Well, if there were ever a good character to choose for giving the gay audience a nod, Dorothy would be it...

I felt Dorothy was pretty strongly coded as queer in the episode, from her mode of dress to her way of moving

If she were straight, how would you dress her, and how would you change her way of moving? To me, she was an Amelia Earhart vintage adventuress clone (which I don't mean in a bad way, or think that Earhart being gay affects), because I can't think of another way for her to look, and, well, I know more straight women than gay who move like her. As code goes, it's too subtle for me.

if there were ever a good character to choose for giving the gay audience a nod, Dorothy would be it...

That's the only code I saw.

I never understood where the "friends of Dorothy" thing came from.

Dorothy read pretty simply as "kickass" to me.

I never understood where the "friends of Dorothy" thing came from.

I'd heard it was a Judy Garland thing. The friends I have that used that term to describe themselves were big fans, and I assumed it was a result of her iconic status in the community (I have no idea if it still persists--this was in the early 90s).

Oh! I didn't even think to connect it to Judy Garland. Duh.

And, because it's Halloween, I feel the need to randomly shout, "Astronaut!"

If she were straight, how would you dress her, and how would you change her way of moving? To me, she was an Amelia Earhart vintage adventuress clone (which I don't mean in a bad way, or think that Earhart being gay affects), because I can't think of another way for her to look, and, well, I know more straight women than gay who move like her. As code goes, it's too subtle for me.

It's hard to explain without copying the text of every lesbians-in-film textbook in my collection, unfortunately. Suffice it to say that she hits all the "this character is queer, but we're not allowed to say that flat-out" checkboxes. Mannish attire, mannish stride, mannish profession, lingering looks at the female form...

Mannish attire, mannish stride, mannish profession, lingering looks at the female form...

But my question still stands--how do you write "1930s adventuress" and not put her in those clothes, and how do you write hunter without having her be physically competent (okay, that question is tongue in cheek considering Hunter!Barbie was saw the other week but as far as I can read, she doesn't walk significantly gayer than Jo), and hunter comes with the terrain unless the suggestion is more damsels or librarians and fewer action heroines.

If you'd led with lingering looks at the female form, that I'd understand. But most of the rest looks kinda unavoidable once the premise is laid out.

Not that I noticed her copping a Sapphic look at Charlie--given she gets to nom Gilda's face we know the show's not afraid of it--but I don't see how the text (or acting, or directing, or costuming, etc...) offers evidence for any orientation for her other than anti-men-of-letters.

You can do more feminine pragmatic clothing, for starters.

I mean, if you don't see the coding, you don't see the coding. Intentional or not on the part of the writer/costumer/actor, I couldn't not see it, but I've also spent way too many hours of my life specifically analyzing and looking for/at it in old movies.

(Hell, I suspect a lot of the Ho!Yay we see in media isn't intentional, it's just that the creators are drawing from established tropes and visuals from the past that were intentional.)

You can do more feminine pragmatic clothing, for starters.

Yeah, I can't Occam's razor her into anything else, honestly. If there are longing looks, there are longing looks. But she's wearing bog standard 30s adventuress clothes, and she's acting like a hunter--to make it more feminine or her less physically capable would make it less iconic, and what purpose would that serve but to distract from the story?

Maybe default 1935 adventuresses all code gay. But for a 1935 action heroine, she's no gayer than the next girl, IMO.

Yeah, I don't see a lot of two way chemistry here. But Charlie was the one to use the word "crush" so as a 21st century lesbian Charlies "likes likes" Dorthy. If Dorthy is the daughter of Frank L. Baum, she was raised feminist (Baum was an early supporter of women's suffrage) and also with theater associations (Baum made constant efforts to bring Oz to stage and screen). So if she is not gay or bi, she is probably gay or bi friendly. So if Dorthy does not reciprocate Charlie's feelings, she probably will be kind but firm in her rejection, and they will settle in happily as "gal-pal" adventuresses. To tell to the truth, I did not see a lot of indications Dorthy was attracted to Charlie, but I would not totally rule out things turning out the way Charlie obviously hopes.