A touch of Mink

In the chilly postwar climate of conformity and concealment captured to perfection in the movie Carol, same-sex desires constricted by conflict often went unexpressed.

If compliance to the heterosexual norm was compulsory, it was all a game of charades.

A stunning portrait of sexual angst, repression and ultimately confidence, the chemistry in Carol is palpable.

The story of a strong attraction between Carol, an older moneyed suburban housewife and a younger shop girl Therese is filled with slow burning ardor, erupting into deep passion. But because it was a time when desire walked hand in hand with discretion and denial, curiosities and carnal desires were best consummated in the shadows of what was referred to as twilight love.

By necessity, clandestine encounters were conducted with great caution, covert meetings arranged with the honed skills of a cold war secret agent. Gaydar had to be finely tuned or face the consequences.

But unlike other cautionary tales of the time, this one had a surprising happy ending.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

1952 romance novel by Patricia Highsmith first published under the pseudonym “Claire Morgan.” The movie Carol starring Cate Blanchett is adapted from the book.

When Patricia Highbrow’s book Price of Salt ( from which the movie is adapted ) was published in 1952 it was revolutionary.

Unlike most cautionary tales of its day, it’s portrayal of female desire was decidedly different from lesbian pulp fiction of the time because it was a love story between two women neither of which end up crazy or dead.

In most lesbian pulp fiction of the time, the casualty of non conformity could be catastrophic.

vintage Lesbian Fiction

There was always a price to pay for not toeing the line.

As Highsmith herself wrote about other lesbian pulp fiction : “Homosexual male and female in American novels had to pay for their deviation by cutting their throat, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or switching to heterosexuality.”

“There’s was a passion no man could share. The novel that dares to tell the truth about a perverse love.” 1954 Lesbian pulp fiction thrived at the time but the failure to conform led to dire consequences

“Dr. Nora Caine was shaken by the fervor and passion of the other girls kiss.” Vintage Lesbian Fiction

Ordinary People

(L) Vintage Lesbian Pulp Fiction (R) Little Golden Book “The Happy Family”

Never was the insistence that everyone fit into heterosexual model more powerful than in mid-century America, The media was obsessed with defining and exaggerating codes of gender.

Images of the nuclear family and happy heterosexuals as the norm exploded in advertising books and magazines scattering its potent assumptions of family and marriage and who we should love deep into our collective psyches.

In a country long priding itself on endless choices of toothpaste and shampoo there was really only one choice who you could love.

You stuck with the brand you knew.

Heterosexuality was the right brand. Time tested. AMA approved.

Failure to conform to these confining roles had devastating consequences.

Deviant Disordered

Abnormals Anonymous by Stella Gray

The American dream of reinventing yourself took on a more disturbing quality when many homosexuals reinvented themselves into happy heterosexuals in order to fit in.

When Carol and Therese’s relationship is revealed, Carol is quickly chastened and sent to a psychiatrist who chalks up her homosexual adventures to a temporary lapse in sanity, the conventional wisdom of the time.

Buyers Remorse

Pray for the sexual deviants – You needed to repent and change. Today there are still those who “pray” that homosexuals can be saved at “Christian Conversion Therapy Camps”

Homosexuality was part of the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual listed under “Sexual Deviation.”

Gay and lesbians were thought to be inherently heterosexual suffering from a psychic disorder on par with borderline personality or schizophrenia.

Therefore there was a cure. A few sessions on the couch with a Viennese trained psychiatrist and their disordered thinking would be set straight.

Literally.

Despite risking losing her custody battle with her estranged husband, Carol in a statement of affirmation decides to quit therapy refusing to capitulate.

It’s easy to forget how terrifying it once was and still is for many people in parts of the world to live openly as LGBT . As long as the connection between two people are hampered by censure and condemnation we are still living in a 1950’s shadow of Carol.

Tomorrow :  I Am Curious

Vintage ad Schlitz Beer I am Curious 1949

During the same time period as Carol takes place, Madison Avenue perfectly captured that culture of concealment and curiosity with a series of ambiguous, winking ads called “I am Curious.”

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.