Peter Scolari and Tom Hanks star in Bosom Buddies on ABC
In an earlier entry in this blog series, I wrote about Jack Tripper of Three's Company (1977). Jack was a heterosexual man who had to pretend to be gay in order to share an apartment with two women in Santa Monica in the mid to late 1970's. Today I would like to share with you the story of Henry and Kip - two heterosexual men living in New York City in the 1980's, who had to pretend to be women in order to have affordable housing.
Bosom Buddies aired on ABC from March 1980 to November 1982 lasting just two seasons. It was a sitcom in the buddy comedy genre that starred Tom Hanks as Kip Wilson (Buffy) and Peter Scolari as Henry Desmond (Hildegard). Kip and Henry worked at an advertising agency as a graphic artists and a copywriter respectively. In the pilot episode, their apartment is demolished (while they slept) and they are left with no other choice but to dress as women in order to rent an apartment at the Susan B. Anthony Hotel - a cheap apartment building exclusively for women. In addition to allowing them to have a place to live, the men also thought that the experience would make a great book.
A typical episode revolves around the men navigating both their personal and professional lives while maintaining their secret. In the second season, the men open their own advertising agency and most of the principle characters discover that the women are actually men and so the drag elements of Bosom Buddies was downplayed.
I vividly recall being a child playing Pong on a little black and white tv while my parents watched an episode of Bosom Buddies on the larger family tv in the living room. Even as a six year old I thought it far stranger that men were not allowed to live in the same building as women. However, having since done some research I learned that this was actually a very common practice from the 1920s to the 1970's as a mean by society to protect a woman's virtue (i.e. control them). In the early days of these "Women's Hotels", there were strict rules that residents had to follow which included mandatory prayer and bans on male visitors.
Interestingly, the show never did a gay episode and the men's sexuality was never questioned. However, in the 11th episode of season one Henry and Kip (dressed as women) prevent a robbery and end up on tv. Henry's mother having seen the news clip recognizes her son and comes for a visit prompting Henry to have to explain to his mother why he is dressing as a woman. The conversation between Henry and his mother plays out much like a coming out experience with mother and child learning that it doesn't matter what other people think or if they don't understand your decisions. A sentiment which echoes the show's theme song (see link below) "My Life" by Billy Joel.
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