Happy 100th Birthday Julia Child

[Guest EXPAT]

PBS put together a brilliant remix tribute to Julia Roberts. I had to share it. It is hilarious.

And of course CNN put together a nice tribute as well.

[AdamSmith]

Thank you so much. Living for 3 decades in Cambridge, I came to know her a bit from cocktail parties etc. She was so unfailingly modest, curious, outward-looking, wanted to know about YOU in conversation. And it was not an act. Such utter absence of pretense and egotism.

Only spent like 4 hours over years directly conversing with or listening to her. Had not thought for a long time how much I miss her being among us.

[Lucky]

"PBS put together a brilliant remix tribute to Julia Roberts. I had to share it. It is hilarious."

Huh? I thought you were wishing a happy birthday to a dead person. Julia Roberts is alive...

[Guest NCBored]

Thanks for sharing, Expat.

[Lucky]

I don't come to gay websites to see anti-gay bigots being given well wishes, even if they are dead.

[AdamSmith]

anti-gay bigots

La Child??? More than willing to accept the evidence & then condemn. But please present. She was happy to have lots of us flouncing around her, with nary a hint of anythin awry.

[Guest EXPAT]

My brain was thinking Julia Childs and I typed Julia Roberts. I'm sure you were all smart enough to figure that out without having to post the mistake. Seriously?

[Lucky]

From bostonmagazine.com:

People belonged in pairs, she felt—male and female together, marching through life as if they were streaming aboard the ark.

For this reason, she found homosexuality outlandish—not immoral, and certainly not to be criminalized, but a rude disruption in the natural order of things. Homophobia was a socially acceptable form of bigotry in midcentury America, and Julia and Paul participated without shame for many years. She often used the term pedal or pedalo—French slang for a homosexual—draping it with condescension, pity, and disapproval. “I had my hair permanented at E. Arden’s, using the same pedalo I had before (I wish all the men in OUR profession in the USA were not pedals!),” she wrote to Simca. Fashion designers were “that little bunch of Pansies,” a cooking school was “a nest of homovipers,” a Boston dinner party was “peopled by 3 fags in an expensive house…. We felt hopelessly square and left when decently possible,” and San Francisco was beautiful but full of pedals—“It appears that SF is their favorite city! I’m tired of them, talented though they are.”

The opposite of homosexual, in her terminology, was “normal” or “well muscled” or “very masculine!” Or, as she often put it, “real male men.” Lesbianism was less of an affront to her, though she felt sorry for women so sexually benumbed that they were not attracted to men. (“Can’t be much fun.”)

[Lucky]

My brain was thinking Julia Childs and I typed Julia Roberts. I'm sure you were all smart enough to figure that out without having to post the mistake. Seriously?

I didn't post the mistake- you did! I was smart enough to know that you had made a mistake, but that mistake was in wishing a dead person a happy birthday. Do you think she will have a happy birthday?

[AdamSmith]

Got it. All I can say is, by late in life, her actions in socializing with one and all, many of whom of us were unredeemedly queer right out in front of her, she did not express or enact those thoughts. In fact I heard her make some pretty funny cracks about how fags must make some uptight straights get their panties into a bunch. I experienced her as having moved way beyond the remarks that your sources cited.

She knew I and my husband were fags, and she could match us one for one on jokes against the homophobe tribe.

[Lucky]

No doubt she was socially adept enough to make nice in public. Most bigots do. It's what they say in private that you have to worry about.

[AdamSmith]

Are your hemorrhoids acting up?

[AdamSmith]

I mean to say: I think she started out where society was. Then she watched, saw, learned, evolved. One of her close friends in CambrIdge was a woman whose wedding to another woman Julia looked forward to (didn't live to see; the law moved slower than her own physical demise). No pretense, just familial friendship. I wonder the cause of your dislike here.

[Guest EXPAT]

By the way, every gay site today I visited posted this same video and a wish for her 100th birthday. Based on what I read I get the same indication that she was like everyone else in the mid-century but her views changed as times changed. But this fact was not known to me at all until this thread and also until I read some of the comments on those other gay sites I visited today as well. But like any thread, if you don't want to read it then ignore it and move on.

[AdamSmith]

No doubt she was socially adept enough to make nice in public. Most bigots do. It's what they say in private that you have to worry about.

Is it time to take up that traffic-court judge's offer to put yourself back to work?

[Guest hitoallusa]

I do want to see Judge Lucky... I think I will in the first row of the gallery...

Well you can force someone to change their view . My take on many things got changed as I grow older so I hope that was the case for Julia too... I used to like manly woman when I was young... Strong, heavy and smart... Later I found out I like guys physically but can't live with their mess I need a guy clean neat and only want to make love to me... Possibility for that? I laugh...

[Guest FourAces]

I cannot find it but Dan Ackoryd did a true LOL skit as the French Chef on SNL many years back. She was an amazing woman.

[MsGuy]

I have no idea what Julia thought about homos but I enjoyed her cooking shows. PBS should rerun them or sell the rights to a cooking channel that will.

[AdamSmith]

I cannot find it but Dan Ackoryd did a true LOL skit as the French Chef on SNL many years back. She was an amazing woman.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7tnc9_the-french-chef_fun

[Guest FourAces]

Not sure if it already was mentioned but Hulu does show one of her series cooking with Jaques.