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From: dyer@spdcc.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Dress Gray
Message-ID: <37@spdcc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 22:35:09 EST
Article-I.D.: spdcc.37
Posted: Tue Mar 11 22:35:09 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 05:28:58 EST
References: <35@spdcc.UUCP> <1144@milano.UUCP>
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Lines: 21

In article <1144@milano.UUCP>, sandel@milano.UUCP writes:
> Most interesting, I thought, was a thread throughout that
> subtly questioned the traditional military stance on homosexuality
> by highlighting some cadet's feelings about being with other men.
> For example, the closing scene has Elizabeth and Ry discussing
> men's involvement in war.  Ry says at one point:
> 	"You don't know how it is when men get together."
> 
> Talk about blunt!

I really didn't take this as a reference to explictly homosexual feelings or
attitudes, so much as an indication of the attraction of traditionally Male
sentiments such as Honor, Duty, Fraternity, and all that.  I think Vidal was
being deliberately allusive and ironic by giving Ry a line with such ambiguous
overtones.  But the parallelism he draws contrasts the "acceptable" eroticism
of military life, and the proscribed eroticism which led, ultimately, to the
cadet's death and the superintendent's resignation.
-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@harvard.HARVARD.EDU
{bbncca,bbnccv,harvard}!spdcc!dyer