The Stuff I Read: Agatha Christie: Homosexuality

I know it's not part of the original list, but in researching some of the other subjects, I kept making notes on it, so I decided to add it in.

If you read Christie's books, you're going to come across characters who are most likely homosexual. She never actually says it, but you can see that it's there. I started reading Christie in elementary school, and I've always found her handling of said characters interesting.

In Five Little Pigs there is Philip Blake, who despised his best friend's wife to a desperate degree. Another character in the story suggests that he was actually in love with her. That suggestion (when I first read it at age 12) seemed way off base. Still does today. In Three Blind Mice, Christopher Wren is a walking stereotype. He's a 1930's Jack McFarland.

Hinch & Murgatroyd in A Murder is Announced are women who have been living together for years, and have developed that comfortable similarity that middle aged married people have. The rather masculine Katherine Casewell in the play version of Three Blind Mice has secret correspondence with "Jessie" (a cop reads her letter and sneers "Friend of yours?"). Suggestions have also been made about Jane Plenderleith of Murder In The Mews and her passionate devotion to her friend Barbara Allen. Also of Mrs. Macatta in The Incredible Theft.*

In the 50’s, Miss Marple’s nephew Raymond mentions one of his friends, a writer, and refers to him as “a queer”, asking his aunt if she has heard of them (gay men, as I assume he would know she had heard of writers). It wasn’t until the 1960’s...Hallowe’en Party that the word “lesbian” is said out loud...by teenage boys trying to sound sophisticated.

The women, likable (except for Mrs. Macatta), smart, naturally straightforward have cause speculation that Christie herself was bisexual. Some people believe that a relationship with a woman was the reason for her mysterious 11 day disappearance in the 20's.

Many of Christie's works have been put to television and film, and certain characters have been adapted to be most definitely homosexuals. With Five Little Pigs, it seems to make the story fit her intention much better. In some, it's different, but it works (Tim Allerton Death on The Nile) His gentle delivery of "Em...barking up the wrong tree, I'm afraid." after Rosalie kisses him is cute). The lesbian and the gay man in Cards on The Table are the murderers, and there it seems a little defamatory. Though...their reasons for keeping were (for the woman) to keep the girl she was in love with from being sent away and (for the man) to keep his lover's wife from exposing them. I'm not saying they were justified, but you could say that their actions were a result of society's insistence that there's something shameful about being gay (and I am not going to get on my soapbox about that here, because it's been a good day so far and I don't feel like getting worked into tears).

I will say that I'm not a fan of people adapting characters (or writing original ones) and then saying "Hey, we need someone gay in this book/show/movie/comic, let's pick this supporting character who can be comic relief/a scapegoat/used to titillate the straight guys". That comes from my attitude that you need to treat the characters you create as multi dimensional beings, and to write gay people off as a plot quirk (in my mind) exploits them and diminishes homosexuality as a trend instead of something genuine and natural (I realize I'm getting close to the soapbox now).

Then again, my view of this, the interpretations of Agatha Christie the individual writer and the media at large, are from a distance, because I'm heterosexual.