Does anyone think that Dally was gay for Johnny?

[soap]

Well, no. The thought never really crossed my mind. He was like Pony was to Johnny. Close, like brothers. Now that you say that, it's making me wonder...

[Beth ~Mrs.SheldonCooper~]

The thought kind of did cross my mind when my teacher talked about it but i think of it as a brotherly relationship more than a gay relationship. I don't really think there were many gays back then either.

[Brandon]

Dally loved Johnny because Johnny was everything good in the world, everything Dally wasn't.

[Emma]

I think he just loved him like a brother. And Dally was so "strong and tough" that Johnny being so quite and timid he liked him so much. Like Opposites attract.

[Chris]

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Margaret]

Brotherly love, as simple as that.

[Chris]

NO!!!!!!!

[Allee]

Eh, I don't think that he was "gay" for him. I just think he felt a special friendship i guess with Johnny. I always thought that he thought he had to take care of him, like he was an older brother/better father figure and had responsibility over him.

[Allee]

Louveda wrote: "I think Dallas cared for Johnny as a little brother. IMO the only family he had. I always thought that the circumstances of Johnny's death contributed to Dallas' mental breakdown. If something so t..."

EXACTLY!! Thats what I thought of it too. Their relationship.

[Danielle]

Why would a question like this even be posted? Love like a brother and friend. But why does that have to turn into something that could be called gay?

This book is a classic and for that I think this is just down silly.

[Allee]

Danielle wrote: "Why would a question like this even be posted? Love like a brother and friend. But why does that have to turn into something that could be called gay?

This book is a classic and for that I think ..."

Ya!! It's insane how much we judge. Even though theyre fake characters!! That's my next point! How can we even determain this? It doesn't say in the book, they aren't real people. PLUS JOHNNY IS DEAD!! So no matter the feelings that Dally had Johnny is DEAD! I feel like we may be attacking the person asking a bit though. I understand that you wanted other people's opinion. Sorry if ours offended you Julia

[Brandon]

Allee wrote: "Danielle wrote: "Why would a question like this even be posted? Love like a brother and friend. But why does that have to turn into something that could be called gay?

This book is a classic and ..."

I don't see how calling him gay is offensive.

[Danielle]

I didn't feel that calling someone gay is offensive. If that's the direction the character was written to be then fine.

I just think its kind of silly that years after the book has been out. And in this day and age when we need to know who is or isn't a gay male that it's silly. That seems to be a label that more and more people care about. Gay or straight I have no problem with. I just don't see the heavy importance to calling out that label.

[Chris]

NO!!!!!!!!

[Susan]

The Outsiders (one of my all-time favorites) is about some tough but sensitive gang members as imagined by a 16-year-old girl who probably sat through several showings of Rebel Without A Cause and West Side Story. She didn't write the characters as gay, she wrote them as sensitive and again, there's that strong overlay of teenage girl. So it's not gayness you're picking up on -- it's girlishness. Of course there are some film critics that think "Rebel" has a gay subtext...

[Blackie]

"brotherly love" does not always have to be homo-erotic. I don't think S.E. Hinton intended this theme, although There is nothing wrong with gay, classic or otherwise. People are complicated. It's a perfectly frank topic that can be explored without any fear that it may convert you or your friends.

[Anna]

To me, you just ruined the book. Like Sana said, it mean't something different back then. So, something like that is really silly, don't you think it was more brotherly love, a deep friendship, than Dally being gay. He talked dirty to girls, back then that was really bad, well, it still, but that must of mean't something. Again, no, I don't think he's gay. Johnny cared for Dally liked nobody had, like it said in the book Dally told Johnny that nobody cared about and his dad didn't care if he was home, dead, or drunk. Lastly, I think Johnny and Dally were brotherly loved, NOT gay. -Anna

[Anna]

Mickey wrote: "I think the strength of Dally's feelings for Johnny centered around the fact that Dally felt protective of him. Dally was a hard person who had learned early in life that any sort of an attachment ..."
I totally agree!

[fulano]

He did cared about him a lot. Like family. Both of them had a troubled home so i guess that Dally understood him. They were like brothers so i guess when Johnny dies he couldn't take it and he got himself killed. But he did love him, not sure if in that way though.

[Allen]

Nah, it is an interesting thought though. But I got it from the source and I think it was only brotherly love. Kids bonding when they had no were else to find that type of love. Platonic and pure. Still it would have been an interesting twist.

