Doctor Strange, Homophobe?
I’ve been a fan of Doctor Strange for nearly 30 years, since I measured my age in single digits. I went on a mad frenzy looking for just about every book he ever appeared in (and I’ve probably got most of them from his first appearance in 1963 to about 1985 or so.) As someone just entering my teens and just coming to realize what my sexuality meant. Unfortunately, this was during Reagan’s first term, so even in the more liberal New York, being an out gay teenager wasn’t a very safe thing to be. Hardly the trailblazer, I was pretty quiet about everything and remained quite in the dark about far too much.
Still, even in this rather ignorant state, when I discovered the panel at the left in Doctor Strange #175 (November 1968) at the tender age of thirteen I was quite bothered. Heck, my hero was saying, by proxy, that I was beneath contempt. I even identified with the whole “Prince Charming” comment. After all, Frank Brunner’s later “Daddy Doctor Strange” in the early seventies had all the makings of a gay porn star and was tasty indeed. And to top it all off, after the good Doc turns away, his silver-haired beard gets all pee-ohd at the second rate Paul Lynde and goes on to perform some nasty hex on him and his truck. This must be comicdom’s first mystical gay bashing. I wonder what Terry Berg would say to that?
Now, there were plenty of other things wrong with this issue, mostly having to do with Roy Thomas writing the worlds most incredibly crappy dialog in the history of the universe for this story arc. But nothing bothered me as much as this single panel. Now, a quarter of a century after I first read it, I’m still dwelling on it! Homosexual content was forbidden by the Comics Code Authority, and no one would distribute your work without that little stamp, but monthly gay bashing certainly wasn’t required for an issue to pass.
Now, the good news is this is Doc’s only venture into the world of homophobia and decades later, when an old acquaintance asked Stephen if he was gay (he had grown a goatee as was the fashion of the mid nineties and with that outfit, how could you not) he merely laughed. Was Roy Thomas pushing a right wing agenda with his shitty writing? We’ll probably never know. Doc was never popular enough to get a pop culture response. But if he was, he chose an odd venue for it. After all, there’s probably no character as anti-christian as Doctor Strange.
I have officially vented!
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
When I read the panel, I just assumed the guy in the pickup truck was the homophobe. Much in the same way as, when I had long hair, some good ol’ boy might utter “Well hello, princess!” in a hateful manner.
You’ve read the rest of the issue and so have a better sense of context, but to me it looks like the Doc is offended by the guy’s ignorance. I always thought Roy Thomas was something of a hippy, so he would have probably felt the same stings by the same types of good ol’ boys himself.
What are your thoughts?
I love Roy Thomas’ writing (although I do think he’s better at meta-narrative than dialog) and maybe this is just wishful thinking, but I have to agree with Christian’s take on this… and I do know, for certain, that Thomas was no right-winger (not sure about now–hopefully he hasn’t lost his mind…)
the key textual point is that the guy in the truck is using words that end in in’… in the Thomas world, that person is always either Ben Grimm OR a thuggish dolt… so we’re meant to assume that this person is disturbed by Doc’s non-normative attire–and the panel is asking us to side against the redneck’s construction of gender.
Dave
First; in a minor nitpick, I should mention that the panel in question is in #174 - (”The Power & the Pendulum”), not #175 (”Unto us.. the Sons of Satannish”).
Minor error.
Anyway, in this era of Doc’s history, Thomas seems to want to dismiss ANY out-of-the-norm comments by ANY bystanders in equal measure.
Just a page earlier, Doc and Clea are walking along (what Doc hopes is an abandoned street), and some hippy-types make harmless comments on the sorcerous pair’s clothing, and Doc’s “love-beads” - (the Eye of Agamotto) - (since Doc didn’t bother to cast any kind of illusion spell about himself or Clea).
He terms their comments as “banal clamor” that would “…drive the Dread Dormammu himself to the abyss of distraction.”
Right after that comes this panel that you point out.
It seems to me that Doc isn’t a homophobe, so much as trying to instruct Clea as to what type of speech (or even what kinds of word USAGE) is “worth” listening to.
Since this is her first time on Earth, he may just be trying to “educate” her in what to watch out for, and what to ignore.
Saying that those comments were beneath their notice might just be a way of saying “they’re not worth getting bothered about”.
Especially since she has little mystic abilities on our plane.
This is emphasized later when Clea uses what little of her mystic abilities that she has to zap the trucker, and a crown chases her down as a witch.
Anyway, I take the Trucker’s comment as going either way;
- it COULD be a “cat-call” from one gay male towards Doc (who he hopes is also gay)
or
- it COULD be a “gay-bashing” comment from a “Teamster” to a guy dressed in flamboyant attire.
I can tell you firsthand, that calls like that are readily tossed at anyone who might dress out of the norm of the sneaker and baseball hat set.
As an artist (and I even lived on Bleeker Street in the Village - right across the street from Doc’s supposed address) and as someone who was “metrosexual” 20 years before there WAS such a thing, that comments FROM gay guys as well as guys who just wanted to LABEL ME (falsely) as being gay, were an every day occurrence.
Actually, in the NEXT issue (# 175), there are a few comments from a cabbie that lead down a suspicious “intonation”.
A lot of “if you get my meanin’”, and “if ya know what I mean”, nudge,nudge,wink,wink comments about Doc and Clea.
It isn’t outright Gay-calling.
The cabbie seems to leave it vague.
Either he THOUGHT that Doc was gay (and wasn’t going to pick him up in the cab since they were dressed like hippies), but thought that he and the girlie “wuz different - if you know what I mean”, so he did pick up the fare.
His comments are all over the place and you can read into them what you will.
Is all this intentional misdirection, or “holding a mirror” up to the reader by Thomas?
I don’t know.
I haven’t studied his writing style that deeply to know for sure.
A few pages prior to that, Clea states that she finds all other men EXCEPT for DOC to be of the same stamp. Alike in speech and manners of dress. They then pass a guy dressed in mod/hippy attire, and Doc comments that not ALL men are the same, despite Clea’s assumptions that Doc ALONE is unique.
Doc makes no comment on the hippy clothing, so we don’t get a sense that he either approves or disdains it.
It just seems to be there to help him “educate” Clea in the ways of her new world.
~P~
PTOR
erg… typo
the CROWD chases her down as a witch.
Not crown.
sorry.