by Donna Nowak

Let me start with a disclaimer.  All opinions expressed here are mine.  As the Red Queen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass says, “I don’t know what you mean by your way.  All ways about here belong to me!”  So the theories expressed here are mine and they may be subject to change as the mood and life takes me and maybe yours differ.  So be it.  That’s the beauty of creating.  As a writer, I’ve always felt like actor, director, set designer, costume designer – in control of a whole world!  If only we could air-brush and manipulate real life so beautifully!  But even when constructing a fictional reality, characters start going in their own seemingly independent directions (all Red Queens of the mind) or words take on a momentum beyond control, due to racing thoughts, like running down a hill in San Francisco, steep and on an incline.  I don’t know if they really mean anything or capture my intent.  Writing is a frustrating business even if one knows the ins and outs of it.   I may say one thing, but the exact opposite may be true and I might mean it as well.  So with this nonfiction piece, perhaps I will speak a truth (my truth) or perhaps I won’t, but it’s my attempt to conceptualize what is at heart abstract and a personal perspective – the gay connection to Joan as I see it.

If I must admit it, most of the Joan Crawford fans I’ve encountered predominately are gay, just as, by and large, the gay male population is what keeps the lights of these great classic films burning bright (for which we can all be grateful). 

Why is it that so many gay people respond to Joan Crawford especially? 

My own theory is that it’s because Joan was an underdog and a powerful, beautiful, creative force – an underdog who embraced good taste, glamour, fantasy – and who continually addressed and defied her oppressors and the whole parochial, class-conscious, patriarchal, snobby system that sought to marginalize and deprive her.  Through all her trials she kept her head held high.  In her films, as in her life, she demanded to be counted in – as a woman, as an outsider, and once she was on the inside, no one let her forget the precariousness of her position.  Her struggle is every woman’s struggle, every marginalized person’s struggle, but especially resonant to gays. She was ridiculed for her excesses and yet the emotion is raw and real and she often underplayed.  Beneath the toughness was the frightened little girl and one sees it often in her eyes.  Gays recognize and love that vulnerability.  Beneath the flamboyance was shyness.  As the Melancholy Eskimo (who is not gay, however) put it, "she is a tigress and a lost lamb.  She is a predator, only because she is so irresistible as a prey."  Her promiscuity was another mirror of gay male sexuality, in general.  Most gays can appreciate why Joan would hide her insecurities and grim past behind an armor of Hollywood perfection and love that she did it for her public, to whom she was eternally grateful.  It didn't really protect her, did it?  One of her directors (and lovers) Vincent Sherman said her personal life was terrible and that it took hours to bring her down from crying scenes.  Yet in her own book, she brims with girlish enthusiasm and Carl Johnes who knew her in her later years, while recognizing her loneliness, called her "my youngest friend."

Although we’re all outsiders, gay people are marginalized and have often found identification through idealist or outrageous films and alternate realities (as perhaps many  non-gays do) even when, yes, still living very much real lives in the real world.  But biologically men and women are designed to mate together – at least for procreation.  So it makes gays always “deviants” from the blueprint as Joan was never (and still is never) quite accepted even when at the pinnacle of stardom.  It makes homosexuality eternally controversial, as Joan was.  I believe the stories of Joan going to Hollywood parties and leaving in tears when she no longer felt she belonged in later years, when she was made to feel ridiculous for “playing the star.”  Her bad behavior seemed to usually stem from fear, although she was most often a consummate professional on the set.  Hers was a search for love and belonging and she never quite found it.  But also there was the grand lady and bitchy strong side of Joan  – like the gay community's defiant bitchiness and good taste.  

Have I said anything new?  Perhaps not.  I’m not sure I even expressed what it is I see.  Joan was a glamorous feminist icon and very human, a diva and survivor who never forgot her fans, who exuded anguish and hope onscreen, the complex contradictions of her own life.  This humanity, this flawed being beneath a stunning glamour and power and largeness, makes her belong and resonate with us as she's always wanted to belong.