Our Hearts Were Young and Gay: Gender Repair and the Lavender Tinge of Cold War-era U.S.–French Talk Radio

• In Event: Radio Voices: Cultures, Networks, and Ideologies

Abstract

This paper argues that Bonjour Mesdames, a U.S.-French transatlantic talk radio program produced by French public broadcasting afforded a forum for voices rarely heard on the radio in Cold War-era America, not only French and U.S. women in the fashion and creative professions, but also unconventionally gendered men, particularly U.S. expatriates living in Paris with close ties to the industries of fashion, journalism, and arts, some of whom who were also part of an incipient bohemian sexual culture of gay men who found a “voice,” so to speak, via the unlikely medium of transatlantic broadcasting. This paper uses rare recordings of the series to explore the program’s topical and ideological concerns and examines the unexpected queer, lavender-tinged quality that male participation and vocal performances sometimes gave to an instrument of Cold War geopolitics dedicated to fostering transatlantic cultural solidarities between Americans and the French.

Author

• Derek W. Vaillant, U of Michigan