Archie Andrews [beloved comic-book character] dies today, heroically, trying to save his gay friend Kevin Keller. Keller isn't just gay, he is a military veteran and a senator who pushes for stricter gun control laws after his husband Clay is shot during a robbery attempt. - Sandip Roy, Huffington Post
The cartoon world once seemed a haven for alternative lifestyles, but lately a chill has fallen over the LGBT cartoon community, culminating in the senseless death of Archie Andrews, but the violence was always there, simmering just below the surface as insiders know.
"I don't know where we went wong," said one source who declined to be identified. "I bwame myself." The interviewee, now in a retirement home in Palm Springs paused to look at a framed photograph of a gray-and-white rabbit with prominent buck teeth and a cocky, devil-may-care smile. "I hated that wabbit. I hated him. But the twuth is I wuved him, but I was afwaid, afwaid of my wuv, so I thought I had to shoot him." He wiped away a tear, and continued. "I was pwematurely bald and always vewy short. People made fun of me for that and because of my speech impediment. I thought no one would ever wuv me, no one would ever care. But he cared, he cared. Sometimes, he would dwess up wike a woman, and I would get so turned on. I would think, we could be so happy together if only you could stay wike this. But he couldn't. He had to be twue to himself. He understood that, I never did. He used to call me 'Doc.' He used to call me 'Doc.'" Here the interviewee broke into uncontrollable sobbing and had to be wheeled away, a sad testament to the personal anguish created by an atmosphere of fear and intolerance.
"This sort of thing is not uncommon," explains Stanley Hardwater, a prominent psychiatrist with many animated clients. "It's defense reaction. There was one patient of mine who went to extraordinary lengths to 'kill' an androgynous roadrunner he found himself sexually attracted to. I say 'kill' in quotation marks because it was perfectly obvious to any outside observer, he was actually motivated by a masochistic need to punish himself for his desires. He catapulted himself into the sides of mesas, ran headlong off the edges of cliffs, and allowed enormous boulders to pound him into a flattened disk. And still he went at it, unwilling to accept his true nature, going to enormous personal expense, buying mail-order rocket sleds and heat-seeking missiles all for the putative purpose of catching his prey, and always from the same company, even after it quickly became apparent that their shoddy merchandise, or else because he was unconsciously misusing it, would result in nothing but inflicting pain and injury on himself, while leaving the roadrunner unharmed. That, of course, was the whole point."
A fortunate few made peace with themselves. "Jerry and I used to hate each other," said one of the lucky ones. "But now we realize we were meant for each other." The two share an upscale condo in Beverly Hills. "I don't know what was the reason for all the hostility. Maybe it started with Walt. He gave a lot of us our first break, but then those three pigs came along. They were great guys. They used to throw these sensational parties. They were very musical; one played a flute, one the piano, and one a fiddle. But they all ended up moving in together after two of them lost their homes. They probably could have kept it in the closet, except two of them never wore pants. Ever. Walt hit the roof. After that, it seemed like the atmosphere changed."
Jerry, who had just finished mixing up a blender of margaritas, agreed. "Yeah, I don't know what it is about pigs and pants. They just won't wear them." He laughed at this because he and his lover were both naked.
"Yes, Jerry and I were always nudists from the get-go," Tom said. "But no one ever seemed to notice. I dunno. I think if you wear a shirt, it just makes people wonder where your pants are."
