum of characters between heroes and villains who deserve just as much attention, if not more. From the head, in addition to those already listed: Tonks ofharry potter; tormentedBreaking Bad; Konrad forumsCommon people; Chris Traeger foraparks and recreation.

The implications of queer-coded villains seem pretty clear, but I have no idea what people think of queer-coded characters who don't fit neatly into a hero/villain binary, who aren't even main characters in many cases. I frankly admit that I lack the analytical tools to further my reading of Murray as gay and the implications, if any, this might have. I stand on the shoulders of giants, &c. and I don't know where to start exploring the weird coding of non-villain characters when everyone else is just writing about villains.

And I would really like to, because Murray Slaughter is super gay and I want to know what the problem is.