The Ambivalently Gay Viewer: "Saturday Night Live"’s Mixed Record on Gay Humor

Perhaps the low point for SNL and gay men was a February 1994 skit called “Canteen Boy and the Scoutmaster.” Canteen Boy, supposedly 27 years old but with a child-like naiveté, was a recurring character played by Adam Sandler. On a camping trip, the Scoutmaster, played by host Alec Baldwin, tries to make sexual advances on Canteen Boy. When the Scoutmaster initiates a game of Truth or Dare, Baldwin says, “I’ll tell you a truth, Canteen Boy! You know what I hate? Underpants!”

Alec Baldwin, Adam Sandler

(Photo credit: NBC)

The current producing team insists the show has become more sensitive to gay issues. “I’ve been here 13 years and I’m gay, and I don’t remember ever being so offended by something that I came in and said like, ‘We cannot do this,’” Pell says.

An Enormous Penis-Shaped Car

SNL hasn’t always taken the most obvious approach to gay male sexuality. In Robert Smigel’s reoccurring cartoon feature, “The Ambiguously Gay Duo,” superheroes Ace and Gary, voiced by gay-friendly comedians Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell, repeatedly find themselves in situations that seem more than a little “gay” — driving around in an enormous penis-shaped car, or flying through the air while crouched together as if having sex.

The Ambiguously Gay Duo was a reaction to the “’nippleization’ of the Batman movies in the late 90s,” Smigel told AfterElton.com in 2006. “The crotch and ass shots, the nipples on the uniforms . . . the growing obsession with the sexuality of superheroes. Why not leave Batman and Robin alone? They do good work. What difference does it make?”

But what’s the joke here exactly? The sight gag of two superheroes in sexually compromising positions? Or is the cartoon a parody of the heterosexual obsession with the mechanics of gay sex? After all, the gay sex “acts” are usually seen from the point-of-view of a straight character — a police commissioner or a super-villain. In other words, maybe the cartoon parodies heterosexuals, not gays.

“Everyone relates to the bad guys in the cartoon,” Smigel says. “We all have important business, we'd all like to take over the world . . . but when it comes to getting to work, we'd all just rather hang and talk about whether Tom Cruise is gay.”

Many gay viewers embraced the cartoon. But as the sketch wore on, basically repeating the same joke again and again, it did start to feel less subversive and more like just another skit causing straight folks to giggle at the idea of gay male sex.

A better approach to gay sex might be 1991’s “Schmitt’s Gay,” a hilarious parody of straight male-directed beer ads. Sandler, who is housesitting, takes his friend Farley out to see the empty swimming pool in the backyard. It doesn’t look like much at first, but then he turns on the water, and it transforms into a party full of hunky men, one of whom says suggestively, “You two look like you need to get wet.” Looking up to the sky, Sandler and Farley clasp their hands in prayer and whisper, in ecstatic unison, “Thank you!”

The parody perfectly satirizes the corny sexism of straight male beer ads, but doesn’t play on gay stereotypes or judge its gay protagonists. At the end, Farley, massaging the shoulders of a handsome man in a Speedo, tells Sandler, “I think I’m gonna like housesitting.” Sandler, likewise busy, says, “Uh... yeah!”

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