This post was submitted by raphael

The Autry National Center of the American West is one of Los Angeles’ most overlooked museums.  Perhaps people get turned off by the name, assuming the museum offers nothing but kiddie cowboy kitsch. And it does have plenty of that to offer. However, the museum has a much broader perspective of “The West” that makes it a much more vibrant and relevant museum than many people assume. Just check out our recent weekend preview, which spotlights two amazing temporary exhibits.

But in this post, I want to highlight some of the queer aspects you might see at the museum. Homosexuality was hardly unknown in the American frontier. But queer elements are typically erased from our history books, movies, and other representations of our cultural heritage. So it’s particularly heartwarming that the Autry addresses the queerness of The West overtly in some displays (and not quite overtly in many more). On this subject, the Imagination Gallery is of particular interest.

The Imagination Gallery is dedicated to the Western film genre. And it was a notice on the Autry’s webpage about this gallery that drew my attention to the museum. In the contemporary films display, alongside the hats and holsters from ¡The Three Amigos! and outfits from a number of Clint Eastwood’s recent flicks are the two iconic shirts from Brokeback Mountain.

The inclusion of the shirts in the museum and in this display is a recognition of the impact this film has had on American culture and on the Western genre. It was one of the few films to frankly address same-sex relationships that occur in the frontier. The shirts were purchased at a charity auction by film producer and HuffPo blogger Tom Gregory, who loaned them to the museum, because of their iconic importance. More than a few homos have made a pilgrimage to the Autry to see these shirts.

Other nods to GLBT representations in Western films are less overt, and require a more finely tuned queer eye. For example, a case down the hall shows the blouse worn by Geena Davis in Thelma and Louise.

Although the lesbian subtext of the movie is probably not lost on most TNG readers, it isn’t mentioned in the display case. Instead, the interpretive signage justifies the classification of this “feminist road movie” as a Western, noting its parallels to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (I hope the homoerotic subtext of that movie is also appreciated by TNG readers).

Displays on the role of women in Westerns address the archetype of the strong, self-sufficient frontierswoman who defends her independence from male patrimony. Actresses like Barbara Stanwyck became icons to generations of queer women in the early days of Hollywood and paved the way for other strong women in media, like Bea Arthur’s Maude.

Witness the assertive Stanwyck in this scene from Big Valley, later in her career:

Apart from Brokeback, queerness in the gallery is perhaps left in the eye of the beholder. That isn’t to say that the queerness is subtle–can you ever describe a bejewelled 10-gallon hat and sparkly tasseled jacket with matching pants as subtle?

The gallery is full of flamboyant outfits from the television cowboys of the 1950s and 60s. These costumes made of rhinestones, sequins and gold lamée were the clear antecedents of the theatrical wardrobes of Elvis, Elton John, and Liberace. Here are a few of the the flashier outfits on display:

 

The last queer element of the Imagination Gallery is the most pervasive, but also the most subjective, no doubt missed by many straight folk who visit the museum. However, I suspect it’s strongly felt by nearly every queer person who passes through the halls: Cowboys are sexual icons, particularly for gay men. Indeed, their status as erotic demigods in the pantheon of gay sexual stereotypes was established long ago, predating today’s debates on the merits of twinks versus bears.

The displays at The Autry convince me this eroticization of the cowboy has a unique impact on the queer childhood experience. For much of the 20th century, cowboys embodied the ideal of masculinity. They helped define what it meant to be men, and therefore what queer men were attracted to. As this display of a child’s room shows, cowboy imagery infiltrated deeply into American culture. I can’t help but wonder how this imagery influenced the erotic imagination of a queer boy growing up in the 1950s.

Queer girls of that era were no doubt similarly influenced by imagery of Annie Oakley and other wild Western women. Whether they provided young lesbians with a model of women who broke gender norms, or were themselves an object of eroticization, women in Western movies guided queer girls in developing their identities and their sexualities.

I wish that the Autry might make some of these queer aspects of the American West more explicit in their displays–it’s certainly a subject deserving of its own exhibit at some point. But I applaud the museum for the steps they’ve taken towards queer inclusiveness, and there is much you can already find there, if you know how to look.

The Autry National Center for the American West is located in Griffit Park at 4700 Western Heritage Way.

As I send you off into that sunset, here is a song to get you in the right frame of mind:

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