Short Stuff: Friends of Dorothy

t Q community. That's right. Um. And it's slang, like I said, it doesn't. It doesn't have any direct meaning,

or does it. We're going to find out, um. But the whole reason that you would have slang kind of a coded phrase for being gay is just part of the shameful past of how gay people were treated in in Europe and America up until very recently, of course, and so there was code that they would use amongst themselves so they wouldn't uh you know, all men are bad things could happen if if word was out about them,

so shamefully they did need code. But like you said in this article that you put together Um, let's move on to the more fun stuff, which is where this came from? Right, Who is Dorothy? Who is Dorothy? That's the great question, And actually it's never really been answered, to tell you the truth. Um. Supposedly the whole uh that that that phrase friend of Dorothy to mean a gay person has been around since the World War two era,

says the Pride website. Okay, it's a legit source. But then we head on over to the Wizard of Oz fan blog friends of Dorothy and they say it doesn't appear in any gay slang books or academic reviews of gay slang in the twentieth century, which is really weird because it definitely did exist. It wasn't you know, it wasn't just me and people I knew using that, like, it was widespread. And exactly how old it is really kind of matters, doesn't it. Well, Yeah, because we're gonna

talk about some Dorothy candidates. Uh, I feel like we should probably talk about these first three and then take our break and get to the man, the big whammy. You know what, you know, exactly what you're doing. I appreciate that the first Dorothy we're going to talk about and there's some legitimacy here for sure, because it was a socialite named Dorothy King in twentieth century London, early

twenties century London. Uh. And Dorothy King, very early on in London was a friend of the gay community, especially gay men. She would have these big parties. Uh. And apparently they would use friend of Dorothy or friend of Mrs King uh to refer to themselves as slang to get them in these parties or just to talk about them. Yeah.

The fact that there's also a friend of Mrs King meaning the same thing a gay man in the early twentieth century, mid twenties century, that really supports the possibility that she was the original Dorothy I agree. Okay, the next one is Dorothy Parker. She's also a great contender. She's coming out of not just New York, but also Los Angeles and the ninet thirties and then later on

in the sixties. Those are the two times that she really had a huge impact and was kind of almost an icon in the gay community because, like Dorothy King, she surrounded herselves with gay people at a time when gay people were very much persecuted. Um. And she was also a huge ardent supporter of the civil rights movement

as well. Yeah, I did not know about her sixties. Comeback, Um, I know all about the thirties Dorothy Parker was kind of, uh, kind of into researching that for a little while quite a few years ago, but did not know about the sixties. L A version doesn't surprise me. Pretty cool because I can see her then, uh, sitting around a mid century modern pool doing the same thing she was rocking in the thirties in New York. Yes, but she married a man who was openly bisexual. He referred to himself as

quote queer, as a billy goat, so she was. She was very much in the running as a possible Dorothy yes. Um. And then lastly, the third of the first three Dorothy's was a woman named Dorothy Dean. She was an African American socialite in New York, and she was very much in the orbit of the gay community, especially through Andy

Warhol in his gang. And was not like, um, you know, she right exactly sounding She's kind of like hung out with Warhol every once a while, like she was part of Warhol's inner circles, would appear in as films, like she was a bit of amused for him and then also as if her cool cred in the art community and gay community couldn't get any better. She was a door I guess a doorman is what they would have

called her in the um un liberated early sixties. Yeah, if you wanted to be cool back then, you could work the door at one of two places, either CBGB or Max's Kansas City. And she worked the door at Maxus Kansas City, which was a music club and and barn hang out of the coolest of the cool in the sixties and seventies. Yes, so she knew everybody, and she also had a lot of gay friends too, So it's entirely possible that she was the Dorothy that we

spoke of. She couldn't have been the Dorothy if this This phrase has been around since World War Two. But the one of the things that I figured out about this, chuck is that, um, it could have been any of these Dorothys. All these Dorothys could have could you could You could use that phrase and it would still hold water um at different times depending on the context too. So it's not like any of these are wrong necessarily. They all went, I agree, But there is one that's

actually the winner. That's right, And we'll introduce this winner, and I'll bet you know who it is, right if to this and stop? Okay, Chuck, it's time for the big reveal. Who is Dorothy? For reels somewhere over the rainbow, keep going, I'm not familiar. I don't know the rest of the words. Something cries, there's way up, high way up. Hi, So who cries? Didn't want to cry? No, I think

you've misheard it. I think you're right. Uh, we're talking about Dorothy Gail, the character in L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz book series. Um. And there's a few big time reasons for this, one really big time reason. But the movie Wizard of Oz is special in the l g tb Q community because, Um, Dorothy kind of comes out in her own way and undergoes this transformation from a very um, sort of boring, black and white world to a brilliant, colorful, rainbow filled world. Yeah, and that's

