02978cam a2200361 i 4500 2446252264 TxAuBib 20250804120000.0 240816s2025||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 9781639732548 hardcover 29.99 1639732543 hardcover 29.99 (OCoLC)1452443675 TxAuBib rda Koresky, Michael. Sick and dirty [BOOK] : Hollywood's gay golden age and the making of modern queerness / Michael Koresky. Hollywood's gay golden age and the making of modern queerness. New York : Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc., 2025. 307 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier sti rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references, filmography, and index. Prologue: Tell us how you really feel -- The original sin -- The children -- Suitable women -- Capable men -- Musical interlude -- Back to school -- America's nightmare -- Down and dirtier -- Epilogue: I'm (not) there. "A blazingly original history celebrating the persistence of queerness onscreen, behind the camera, and between the lines during the dark days of the Hollywood Production Code. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the Motion Picture Production Code severely restricted what Hollywood cinema could depict. This included "any inference" of the lives of homosexuals. In a landmark 1981 book, gay activist Vito Russo famously condemned Hollywood's censorship regime, lambasting many midcentury films as the bigoted products of a "celluloid closet." But there is more to these movies than meets the eye. In this insightful, wildly entertaining book, cinema historian Michael Koresky finds new meaning in "problematic" classics of the Code era like Hitchcock's Rope, Minnelli's Tea and Sympathy, and-bookending the period and anchoring Koresky's narrative-William Wyler's two adaptations of The Children's Hour, Lillian Hellman's provocative hit play about a pair of schoolteachers accused of lesbianism. Lifting up the underappreciated queer filmmakers, writers, and actors of the era, Koresky finds artists who are long overdue for reevaluation. Through his brilliant inquiry, Sick and Dirty reveals the "bad seeds" of queer cinema to be surprisingly, even gleefully subversive, reminding us, in an age of book bans and gag laws, that nothing makes queerness speak louder than its opponents' bids to silence it.". 20250804. Sexual minorities in motion pictures. Motion picture industry California Los Angeles History. Motion pictures United States History 20th century. LGBTQIA+.