"It takes all makes and models..." - A Starsky & Hutch Essay
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| Title: | "It takes all makes and models..." - A Starsky & Hutch Essay |
| Creator: | Kath Moonshine |
| Date(s): | 2008 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Starsky & Hutch |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
"It takes all makes and models..." - A Starsky & Hutch Essay was written in 2008 by Kath Moonshine and printed in the con zine for SHareCon. Read more about the zine at SHareCon zine.
Some Topics Discussed
- hiding one's fannishness, and then being open about it
- this fan's fascination, and desire, that focuses on the show
- Starsky & Hutch as the first positive gay couple role model
- identifying with both characters
Excerpts
When I was a young teenager, watching Starsky & Hutch in first run, I desperately wanted to be Starsky. Carefree and harmlessly (even delightfully) eccentric, possessing a jaunty walk and a ready smile, Starsky was the living embodiment of the "new" peanut-butter-&-jelly-burrito hero. Neither a brooding loner cowboy coming in from the dusty plains, nor a fervent leader of epic slave rebellions, Starsky was the epitome of the wise-cracking champion: a trickster, much like Bugs Bimny made human, and all the more admirable for retaining a whiff of wet paint fresh from the cartoonist's brush. My hero.
In contrast, the only wemess that clung to the all-too-real Hutch was his feet of clay and sopping forehead. Despite his matted bangs, Kenneth Hutchinson was and remains, thanks to the staying power of DVD, a long, lean, luscious icon of white gold. That lovely exterior clothed a soul capable of great feats of heroism, stoicism . .. and even the occasional dash of cruelty. Let's face it—Hutch is moody and tetchy. Eccentric, too. Like and unlike his partner, Hutch's weirdo factor was partly a product of his times, but with more an aura of distraction, impermeability even. Addressing his plants or piling the back seat of his crappy LTD high with flea-market treasures felt natural enough, but even to my youthful eye the womanizing felt forced, more project than passion.
Despite my early suspicions about Hutch's sexuality, or perhaps because of it, I made out with my first boy while watching S&H. And let me tell you, I was at my most Walter Mitty-esque, imagining I was Starsky fooling around with Hutch while the Star Trek fanboy copping a feel was, no doubt, showering me with his best Captain Kirk imitation.
Starsky and Hutch hold a deep and abiding place because they became (in my efferent heart) the first gay couple I knew, and I honored them for their bravery and abiding devotion.
My course set, I "dedicated" myself to the alter of fandom, and began my metamorphosis into a proper fannish acolyte. Conventions wouldn't appear on the fannish horizon for the better part of a decade, but audio cassette recordings of episodes, iconographic drawings lovingly tinted with my mother's makeup, photos cut from Tiger Beat, and the odd scrap of gossip from Rona Barrett's magazine would sustain me through the dry years. Once I found fan conventions, it wasn't long before slash zines found me. Ah! I couldn't have been happier or more self satisfied with that copy of Code 7 in my hands: Many others saw my guys the same way I saw them! I wasn't alone in my beliefs any longer.
And then there was the time I left my RenFaire job early to attend an SH:101 mini-con, only to come back and be confronted by men in chain-mail loin cloths wanting to hear about the drinking and smoking going on at my weekend of Starsky & Hutch debauchery. Imagine their disappointment when I told them there was no drinking and smoking, only a skit wherein one fan with a long pony-tail whipped it around and pretended to be a helicopter. Imagine my surprise when I found myself confessing to this pseudo-Viking horde my belief that Starsky and Hutch were early role models of a positive gay relationship on network television—and getting solemn nods of approval and agreement all around.
And thus started my career as an "out" fan. I learned a lot from our guys over the years, but self-knowledge is the hardest acquired. Since my teens I've yearned to be Starsky, and I've always felt a bit of disappointment that I wasn't. You see, I am Hutch. It's just taken me a long time to grow up enough to feel comfortable being tall, blonde, and tetchy. But you know what? Hutch is a pretty groovy place to live, babe. And life has shown me again and again that it really does take aU makes and models...