[Nola]

Alexandra (Alex) wrote: "I think you can feel like that for someone and not be in love with them, but love them. Dally considered Johnny like a brother and Johnny had a really bad family life as did Dally at his age. When ..."

i totally agree

[Chris]

outsiders is the best

[Miah]

Fuck yes he was! Honestly, who didn't catch the homoerotic subtext in this book!?

[Anna]

Jeremiah wrote: "Fuck yes he was! Honestly, who didn't catch the homoerotic subtext in this book!?"

Completely disagree...

[Ana]

I dont think so. I think he just loved him as little brother.

[Allen]

Anna wrote: "I dont think so. I think he just loved him as little brother."

Agree. Didn't see it.

[Vixen]

Haha yeah maybe it can be interpreted like that now. But when it was written and the time period maybe it was just dramatic plain and simple. >_>

[Chin123]

Nah, they were just good friends, who just had their back for each other.
:)

[Meg]

I agree. I mean, they mutually respected each other (if I remember correctly-- it's been a while since I read the book) and loved each other in a way that wasn't gay. More like best friends than lovers, I think.

[Miah]

Anna wrote: "Jeremiah wrote: "Fuck yes he was! Honestly, who didn't catch the homoerotic subtext in this book!?"

Completely disagree..."

OK, Thanks for your opinion, but a book is for the reader to interpret as his/her own.

[Anna]

Jeremiah wrote: "Anna wrote: "Jeremiah wrote: "Fuck yes he was! Honestly, who didn't catch the homoerotic subtext in this book!?"

Completely disagree..."

OK, Thanks for your opinion, but a book is for the reader ..."

Cool, I have a right to my opinion to...he he he!

[Brandon]

Elton John had a wife. Anderson Cooper came out at 50.

Some people are a little late. Cough Cough Dally

[Paige]

Honestly, I feel that S.E. Hinton didn't intend for their relationship to be read as a homosexual, but as a lesbian that didn't stop me from finding their relationship crazy romantic. Dallas practically commits lover-suicide because he can't bare to live in a world without Johnny. It wasn't my little brother is gone so I'm going to completely destroy myself in drugs and fighting kind of love,it was I care about you so much that trying to live in a world without you is impossible kind of love. I don't know about the rest of you, but that is a genderless love that beats the crap out of any crappy teen romance novel I read when I was younger. Therefore I leave you with these words.
It doesn't matter if you think they were a gay couple or not. It was still a better love story then Twilight.

[Karla]

It's been a long time since I read this book, and I don't remember much of it. I find it interesting however, that some people seem to think Ponyboy might have "gay" feelings for Johnny. One of the few things I do remember about this book, was my English teacher suggesting that Ponyboy might actually be a girl. (If memory serves, Ponyboy is the narrator and his/her sex is never explicitly stated in the novel.) I know that doesn't directly relate to the subject of the thread, but I thought it might be worth sharing given some of the comments. I apologize that I can't back that statement up any better, as I said, I don't remember much about the book. Overall, a very interesting discussion, however.

[Craig]

Has anyone ever seen the director's cut of The Outsiders? It may be the most unintentionally gay movie in the history of movies. :)

[Barbara]

Alexandra (Alex) wrote: "I think you can feel like that for someone and not be in love with them, but love them. Dally considered Johnny like a brother and Johnny had a really bad family life as did Dally at his age. When ..."

That's my thoughts too

[Hannah]

I think Dally saw Johnny as his younger brother, and so he was upset when Johnny died as a sibling would when their brother or sister died.

[Caity]

Absolutely not. Johnny represented a symbol of innocence and youth and Dally was so jaded and hateful that he felt protective of Johnny and Ponyboy. He wanted Johnny to grow up and still be good (just like how Johnny wanted Ponyboy to stay gold) because he didn't know many people who were truly good in the world and who didn't see people as being soc's or greasers. Johnny was sick of the stigmas and hated that they existed. Dally was stuck in his. He had no way out in his mind. So seeing Johnny die was the last straw for him- it meant that no good in the world existed anymore.

I don't know where you got the gay idea from.

