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Feb. 13th, 2007 11:13 amI'm looking at reviews for "Captain Jack Harkness."
And it's not just the doomed romance that makes me want to cry.
Can I just say, once and for all, that the armed forces were just a wee bit more accepting then? Well, not accepting, but they would probably overlook things if the people were competnet.
Time for a quick history lesson!
Okay, it's the 1940s. I would say "Great Britain" but my studies have only taken me to the turn of the century there, and I can't find any books on gay history pre-Stonewall except for a really basic primer on the US side of things that covers a decade in four pages. Well, there was crappy book that went up to the 1920's in Germany, but it was worse than the primer.
So, US history it is, but the whole "The Germans/Japanese want to take over the world and it is looking like that they just might succeed." was universal. Thus, lots of things that could not be thought of - women working in factories, black men being treated as almost equal as white men - where thought of as necessary in the war effort.
Except for those of Japanese ancestry. It really, really sucked.
I mean, fuck, part of the reason why the civil rights movement kicked off was that black people got a taste of what equality felt like. It's how the women's movement got a foothold outside of the home.
I think part of the reason the '60s spiraled out of control was that in the '50s, people tried to go back to the ways things where, and it blew up in their faces.
Do I really need to tell the story of Sg. Johnnie Phelps? Maybe I will anyway.
In gay veterans' circles, WAC Sergeant Johnnie Phelps became legendary for a conversation she had with Eisenhower when she served on the general's staff during the postwar occupation of Europe. Phelps admired Eisenhower as a soldier's soldier who genuinely cared for his troops and would never order them to do something he would not do himself.
Out of respect for Eisenhower, Phelps would never have lied to him, which was why she knew how to answer the day he called her into his office and said he had heard reports that there were lesbians in the WAC battalion. He wanted a list of their names, he said, so he could get rid of them. That, Phelps suspected, would be a tall order, since she estimated 95 percent of the WAC battalion of nine hundred women at that headquarters was lesbian.
"Yes, sir," Phelps said to the general, according to her later account. She would make the list, if that was the order. Then she reminded Eisenhower that the WAC battalion at his headquarters was one of the most decorated in the Army. It performed superbly, had the fewest unauthorized absences, the least number of venereal-disease cases, and the most infrequent number of pregnancies of any WAC group anywhere.
Getting rid of the lesbians would mean losing competent file clerks, typists, and a large share of the headquarters' key personnel. "I'll make your list," Phelps concluded in her crackling North Carolina accent, "but you've got to know that when you get the list back, my name's going to be first."
Eisenhower told her to forget the order.
And think, it was after the fighting stopped. Now, think of the situation of the Blitz - was the air force really going to ground one of their better pilots? Even if he was gay, they had to weight that against all the people who would die if he didn't keep flying.
To sum up: Please, PLEASE, for the the love of all things good and holy, stop with the "this is not realistic" speil. As it is realistic!
And it's not just the doomed romance that makes me want to cry.
Can I just say, once and for all, that the armed forces were just a wee bit more accepting then? Well, not accepting, but they would probably overlook things if the people were competnet.
Time for a quick history lesson!
Okay, it's the 1940s. I would say "Great Britain" but my studies have only taken me to the turn of the century there, and I can't find any books on gay history pre-Stonewall except for a really basic primer on the US side of things that covers a decade in four pages. Well, there was crappy book that went up to the 1920's in Germany, but it was worse than the primer.
So, US history it is, but the whole "The Germans/Japanese want to take over the world and it is looking like that they just might succeed." was universal. Thus, lots of things that could not be thought of - women working in factories, black men being treated as almost equal as white men - where thought of as necessary in the war effort.
Except for those of Japanese ancestry. It really, really sucked.
I mean, fuck, part of the reason why the civil rights movement kicked off was that black people got a taste of what equality felt like. It's how the women's movement got a foothold outside of the home.
I think part of the reason the '60s spiraled out of control was that in the '50s, people tried to go back to the ways things where, and it blew up in their faces.
Do I really need to tell the story of Sg. Johnnie Phelps? Maybe I will anyway.
In gay veterans' circles, WAC Sergeant Johnnie Phelps became legendary for a conversation she had with Eisenhower when she served on the general's staff during the postwar occupation of Europe. Phelps admired Eisenhower as a soldier's soldier who genuinely cared for his troops and would never order them to do something he would not do himself.
Out of respect for Eisenhower, Phelps would never have lied to him, which was why she knew how to answer the day he called her into his office and said he had heard reports that there were lesbians in the WAC battalion. He wanted a list of their names, he said, so he could get rid of them. That, Phelps suspected, would be a tall order, since she estimated 95 percent of the WAC battalion of nine hundred women at that headquarters was lesbian.
"Yes, sir," Phelps said to the general, according to her later account. She would make the list, if that was the order. Then she reminded Eisenhower that the WAC battalion at his headquarters was one of the most decorated in the Army. It performed superbly, had the fewest unauthorized absences, the least number of venereal-disease cases, and the most infrequent number of pregnancies of any WAC group anywhere.
Getting rid of the lesbians would mean losing competent file clerks, typists, and a large share of the headquarters' key personnel. "I'll make your list," Phelps concluded in her crackling North Carolina accent, "but you've got to know that when you get the list back, my name's going to be first."
Eisenhower told her to forget the order.
And think, it was after the fighting stopped. Now, think of the situation of the Blitz - was the air force really going to ground one of their better pilots? Even if he was gay, they had to weight that against all the people who would die if he didn't keep flying.
To sum up: Please, PLEASE, for the the love of all things good and holy, stop with the "this is not realistic" speil. As it is realistic!
