jm barrie = queer?

[geeksdoitbetter]

i watched Finding Neverland over the weekend

there's an unnamed character with only one scene, where he explains to barrie that everyone thinks barrie's relationship to the Davies boys is ... problematic

in the commentary, the film makers point out the character was meant to be conan doyle and then they try to defend barrie's moral uprightness by saying "he wasn't at all a pedophile, if anything, he was asexual"

~sigh~

anyone have more of a clue?

i'm interested in barrie's relationship with doyle

as well as potential interpretations of barrie as closeted queer rather than the stereotypical slander of pedophile

(and, if this post is inappropriate for this comm, please let me know. i check the rules and i'm hoping i made a proper choice)

Comments

[naraht]

Although biographers will no doubt be discussing this forever, I don't think that we'll ever really know about JM Barrie. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to describe him as queer, but whether that queerness took an asexual, pederastic or homosexual form (or some combination of the three) is another question.

[geeksdoitbetter]

~ponders~

i'm going to resist the notion that pedophilia is a form of queerness

[naraht]

I wouldn't equate the two generally, except in the broadest sense that queerness denotes non-normative sexualities. But I would say that pederasty and queerness were very much linked during the time period that we're discussing, especially given the influence from Greek and Latin models. So I think it's difficult to draw those lines.

Of possible relevance

[oursin]

According to the article in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Romantically, however, Barrie was less successful. Attracted throughout his life to independent women who had gained that freedom on the stage or through noble birth, he found his powers of invention of more limited use in this area. In 1891 the object of his infatuation was Mary Ansell (b. 1862), the ambitious actress daughter of a licensed grocer. He demanded a major part for her in Walker, London. Three years later, when Barrie's mother became ill, this actress–playwright alliance was still in force, and Mary accompanied Barrie to Kirriemuir. Their engagement and marriage at his parents' house in July of that year were somewhat subdued, as Barrie himself had also fallen ill with pneumonia. That physical problems existed for the couple can be indirectly deduced from Sentimental Tommy's self-absorbed, role-playing inability to ‘think himself’ into sexual love (J. M. Barrie, Tommy and Grizel, 168, 380), but proof was as yet withheld.
....
While he was enjoying the fruits of his theatrical fame and finding excuses to invade the Llewelyn Davies family Mary Ansell found herself deprived of both a professional career and her husband's attention. In 1907 she began an affair with the young actor Gilbert Cannan. When Barrie's gardener blurted out the truth to him, and Mary refused his appeals to end the liaison, divorce proceedings became inevitable. The undefended case, on grounds of adultery, that the playwright brought before the court on 13 October 1909 was fully reported. As his own failure to consummate the marriage was part of the evidence his impotence became common knowledge.

Re: Of possible relevance

[jonquil]

If she'd only had the affair *with* the gardener, the problem could have been averted.

Re: Of possible relevance

[geeksdoitbetter]

hee!