[I am bringing this back as one of my all-time most read posts. Fitting considering yesterday’s].

Before my mother died she had a revelation. She had been ill for a some months, through a remission, and back again. Still, she “hadn’t decided yet if she was going to live or die”. Anyway, Mom made her way down the hall to my bedroom door and said, “Peter Pan is gay!” I was a bit shocked by this news, but not completely, due to the fact that my mother generally had something interesting to reveal…but this seemed an odd thought process, even for my mom.

To get to this, I must backtrack. My mom was an actress; a serious, dramatic actress who’s career was during the golden age of musicals. Unfortunately for my beautiful mother, she was tone deaf. Nevertheless she was cast in the best dramatic parts for ingenues from Eliches to Bonfils. She continued acting through her third kid (I was #4). Her people were theatre people. Proportionately for that population, and as expected for the time, several of her friends married gay men. That was how it was in the 50s. A sad, but true fact for everyone in that world. Apparently not much was openly discussed between men and women.

When the 50s became the 60s and into the 70s those marriages broke up (along with virgin-brides’ like my mother’s— for whom life’s pretty pictures grew dim in harsh reality). Suffice it to say she was close friends with gay men from her theatre world, and perhaps accordingly, embraced everyone’s right to express themselves by whatever creative means necessary.

Getting back to this revelation that Peter Pan is gay, and my recollection, which popped up for some unknown reason as I was wondering what to write about. I mentioned this idea (that Peter Pan is gay) to my friend who promptly replied: Everybody knows that. Well, did I feel stooopid? I did not know, I suppose, and was just as amazed by this discovery as my mother was when she told me. Does everyone know this? I’m not so sure.

Peter Pan doesn’t want to grow up. Does this make him gay? He lives with the lost boys in Never Never Land, does this make him gay? What about his relationship to Wendy? What does this mean about Peter Pan? Anything? Nothing? I am still trying to fit my mother’s strange revelation into the fact that Peter Pan is usually played by a girl who is costumed to look like a boy. I am not even going to touch on relationships with Captain Hook or Tiger Lily.

So why all of this and why now in this blog? I am not entirely sure, but it has something to do with perceptions and how they’ve changed. There was a supreme gullibility possible back then. A way to shroud the obvious with, perhaps obviousness. Somehow secrets could be shared openly in art, and without a hint of irony. Now it seems nothing is hidden, (see past “musings” about the loss of subtlety and nuance)—now “this is how it is my friend”. Are revelations even possible in a modernity that lacks a denouement? This time and place in space consisting only of a four-act structure. Where truly, we all seem to be living in Never Never Land where the planet is not at risk of becoming uninhabitable. We are each and all the lost boys (and girls and others) waiting for Wendy to return…Does this mean we are all gay?

I guess I’m still not clear on why exactly, it is an accepted fact that Peter Pan is gay, but the way my mom explained, it seemed obvious at the time. But why? What am I missing in my recollection?