{"id":979,"date":"2022-10-31T20:29:40","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T00:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/?p=979"},"modified":"2022-10-31T20:30:14","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T00:30:14","slug":"roy-a-gay-man-in-sheeps-clothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2022\/10\/31\/roy-a-gay-man-in-sheeps-clothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Cohn, a Gay Man in Sheep’s Clothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Tony Kushner’s play Angels of America<\/em>,<\/span> the character Roy Cohn depicts\u00a0a complicated version of masculinity, that he exhibits through brash dialogue and a\u00a0big ego,\u00a0but he says certain sexual things that make it clear that he is a part of the gay scene he has so much hatred for. In Act 1. Scene 2 when Roy says \u201cI wish I was an octopus, a fucking octopus. Eight loving arms and all those suckers\u2026\u201d (Kushner 11). The underlying sexual tone is evident with words like \u201cloving\u201d\u202f and \u201csucking\u201d which are sensual words Kushner\u202fuses to imply the hidden gay life that Roy lives. Despite this Roy relentlessly tries to distance himself from any queerness that could be associated with him by enforcing the masculine elements of himself. After being told he has AIDS Roy defends himself by claiming that he is, \u201ca heterosexual man\u2026who fucks around with guys\u201d (Kushner 47). Since Roy presents himself as a straight man but he\u2019s actually a closeted gay man the internalized homophobia and the hatred that he has of himself has manifested into a persecution of people he thinks are wrong. <\/span><\/p>\n

One example of this is his part in the death of Ethel Rosenberg. In Act. 1 Scene 5 Roy proudly exclaims, \u201cI pleaded till I wept to put her in that chair\u2026Why? Because I fucking hate traitors\u201d (Kushner 113). Roy was so adamant that Ethel dies because she represents a part of himself that he hates. Throughout Angels in America<\/em> Roy is a traitor to his own masculine values and he expels that hatred to anyone who he deems as in the category of people who also go against his values this is shown as he calls other gay men in the play \u201csissy\u201d or \u201cfaggot.\u201d This hatred persists as he endures AIDS and up until his demise.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Tony Kushner’s play Angels of America, the character Roy Cohn depicts\u00a0a complicated version of masculinity, that he exhibits through brash dialogue and a\u00a0big ego,\u00a0but he says certain sexual things that make it clear that he is a part of the gay scene he has so much hatred for. In Act 1. Scene 2 when … Continue reading Roy Cohn, a Gay Man in Sheep’s Clothing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5013,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}