Armed Forces: Masculinity and Sexuality in the American War Film

Chapter 6: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

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The last three chapters focus exclusively on war films released since 1966, for two reasons. The first pertains to cinematic history: in 1966 the methods by which the Production Code Administration (PCA) regulated the content of American film ended, to be replaced by a new system administered by the Motion Picture Association of America. While the PCA had made a number of accommodations in the 1950s and 1960s that involved relaxing some of its strictures,such as the use of swear words (“damn” and “hell” gradually appear more prominently), and more open treatment of illicit heterosexual behavior (premarital sex, revealing costumes), any explicit treatment of homosexuality, classified as a perversion, was still off limits. Even so, some key films appeared that approached the issue guardedly: Rebel without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955), Tea and Sympathy (Vincente Minnelli, 1956), and Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph Mankiewicz,1959).1 The second reason, which gives this chapter its title, is more obvious: in 1993 President Bill Clinton initiated a policy of toleration for gays in the military that would be known as“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” This policy was emended in 2000, adding“Don’t pursue, don’t harass,”as a result of the murder of a soldier,Barry Winchell (discussed below).With the new ratings system , gays in the military could be presented on screen. It would take almost thirty years for U.S.policy to acknowledge their presence.The films made after the changes in both policies provide an important perspective on masculinity and sexuality. Allan Bérubé’s Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women duringWorldWar Two draws on a number of personal memoirs in an extensive account of how gay men and lesbians experienced the war and their sexuality, whether in casual or in committed relationships.2 He suggests that the bonds formed among straight men actually provided a kind of enabling model for gay soldiers: Veterans of all kinds describe the love they felt for each other with a passion, romance, and sentimentality that often rivaled gay men’s expressions of their “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” c h a p t e r s i x love for other men and made gay affections seem less out of place. “You’re dealing with excesses of love and hate,”explained Marine Corps veteran William Manchester, who was not gay, “and among men who fight together there is an intense love. You are closer to those men than to anyone except your immediate family when you were young.”3 Individualized accounts and observations by soldiers regarding what they experienced or observed in the armed forces during World War II are also important sources of information about aspects of homosexuality in the military. Ted Allenby, one of Bérubé’s sources, provides a fuller account of his experiences as a gay marine in Studs Terkle’s The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two.4 Fred Rochlin’s Old Man in a Baseball Cap: A Memoir of World War II offers extended treatment of one of his commanding officer’s romantic involvements with another soldier.5 C. Tyler Carpenter and Edward H. Yeatts describe their own romantic experiences as lovers, soldiers, and entertainers in Stars without Garters: The Memoirs of Two Gay GIs in WWII.6 Arthur Dong’s Coming Out Under Fire (1994), a documentary about gay men and lesbians who served in World War II, was written by Dong and Bérubé and includes filmed accounts of his subjects’ experiences.7 Almost immediately after the new censorship classification system was adopted by the Motion Picture Association of America, two films about homosexual soldiers were made and released with “R” ratings: Reflections in a Golden Eye (John Huston, 1967) and The Sergeant (John Flynn, 1968). But while homosexuality continued to figure in films such as The Boys in the Band (William Friedkin, 1970), Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975), Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980), and Making Love (Arthur Hiller, 1982), no war film having this as a central element appeared again until Robert Altman’s Streamers (1983), an adaptation by David Rabe of his own play. There is an incidental plot element involving the exposure of homosexual soldiers in Mike Nichols’s Biloxi Blues (1988), Neil Simon’s adaptation of his successful Broadway comedy. That material is treated seriously, unlike the way soldiers’ homosexuality is presented in To Serve and Protect, the interior “film” for which Cameron...