Oh Madeline

A friend of mine suggested that we nominate Madeline Kahn for gay icon status.  Maybe she is a gay icon somewhere already.  Maybe she is a gay icon everywhere already (I live in Ottawa, I don't hear everything).  She probably was a gay icon in 1975, maybe without knowing it.  She probably was an icon for men who were gay without knowing it in 1975.  She was fired from the cast of Mame by Lucille Ball, which must automatically make you a gay icon of some kind.

I think that one could safely nominate the entire cast of the movie Clue for gay icon status.  Maybe the movie Clue had no other purpose but to bring together gay icons character actors from 1985.  I know that even living in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, Clue called out to me, and had to be seen.  Even if it meant busing to Penhorn Mall by myself to see it.  Even if it meant having to watch it.

Madeline Kahn is crowded out in Clue, as she was in most of the movies she was in.  Maybe it is actually better this way -- because a little of Madeline went a long way.  But, she is perfect in every role she is in, and was usually the best thing in the movie -- which is not a back-handed compliment, because she was in Paper Moon, What's Up, Doc?, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein.  I don't know of any other comedienne who was nominated for two Oscars. I notice that Premiere magazine placed her role as Lili Von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles as the #74 best performance in movie history.  I can't think of three better performances, personally. 

Madeline's characters were always women struggling with a barely contained hysteria (women on the verge of a nervous breakdown).  She wasn't ever trying to be funny or winking at the audience -- the performance was inherently funny because of what was going on underneath.  The characters have the same spirit as successful drag acts: the teetering on the edge, the risk of a total collapse.  This type of tension is what I like in roles by Teri Garr, Shelley Duvall, Lesley Ann Warren, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Catherine O'Hara, Rosanna Arquette, Parker Posey.  Women struggling to live by their own rules in worlds that think they are pathetic or ridiculous.

There is something very self-contained about all of these actresses.  Even when they are interacting with other actors or characters on the screen, they are, essentially, living in the tightly-sealed worlds of their characters' self-delusions.  That is why the comedic roles are funny and, with little difference except context, the serious roles are so heartbreaking (Teri Garr in Tootsie) or scary (Shelley Duvall in Three Women) or simultaneously funny, hearbreaking and scary (Teri Garr and Catherine O'Hara in Afterhours). I think these are difficult roles too -- the road is littered with bad attempts: Kim Basinger in Blind Date comes to mind.  Drew Barrymore in Grey Gardens.

I don't know if men do this kind of barely-contained hysteria as well or as often.  Maybe Gene Wilder and a couple of others.  The great character actors (male) have tended towards the stoic or the sneaky.  The nearly-neurotic appear to be the domain of the ladies.  On film. A quote from Madeline: "It's acceptable for men to act the fool. When women try, they're considered aggressive and opinionated."