Judy Garland as gay icon
William Goldman wrote in Esquire magazine about the same Palace engagement. He too disparages the gay men in attendance. He dismisses them as "fags" who "flit by" chattering inanely. He also advances the tragic figure concept. He suggests that "if [homosexuals] have an enemy, it is age.  And Garland is youth, perennially, over the rainbow." He wrote, "Homosexuals tend to identify with suffering. They are a persecuted group and they understand suffering. And so does Garland. She's been through the fire and lived – all the drinking and divorcing, all the pills and all the men, all the poundage come and gone – brothers and sisters, she knows."