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Bringing Up Baby
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====Unscripted ad-lib by Grant==== It has been debated whether ''Bringing Up Baby'' is the first fictional work (apart from [[pornography]]) to use the word ''[[gay]]'' in a [[homosexual]] context.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/censored/film.html |title=Censored Films and Television at University of Virginia online |publisher=University of Virginia Library |access-date=March 9, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003143835/http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/censored/film.html |archive-date=October 3, 2011 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref>{{sfn|Boswell|2009|p=43}} In one scene, Cary Grant's character is wearing a woman's [[Marabou (fashion)|marabou]]-trimmed [[négligée]]; when asked why, he replies exasperatedly "Because I just went gay all of a sudden!" (leaping into the air at the word ''gay''). As the term ''gay'' was not widely familiar to the general public until the [[Stonewall riots]] in 1969,{{sfn|Russo|1987|p=47}} it is questioned whether the word is used by Grant in its original sense (meaning "happy")<ref name="Gay">{{cite web |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gay |last=Harper |first=Douglas |author-link=Douglas Harper |title=Gay |work=Online Etymology dictionary |date=2001–2013 }}</ref> or is an intentional, joking reference to homosexuality.<ref name="Gay"/> The line in the film was an [[Ad libitum|ad-lib]] by Grant, and was not in the script.{{sfn|Mast|1988|p=8}} According to [[Vito Russo]] in ''[[The Celluloid Closet (book)|The Celluloid Closet]]'' (1981, revised 1987), the script originally had Grant's character say "I...I suppose you think it's odd, my wearing this. I realize it looks odd...I don't usually...I mean, I don't own one of these". Russo suggests that this indicates that people in [[Hollywood (film industry)|Hollywood]] (at least in Grant's circles) were familiar with the slang connotations of the word; however, there is no record that Grant or anyone involved with the film ever discussed the matter publicly.{{sfn|Russo|1987|p=47}} The 1933 film ''[[My Weakness (film)|My Weakness]]'' had previously used the word "gay" as an overt descriptor of homosexuality; one of two men pining away for the same woman suddenly suggests a solution to their mutual problem: "Let's be gay!" However, the [[Studio Relations Committee]] censors decreed that the line was too risqué and had to be muffled.<ref>Vieira, Mark A., Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood, Abrams, 1999, pg. 133</ref> The film ''[[This Side of Heaven]]'' (1934) included a scene in which a fussy, gossipy interior decorator tries to sell a floral fabric pattern to a customer, who knowingly replies, "It strikes me as a bit too gay."<ref>Vieira, Mark A., Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood, Abrams, 1999, pg. 168</ref>
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