The Gay Bob doll in all his glory. Harvey Rosenberg/Gizmo/Museum of the City of New York/93.83.A-J
I can’t be the only one who remembers Gay Bob. If you don’t remember Gay Bob, perhaps you remember the lunatic reaction, starting in 1978, which Anita Bryant climbed on top of, screaming her hatred of all things queer to the skies.
A 1978 magazine advertisement for the Gay Bob doll. Joe Wolf/CC BY-ND 2.0
I think it’s time for Gay Bob to come out of the closet again, along with his family, and some new additions, as well.
Gay Bob, who was meant to resemble a cross between Robert Redford and Paul Newman, was blond, with a flannel shirt, tight jeans, and one pierced ear. The doll gave anti-gay organizations plenty to fear; intrinsic within it was a celebration of gay identity, evidenced by Gay Bob’s programmed speech. “Gay people,” Bob said, “are no different than straight people… if everyone came ‘out of their closets’ there wouldn’t be so many angry, frustrated, frightened people.”
In a cheeky move, the box in which Gay Bob was packaged came in the outline of a closet, so that when he left his box, he was literally coming out of the closet. Gay Bob explained: “It’s not easy to be honest about what you are — in fact it takes a great deal of courage… But remember if Gay Bob has the courage to come out his closet, so can you.”
The affirming message was no accident. The doll’s creator, Harvey Rosenberg, a former advertising executive who developed marketing campaigns for various corporations, wanted Gay Bob to “liberate” men from “traditional sexual roles.” He created the doll soon after a series of shocks rocked his life: in quick succession, his marriage fell apart and his mother became seriously ill. He decided that his next projects would need to be of great personal significance.
[…]
Initially sold through mail-order ads in gay-themed magazines, Gay Bob soon expanded into boutique stores in New York and San Francisco. Rosenberg even pitched it to major department store chains, one of which liked the idea (but ultimately did not purchase it). And, it turns out, those consumers who feared the introduction of more “disgusting” dolls were partially correct—Rosenberg soon gave Gay Bob a family of his own, with brothers Marty Macho, Executive Eddie, Anxious Al, and Straight Steve (who lived in the suburbs and wore blue suits), and sisters Fashionable Fran, Liberated Libby, and Nervous Nelly.
If this is all new to you, you can read all about Gay Bob at Atlas Obscura.
This is all new to me. I’m not sure, to what extent did the info about this doll filtered up here. Homosexual acts were decriminalized here in 1971, but the changed law included a ban on promoting homosexuality and homosexuality was on the list of illnesses until 1981. The ban was revoked in 1999 along with the equalization of the age of consent to 16 (18 if the elder partner is a teacher, coach etc, IIRC).
So, I think selling/marketing the doll would have been illegal back in the 1970s in here.
Gay Bob was never a huge thing; it was very small as dolls go, but it did stir up a lot political action, on both sides. I knew about it because a friend of mine got one, and I was in SoCal at the time, and the local paper could never get enough of covering that nasty Anita Bryant, especially with the orange growers, because there were still major growers in SoCal at that time. Bryant had been chosen by the Florida Orange Growers to represent them, and orange juice, and that whole thing went nuts. People all over the place started boycotting Florida orange juice, California growers jumped on that; gay bars everywhere killed screwdrivers off the bar menu, and so on.
They should have “Gay Bob, meet your new CEO” version. One of the things that racists and homophobes have done a good job of is isolating people out of the power structure. Change happens when people find they are working with/for other kinds of people, and it’s OK and nobody spontaneously combusts. Back in my executive days, I knew a number of LGB bigshots and I have to say that, pretty quickly, nobody would dream of making a homophobic or racist remark around them. It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? It’s like the racist/homophobes lack the actual courage of their beliefs.
Bryant had been chosen by the Florida Orange Growers to represent them
Yeah, I remember how that worked out for them. Bryant was a smarmy cowardly piece of shit, wasn’t she?
I never heard of Bob.
I was 23 in 1978 and I making about $5/hour. I still would have ordered one.
I wonder if it would have been illegal to ship to Canada?
I must say that my reaction twas “WUT?”. The doll is mere two years older than me and its publicity certainly did not extend beyond the iron curtain even if I were older. I just looked up the timeline, and here the homosexuality was decriminalized in 1961 but still stigmatized and being gay in public was still illegal (public nuisance). Communists were just as backwards in this regard as catholics and lutherans, so whilst we do not have a lot of religious fanatics, we still have a huge share of bigots wielding power. Same-sex legal partnership law was vetoed by our president in 2005 (but his veto was overruled by parliament and the law passed) and full same-sex marriage and adoption are still not possible.
I guess there is still a lot of people here who would burst a vessel should this doll make its debut on our store shelves.
Gay Bob dolls trending on ebay at $250.
chigau, that would have been a good investment!
Communists were just as backwards in this regard as catholics and lutherans
I’m trying to remember where Marx took a swing at homophobia.
“The first wave of party builders also foundered in addressing the oppression of gay men and lesbians. Doctrinally, most of the movement simply ignored this issue, though the Guardian did decide by 1971 that it was appropriate to include opposition to discrimination against gays under the broad rubric of defending democratic rights. But whatever was formally said or not said, for the most part the movement’s attitude toward homosexuality and the gay movement was decidedly negative. Fundamentally, most Marxist-Leninists shared the homophobia prevalent in society as a whole, and on the issue of gay rights they surrendered to prejudice instead of analyzing and opposing it.”
It’s sad -- many anti-semitic fascists prosecuted gay people along with jews and communists -- because communism was a jewish conspiracy. I don’t know of any ideological homophobia in communism -- I think what the quote above says is about right: they didn’t stand up to it and their solidarity didn’t extend that far, they adopted society’s biases and homophobia.
The Soviets, early on, tried to promote their rejection of racism -- but that was mostly as oppositional to the US apartheid society.
So much fail.
Marcus:
Still is.
Nope, sorry, I’m a young’n born in 1984. But this is an interesting history lesson!
Well, Damn. Gay Bob is too big for any of my set-ups (working at 1:9 scale). If only he were a little smaller… ah well. Still it would be fun to have Gay Bob stop by and visit.
I don’t remember him getting any Canadian press either, but I was 10 at the time, so if he did I could easily have missed it. Bob looks very similar to the mid ’70s GI Joe dolls. Or I guess I should say action figure, the classic euphemism for dolls marketed to boys. In any case I wouldn’t be surprised if they came from the same factory.