Ronald R. Butters’s article in Dictionaries: Journal of The Dictionary Society of America examines the origins of the relationship between the word “gay” and “homosexual.” Citing Cary Grant’s infamous utterance “I’ve just gone gay all of a sudden!” in Bringing Up Baby as a potential first link between the two words, Butters provides a thorough analysis of all possible connotations of the word and in turn, how audiences of the time would have interpreted the usage of the word in such a manner.

Butters uses Vitto Russo’s novel on homosexuality in American cinema as a framework for his argument, but then refutes Russo’s idea that Grant intended the phrase to denote homosexuality. Russo states that Grant’s line was actually an ad-lib and was not found anywhere in the script. Paired with a “hysterical” leap, Grant’s words, in Russo’s point of view, represents “a rare textual reference to the word gay and to the concrete possibility of homosexuality in Hawks’s work” (198). Butters argues, however, that upon watching the scene again, it appears as if Russo has exaggerated Grant’s actions. He is not a hysterical person with possible homosexual mannerisms, but rather, a frustrated and repressed man who has been forced to wear something extremely feminine after his clothes have been taken from him.

Although Butters disagrees that Grant’s choice of words had any homosexual connotations, he does state that ignoring the statement would also be an “act of lexicographical irresponsibility and perhaps even sociopolitical insensitivity” (199). Therefore, Butters attempts to examine the impact of Grant’s words on the filmmakers who were involved with production and also the reaction of the film’s audience members of the time. Butters claims that there is no evidence that the filmmakers drew the conclusions that gay meant homosexual in this context. What is interesting however, is his argument stating that even if anyone involved in the making of the film recognized this double entendre, they would be among an “in-crowd of Hollywood sophisticates who had strong ties to the repressed homosexual underworld” (199). Thus, it can be assumed that nearly all of the audience members who watched the film in 1938 also did not conclude that Grant’s statement had anything to do with homosexuality. Yet, the context of the word gay in this instance does not seem to fit the standard 1930s definition of happy, joyous, or carefree. Butters argues that Grant’s statement was probably a form of archaic slang that translated into: “I’ve just gone crazy all of a sudden!” (200), which would fit with the craziness of the rest of the movie and would therefore go unnoticed by audiences and more importantly, the Production Code Administration as well.