Sunday 17 February 2008

70: Gays in the Military - J.B. Handelsman


J.B. Handelsman in "The New Yorker", 30 November 1992

An early shot across the bows, presaging the the great hoo-haa of 1993. Notethe domestic subirban setting, so that homosexuals themsleves are absent from the cartooon. It therefore becomes just an after-dinner musing, with a tone of conciliation. If the same argument were made by a homosexual in-shot, then it would probably have a different tone of strident special-pleading which would not be overly welcome in the always genial pages of the "New Yorker"

Actually, I have a strong suspicion that this is the first explicitly gay-themed cartoon to run in "the New Yorker", while cartoons with actual homosexuals didn't begin to appear until 1993.

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