Was Julia Child Homophobic?

A lot of people are about to make a lot of money this weekend, with the release of Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia, the new movie starring Meryl Streep as the iconic Julia Child.  But as Julia Child is remembered this week for her lasting impact on the world of cooking, a few publications and bloggers are pointing something else out about the late chef: she might have been a bit homophobic, too.

JoeMyGod harkens back to an 2007 Boston Magazine article, which features some comments from chef Child that are not only a bit mean-spirited, but quite colorful in how they refer to gay people.

Homophobia was a socially acceptable form of bigotry in midcentury America, and Julia and Paul participated without shame for many years. She often used the term pedal or pedalo—French slang for a homosexual—draping it with condescension, pity, and disapproval. “I had my hair permanented at E. Arden’s, using the same pedalo I had before (I wish all the men in OUR profession in the USA were not pedals!),” she wrote to Simca. Fashion designers were “that little bunch of Pansies,” a cooking school was “a nest of homovipers,” a Boston dinner party was “peopled by 3 fags in an expensive house…. We felt hopelessly square and left when decently possible,” and San Francisco was beautiful but full of pedals—“It appears that SF is their favorite city! I’m tired of them, talented though they are.”

That excerpt certainly is vivid.  But it doesn't exactly tell the whole story.  Yes, reading the Boston Magazine article, it's pretty clear that Child wasn't entirely comfortable with how "gay men" populated the cooking business was during the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.  But it also seems that late in her career, Child started to have a change of heart when it came to the issue of homosexuality.  And it was mostly influenced by the onslaught of HIV/AIDS.  Here's more:

But by the 1980s, when the AIDS crisis began to unfold, the horror of what was happening to people she knew, and people she loved, dealt a significant blow to her longtime prejudice. “Last year my husband and I stood by helplessly while a dear and beloved friend went through months of slow and frightening agony,” she told a crowd at the Boston Garden in 1988 during an AIDS benefit sponsored by the American Institute of Wine and Food. “But what of those lonely ones? The ones with no friends or family to ease the slow pain of dying? Those are the people we’re concerned about this evening. And food is of very special importance here. Good food is also love.”

Hmm...so is she or isn't she homophobic?  It's a tough call.  As a few others have noted, Julia Child had a lawsuit filed against her in 1992 for $3 million, after allegedly preventing an openly gay man from taking over a leadership position at American Institute for Wine and Food, which she helped launch.  Child and a few allies dismissed the lawsuit, with Child telling the LA Times that she had nothing to do with the hiring practices of the Institute.

So the truth probably remains a bit of a mystery.  But here's something that's definitely factual: Meryl Streep, who is taking on the role of Julia Child in Julie & Julia, is probably one of the most vocal Hollywood supporters of equal rights for LGBT folks.  She even decried President Bush's efforts to pass a federal same-sex marriage ban at the 2004 Golden Globes.

Whatever Child's legacy may be, and it seems a bit of a mystery, Streep's legacy certainly isn't in question.