Who the fuck cranked up the heat in here?
Jan. 27th, 2009 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seiberwingAfter watching "Permission to Escape, Sir" (the only episode that directly involves Carter's relationship with a woman, as mentioned here), I'm left with a different impression of Carter's mentality towards women and sexual attraction as a whole. Unfortunately, this doesn't really clear up the matter of his actual sexuality.
See, Carter is very young-minded in many fashions. He even looks like a teenager (see icon) despite the fact that he's in his late twenties to early thirties. Unlike the other members of the group, he never talks about the fairer sex in terms of sexual appeal. His romantic interest, such as it is, is very child-like.
When discussing his former fiancee, he mentions that she's his childhood sweetheart. "I used to carry her books home from school. When it snowed, I'd carry her." There's an obvious emotional attraction, but absolutely no mention of her appearence. This is coming from a man in a POW camp who, if he isn't still a virgin, has probably not gotten laid in years. He's in an enviroment where heterosexual expression and extramarital sex is outright encouraged and he just doesn't seem to care. My assumption is that his relationship with his girlfriend was purely nonphysical, with the faint possiblity of kissing--this may be why she left him.
At the end of the episode in question, Carter decides not to escape in order to return to his sweetheart because he's more interested in going back to see a woman he met at the hofbräu. In true Hogan's Heroes tradition, this is played for laughs and the viewer is obviously intended to assume that he's become attracted to her in place of his girl. However, she's the first person who's shown him kindness and affection during his evening of futile, bumbling attempts to get arrested by German soldiers and Gestapo. He could just think she's a cool person and wants to hang out with her, which would be more in keeping with his usual behavior.
So, what does this mean? I'm not sure. It's clear that he has no sexual interest in women, although he can develop full emotional relationships with them--this may be because societal pressures encouraged him towards forming them with women, but not with men. However, this leaves the possibility of asexuality, where he simply does not have any sexual attraction to anybody at all. However, it could also be that he's gay and hiding it, given that besides the trouble inherant in being a homosexual in the 1940s he's a complete social klutz who probably has no idea what his attraction means in the first place or how to properly express it.
So in other words, I'm pretty much back where I started, with the added bonus of confirming that any slash or het involving Carter is going to be straight fluff unless something goes horribly wrong.
Also, Klink could not be more slashy with Hogan if he tried, and I'm not completely convinced he isn't. He gets depressed in the middle of the night and what does he do? He goes down to the barracks, wakes up Hogan, and mentions that he was feeling upset and wants to talk to him, colonel to colonel. Then they go to Hogan's room, he sits on the bed and mournfully pours out that he knows he's a failure and he hates it and the expression on his face is practically begging for a hug. Hogan mostly snarks at him about it, because I'm pretty sure he's a lady's man to the end and is a bit uncomfortable with the situation, but it's still so cute it hurts.
See, Carter is very young-minded in many fashions. He even looks like a teenager (see icon) despite the fact that he's in his late twenties to early thirties. Unlike the other members of the group, he never talks about the fairer sex in terms of sexual appeal. His romantic interest, such as it is, is very child-like.
When discussing his former fiancee, he mentions that she's his childhood sweetheart. "I used to carry her books home from school. When it snowed, I'd carry her." There's an obvious emotional attraction, but absolutely no mention of her appearence. This is coming from a man in a POW camp who, if he isn't still a virgin, has probably not gotten laid in years. He's in an enviroment where heterosexual expression and extramarital sex is outright encouraged and he just doesn't seem to care. My assumption is that his relationship with his girlfriend was purely nonphysical, with the faint possiblity of kissing--this may be why she left him.
At the end of the episode in question, Carter decides not to escape in order to return to his sweetheart because he's more interested in going back to see a woman he met at the hofbräu. In true Hogan's Heroes tradition, this is played for laughs and the viewer is obviously intended to assume that he's become attracted to her in place of his girl. However, she's the first person who's shown him kindness and affection during his evening of futile, bumbling attempts to get arrested by German soldiers and Gestapo. He could just think she's a cool person and wants to hang out with her, which would be more in keeping with his usual behavior.
So, what does this mean? I'm not sure. It's clear that he has no sexual interest in women, although he can develop full emotional relationships with them--this may be because societal pressures encouraged him towards forming them with women, but not with men. However, this leaves the possibility of asexuality, where he simply does not have any sexual attraction to anybody at all. However, it could also be that he's gay and hiding it, given that besides the trouble inherant in being a homosexual in the 1940s he's a complete social klutz who probably has no idea what his attraction means in the first place or how to properly express it.
So in other words, I'm pretty much back where I started, with the added bonus of confirming that any slash or het involving Carter is going to be straight fluff unless something goes horribly wrong.
Also, Klink could not be more slashy with Hogan if he tried, and I'm not completely convinced he isn't. He gets depressed in the middle of the night and what does he do? He goes down to the barracks, wakes up Hogan, and mentions that he was feeling upset and wants to talk to him, colonel to colonel. Then they go to Hogan's room, he sits on the bed and mournfully pours out that he knows he's a failure and he hates it and the expression on his face is practically begging for a hug. Hogan mostly snarks at him about it, because I'm pretty sure he's a lady's man to the end and is a bit uncomfortable with the situation, but it's still so cute it hurts.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 03:16 am (UTC)If you pay attention, Hogan is indeed a lady's man, and that lady is Helga/Hilda, Colonel Klink's secretary. Considering that Bob Crane eventually married the lady that plays Hilda, one might imagine there's some chemistry between them.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 03:20 am (UTC)If you're awake, you can tell Hogan's a lady's man. He gets cuddly with everything without a Y chromosome, and they almost constantly reciprocate.There is that aspect of using his charm to get information or favors--quite a bit of the time he seems more preoccupied with what he can get rather than the woman herself, but I think that's just part of his personality. He's a born manipulator, that's why he's good at his job.