just if you're reading the book. She also in the book, um be friends and in Companies, three men, none of whom are traditionally masculine or manly. And there's even a part in the book well not the Wizard of Oz. But one of the other books Um from the Oz series, where um another character tells her Dorothy, you have some queer friends, and she says the queerness doesn't matter so long as they're friends. I don't know about that part,

because that's not what queer meant. No. But but the point is this is whether it meant no, They certainly didn't mean queer as in gay. They just meant strange, unusual. And that's I think we're queer applied to gay people, especially in the mid mid twentieth century. That's where it came from. It men, you're you're weird, you're off, or whatever, and Dorothy saying it doesn't matter how they're off. It doesn't even matter that they're off. It just matters that

they're friends. And I think if you felt alienated, especially if you fell alienated because you were gay, uh, that something like that would have resonated with you. And I think that's that's why a lot of gay people it's very it's easy to stereotype at this point because there's probably a lot of gay people who can't stand Wizard of Oz, but there's a lot of gay people who

do love with Wizard of Oz. That's right. And one of the big reasons why is because the star of Wizard of Oz it was none other than Judy Garland, who is top three gay icon. Maybe. I mean a lot of arguments for number one, but I would say definitely top three. Who are the other two? Oh? Well, you know Lon Cheney Jr. I would Well, I don't know that that would be tough because you could throw Share in there. You could throw Barber Strice in in there, Madonna,

who Liberaci, Oh, Libarraci of course. Um so maybe it might be one of those things where the top three is like a list of ten people. Yeah, I think because we just had so much trouble even narrowing it down to top three, she might be the number one then maybe, But it's not for us to say anyway. You know, no, it's not. You're right, but Judy Garland. Garland is certainly a gay icon. Uh. There have been, you know, everything from her her funeral, which was attended

by more people than Rudolph Valentino, Uh, to her. I mean Rufus Wainwright did an entire tour where Rufus sings Judy Garland. Yeah, yeah, and her her funeral that day of her funeral was this that later that night was the Stonewall Riot, and a lot of people were like, well, Judy Garland's death kicked off the Stonewall riots with kick,

which kicked off the air of civil rights for gay people. Um, and that's apparently been refuted by some people, but other people said, no, that that definitely had something to do with that. It was a factor, man. I mean, if you're at a boiling point and then one of your icons and spiritual leaders dies, that'll send you And if you're at a bar drinking and you're sad about that, that could definitely be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Yeah.

And if you're sad about it and everyone with you at that bar is sad about the exact same thing, that sends a camaraderie and collect suness. Yeah, I could definitely translate into that. And there was also um like it's really kind of difficult to to under state like the impact in the the what an icon she was? But I saw did I say understate? Yeah? I didn't didn't. It's difficult to overstate it because, um, but I saw

it like really summarized well by this one quote. Some some writer was describing a bio of her that was first put on as a stage play but was later produced into Judy starring Renee's elwigger Um. The stage play was called End of the Rainbow, but the this writer said that it was explaining the End of the Rainbow was like a gay version of the Passion of the Christ. Very he clearly kind of gets across, like what an

icon she is and was in the in the gay community. Yeah, I'm gonna end up with my final verdict being Dorothy could be a combination of all these Dorothy's and could have been any one of them, two different people at different times. So the last thing about this chuck is the slang has actually gone the way of the dinosaur, which is good because that suggests that gay people don't feel the need to encode their gayness nearly as much anymore, if at all, in a lot of places, which is wonderful.

But before that happened, Right before that happened, in the late eighties, there was a an actual witch hunt to root out gay people well in the military that was spearheaded by Navy Intelligence Services and Army intelligence and it was terrible and shameful and They wasted hundreds of millions of dollars doing this because an admiral vice admiral named Joseph S. Donald flipped out at the idea that they were gay men in the military apparently he'd never noticed,

and wasted all this money doing this. But the one good thing that came out of this was this amazing story that I think you should tell everybody. Well, they intelligence and then I say that with quotes around it got ahold of the friends of Dorothy um usage and they thought there was a real Dorothy that was providing uh quarter for gay men in the military, and what uh where it was. This was sympathetic to their cause

and aiding and abetting them. And so they spent a lot of money of your tax dollars trying to chase down who Dorothy was because these friends of hers were serving in the middlets Are and they wanted to get her to inform on them. They didn't never find her, though, Huh, that seems like a made up story. It's so great, it does. I saw it in multiple sources though, so I think it's actually real, including the l A Times. Uh. And that's it, everybody. That's it for friends of Dorothy.

Now you can say hey, I'm a friend of a friend of Dorothy, and people say, what does that mean. You say, let me tell you. That's right okay, which of course means short stuff. Is that stuff you should know? Is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.