[Josh]

Some of you guys are a little harsh, I don't think it's intelligent or thoughtful to criticize the person who posted the question.
As for the question itself, what's wrong with suggesting that they could have potentially been "gay?" They're are hints of homoeroticism in other famous books and plays, such as Romeo and Juliet, in the character of Mercutio in his faithfulness to Romeo. Does that mean Shakespeare meant him to be the "gay" character? Probably not, but it's still interesting and a good discussion. It's not "fashionable ideology." And fyi, homoerotic themes have been present in books for centuries, it's nothing new.

[Katherine]

I think it was brotherly love. Dally considered Johnny a brother and loved him like family.

[[deleted user]]

It's okay for a guy to like another guy. It means that they care.

[Colleen]

Ahh, you've been bitten by the shipping bug. When I read Harry Potter years ago, I managed to convince myself that Harry and Draco were gay for each other. Since then I've found myself doing this with a scary number of not actually there couples.

[Sophie]

Sunday, December 16, 2012
9:43 AM

I really don’t think Johnny and Dally were in love. Johnny was more of a little brother to Dallas, I know if my little brother died, I would be just as distraught as Dally was and I have parents and people who care for me. Dally had none of that and neither did Johnny (well, Johnnycake had parents but they hated him and didn’t act as parents should). They found common ground and built a connection around it (brotherly love). I love my mom and aunts but that doesn’t mean I am lesbian. I think it was the same love between Johnnycake and Dally. Also (I don’t mean to sound rude) but I am sick and tired of the Ponyboy/Johnny romance. Yes they slept huddled together in the church but Pony even said that was because the church was very very cold "Johnny and I slept huddled together for warmth--- Dally had been right when he said it would get cold where we were going." see, that is a direct quote from the book. Both the boys were like brothers who felt like they had no parents and nowhere to go. They were stuck in a church with nobody but each other and that straightened their friendship. Oh, and also, in That Was Then, This Is Now Pony has a girlfriend.

[Sophie]

H99 wrote: "Brotherly love. Dally tried to go after Cherry in the beginning, remember?"

Yes!! thank you!

[Stephen]

I'm a gay man and I like to think the best of everybody but, No, I don't think that Dally was gay; for Johnny or anybody. He (like Darry) had lost too much in his life and Dally couldn't take losing anybody else. He did have a special place in his heart for Johnny but it was predominantly what would be called brotherly love.

[Monty J]

A bond between two boys can be deepened by shared trauma. It's a form of PTSD. Dally had been badly abused and had experienced trauma during street fights in New York. Johnny, his friend, was horribly beaten in a street fight in Tulsa. Dally's trauma hyper-sensitized him to any boy who had been badly beaten up; so it is completely logical that he would have become protective of Johnny.

I say this from experience. In the Texas orphanage where I grew up I saw Bobby Hoot get a horrific beating by our matron. (I wrote a story about it you can read at Redroom.com.)

I watched in horror as this woman basically beat Bobby to as pulp and cleaned the floor with him, all because he wet the bed. Later Bobby saw a similar thing happen to me.

I lost contact with Bobby after he left the Home, but fifty-one years later I found him and flew 3,000 miles to see him. He was in bad shape. He'd been living on the Appalachian Trail, like Rambo, a demented war veteran with PTSD and all sorts of mental issues. He died six months later of pneumonia.

There was nothing gay about my relationship with Bobby, but we had intense feelings for each other stemming from the bond around our shared traumas at ages eight and ten.

This may come as a shock to some people but there doesn't need to be a sexual attraction for people to have strong feelings for each other.

(If you want to read about Bobby's beating go to Redroom.com and enter "Sweat and Tears" in the search box. But be prepared for a shock. It made a woman puke when I read the story at a reading.)

[Kristine]

um no i think that they just felt like family like they were brothers because they both didnt have anyone else really

[Noëlle]

A bunch of kids with bad home lives and poverty who only have each other will form very close relationships. It's rather insulting to think that a character must be gay just because he's devastated over the death of a same-sex friend who he had taken under his wing and loved like a brother. DNA doesn't make family. Love does, and those kids, as I said, only had each other. They were each other's family. after so much loss already in his life, Johnny's death was the event that pushed him over the edge.

[Kristi]

UGH. I don't comment much but this I have to do - one of my most adored books and this kicked me in the gut. Absolutely not in the way you implied at all. My eyes will eventually roll back to their proper place in my head....

[Monty J]

Alys wrote: "DNA doesn't make family. Love does, "

Ooooh! Wish I had said that.