The pre-code Hollywood film "Our Betters" deals with an idle set of upper-crust society types who while away their time with teas, card games, and gossip. While sipping hot cha, they chat about their sexual dalliances, discarded spouses, and kept lovers. Based on a play by Somerset Maugham, the well-written dialog is often ripe and bitchy, and a fine cast, headed by Constance Bennett, makes the lighter-than-air fluff more entertaining than it should be.
If that were the sum total of "Our Betters," then the film would be a harmless entertainment, viewed with amusement, and forgotten faster than a buttered scone. However, a character that is referenced early in the film appears on screen in the final scene and transforms the film into prime evidence of the vile gay stereotyping that Hollywood pursued before all gay portrayals on screen were prohibited by the production code.
A dance instructor named Ernest, played by Tyrell Davis, arrives at Bennett's country manor in time to delay the departure of the duchess, deliciously portrayed by Violet Kemble Cooper. Ernest is not only dressed like a dandified pouffe, but he has thickly rouged lips that form a rosebud beneath his tiny clipped mustache. His broad effeminate mannerisms would embarrass a drag queen, and perceptive viewers can smell the lavender perfume that reeks from the screen. If Bogart rolled his eyes after a whiff of gardenia off Peter Lorre, he would pass out cold if Ernest minced into his office. Like Stepin Fetchit to African-Americans, Ernest is patently offensive to gays. He is the stereotyped concept of a bigoted society; he is a badly drawn cartoon image created by a studio system that profited from the talents of gays, but vilified their public images.
However, as offensive as Ernest's characterization is, the film should be preserved and shown to illustrate the advances that on-screen portrayals of minorities have made. While the earlier drawing room scenes are light and forgettable, Ernest is an indelible image that should not be forgotten or repeated.
If that were the sum total of "Our Betters," then the film would be a harmless entertainment, viewed with amusement, and forgotten faster than a buttered scone. However, a character that is referenced early in the film appears on screen in the final scene and transforms the film into prime evidence of the vile gay stereotyping that Hollywood pursued before all gay portrayals on screen were prohibited by the production code.
A dance instructor named Ernest, played by Tyrell Davis, arrives at Bennett's country manor in time to delay the departure of the duchess, deliciously portrayed by Violet Kemble Cooper. Ernest is not only dressed like a dandified pouffe, but he has thickly rouged lips that form a rosebud beneath his tiny clipped mustache. His broad effeminate mannerisms would embarrass a drag queen, and perceptive viewers can smell the lavender perfume that reeks from the screen. If Bogart rolled his eyes after a whiff of gardenia off Peter Lorre, he would pass out cold if Ernest minced into his office. Like Stepin Fetchit to African-Americans, Ernest is patently offensive to gays. He is the stereotyped concept of a bigoted society; he is a badly drawn cartoon image created by a studio system that profited from the talents of gays, but vilified their public images.
However, as offensive as Ernest's characterization is, the film should be preserved and shown to illustrate the advances that on-screen portrayals of minorities have made. While the earlier drawing room scenes are light and forgettable, Ernest is an indelible image that should not be forgotten or repeated.