Your Turn: Carroll "Toddy" Todd
From Victor/Victoria, directed by Blake Edwards
Nominated by Chris Nelson
Why choose a gay cabaret performer in a Julie Andrews musical set in 1930s Paris? Well, for an 11-year-old boy sitting in the dark next to his mother in 1982, he meant everything!
Toddy was warm, loving, and yes, fabulous, but he was more than that: He was presented as utterly normal. He was the perfect best friend, he enjoyed a good laugh at his own expense, he even got a hunky boyfriend! If you don't think that a role model like that wasn't important to a pre-teen during the Reagan years, you need to get out more.
Toddy was controversial precisely because he wasn't controversial. This was the era of Making Love, which came out the week before Victor/Victoria and was released with a huge on-screen warning that some scenes might be offensive to so-called "normal" people!
Toddy was someone you could love, period. Thats why he was so provocative.
5:30 PM ET | 02-27-2008 | permalink
5:30 PM ET | 02-27-2008 | permalink
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