Today it is widely recognized that gay men played a prominent role
in defining the culture of mid-twentieth-century America, with such
icons as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Aaron Copland, Samuel
Barber, Montgomery Clift, and Rock Hudson defining much of what
seemed distinctly "American" on the stage and screen. Even though
few gay artists were "out," their sexuality caused significant
anxiety during a time of rampant antihomosexual attitudes. Michael
Sherry offers a sophisticated analysis of the tension between the
nation's simultaneous dependence on and fear of the cultural
influence of gay artists.
Sherry places conspiracy theories about the "homintern" (homosexual
international) taking control and debasing American culture within
the paranoia of the time that included anticommunism,
anti-Semitism, and racism. Gay artists, he argues, helped shape a
lyrical, often nationalist version of American modernism that
served the nation's ambitions to create a cultural empire and win
the Cold War. Their success made them valuable to the country's
cultural empire but also exposed them to rising antigay sentiment
voiced even at the highest levels of power (for example, by
President Richard Nixon). Only late in the twentieth century,
Sherry concludes, did suspicion slowly give way to an uneasy
accommodation of gay artists' place in American life.