Queer As Art issue 2 April-May-June 2017 | Page 21

based off of Herbert himself. Herbert was
arrested in the late 1940s while dressed
in drag, thus resulting in his time spent in
one of Canada’s youth reformation
centers. This presentation of one’s self as
a confident and unapologetic figure may
have allowed Herbert the opportunity to
‘fight back’ against those who had him
arrested – through authorial intent is
always hard to discern, especially forty
years after the fact.
A review of Fortune and Men’s
Ey e s f ro m t h e Ca n a d i a n Th eat re
Encyclopedia claims that Fortune and
Men’s Eyes, first as a stage show, then as
a film, allowed for authentic queerness to
find a place in the media of the time.
There’s no doubt that queerness became
more easily depictable after the release
of Fortune and Men’s Eyes, but I’d
disagree that it was “authentic”. There are
stereotypes and heternormativity buried
in the major relationships of the film –
natural, one would supposed, given the
time in which it was produced. What
Fortune and Men’s Eyes can be seen as,
then, if not the gateway for more earnest
presentations of queerness, is one of
many early attempts to make media
viewers aware of queerness in any form
and to make its presence acceptable in
theatre and film.
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