I forgot to mention that I feel like Crowley's full human name Anthony is a reference to Antony and Cleopatra as well in the section about Shakespeare.
My favorite take on the Sodom story in the context of this show is that the dudes knocking on Lot’s door were just some rowdy drunk friends of Aziraphale’s who saw him go in that house and were trying to get him to come party. In Rome, Aziraphale was going to see Petronius, probably the author of the Satryicon, which is basically a very explicit gay sex comedy. Oh and Crowley’s rocking a women’s hairdo (30 years ahead of the trend). Crowley is also in historically feminine dress in the Flood and Golgotha flashbacks and has a feminine hairstyle Before The Beginning. The “discrete gentleman’s club on Portland Place” has been confirmed specifically to be the Hundred Guineas Club, where gentlemen of means would pay soldiers for sex.
I'm enjoying your Good Omens series a lot! I have just a couple of things to add. About catching more layers to unpack upon rewatch, all I can say is, I follow a few GO blogs on Tumblr and they have archived quotes from almost every department that helped to create the show. They are all amazing geeks and they all agree, "everything is meant." These things that we see were purposely included. There are Easter eggs galore! And they check out fan postings occasionally to see how many we've found! Neil even said, he saw fans discussing Beelzebub/Gabriel post S1, and thought to himself, that could work..... I'm assuming he meant as a way to move Gabriel from his position in heaven and leave an opening for Aziraphale but also, to delight fans, especially while quashing Shop Wives and Ineffable Husbands, at least for the moment. And as for gayness, NG still maintains that Aziraphale and Crowley look human but are another species and that gender identity isn't a thing for them as it is for humans. But however you look at it, both are Queer. They are unlike others of their family/species. Crowley, as we see in S2, was always unlike other angels and he was thrown out of the family without explanation and into a pit of boiling sulphur! Much of his character throughout the series can be attributed to that formative event. Angel Crowley was a creator and retains the imagination. Aziraphale was supposed to be a soldier but we see how uncomfortable a fit that role was for him right from the start. "Where is the flaming sword I gave you?" Sword, right, sharp cutty thing...... I seem to have misplaced it. He's still trying to guard the sum of all knowledge though and keep it out of human hands in his bookshop! So all along we have seen Crowley turn his back on both heaven and hell as much as he dares while Aziraphale is still clinging to that connection even while he's doing his own thing behind the backs of his group. Heaven and Hell's problem with Aziraphale and Crowley is that they don't think they should work together/jointly, not the idea that they are boyfriends. I think Neil and Terry wanted it to be clear that God, or the Almighty, doesn't have any issue with love in all its forms. It's the bureacracy governing both sides now that can't stand deviation from what they see as "normal" and expected. Heaven didn't appear to have issues with two human women falling in love. And everyone's problem with Beez and Jimbriel seemed to be that they are from opposite sides, like Romeo and Juliette. Jim referred to not knowing what a "wife" is while shelving books and Beez has always been referred to as they/them. The Scottish barman takes both of.them to be Freemasons, an all male organization.
I’m doing research for writing a school paper on the queerness of Good Omens so thank you for this video lol very excited to see an analysis of some of the history included in the show!
This video also made me feel like Charlie from Always Sunny pointing in an unhinged way at the Pepe Sylvia wall so prepare for A LOT of words!! I apologize in advance!! To your point about them being sexless but still technically gay, I always think of the line in the book that says "Both [Crowley and Aziraphale] were of angel stock, after all". They are part of two opposing sides that are never meant to care about each other, but they are also the same sort of sexless otherworldly entity, and are deeply in love anyway, and if that isn't gay idk what is!! As for the oysters, according to my brief research both the Romans and the Greeks actively looked for stuff that was considered to be an aphrodisiac (though I assume only the Greeks used that word as the Roman counterpart would be Venus) as an attempt to produce larger families which were considered a sign of status. Oysters were also a sign of status, they were mostly a delicacy for the wealthy, so the restaurant Aziraphale mentioned was probably fancy, he has standards! People at the time believed that all things born in the sea, including oysters, had aphrodisiac properties since Aphrodite was born from the sea too. They also probably noticed that oysters were super suggestive looking, because some older qualifications for what was an aphrodisiac seemed to be "if it's genital-shaped it probably inspires lust". So, with that context, Aziraphale HAD to know what he was doing: he was sitting down to have drinks (another aphrodisiac!!) with Crowley and offering to tempt him to a very coveted, expensive meal that increased libido, was associated with a goddess of love, and looked super yonic. That's FLIRTING, BAYBEE. (also at some point there was apparently an oyster shortage in Rome because they were in such high demand. I'm fully convinced Anthony J "never eaten an oyster" Crowley and Aziraphale "so hungry that he ate a whole ox" Fell had something to do with this.) Huge tonal shift but 1941 is so unbelievably tense for me queer history-wise, I will say I disliked the Nazi zombie plot because I would have preferred not to see them come back after they were so satisfyingly killed, they weren't funny to me and largely didn't add much narratively that Furfur could not have done on his own, HOWEVER there was a line that stuck with me. As if Nazis pursuing a forbidden couple isn't obvious enough, one of the Nazis straight up calls Aziraphale "a real sissy type, a proper faygeleh" and "sissy" is obvious, but "faygeleh" is also Yiddish slang for "homosexual" as well as "little bird". In fact I recently learned it only ever meant "little bird" up until its use around 1930s America, and more than likely started being used as derogatory with Yiddish speakers there because it sounded similar to another notable f-slur. As a Jewish queer person this really stuck out to me, it's a much more deeply alarming version of seeing that little girl at Warlock's party call Aziraphale a slur in the book, because unlike little girls, Nazis were actively killing queer people, and he's specifically utilizing a homophobic term in a language spoken by Ashkenazi Jews that is now less commonly spoken due to the Holocaust. But on the bright side, "faygeleh" has a much more friendly, reclaimed usage in the modern day with a lot of Jewish gay people, sort of like "queer", I have a shirt that says "faygeleh" that my girlfriend got me for Hanukkah and I love it lots :)
I'm right there with you bringing them back as zombies felt very like mmmm can we not? And yeah I didn't notice that he called Aziraphale that at first which I found very odd and I was like oh dear. It's like they really wanna hammer home how people see Aziraphale I guess which like I get but also I would have almost preferred the 11 year old girl say it like in the book. That said that shirt sounds adorable and I love that for you.
Also thank you for sharing that bit of history I always enjoy learning new things and I would not have known a lot of that. I mean I had heard the term used on like Will and Grace once but didn't really know more than that.
But was that word used as a euphemism for homosexual in the UK at that time? I looked the word up and I couldn't find anything about it meaning the same thing in the UK as the US.
Absolutely! Furfur also referred to the old times when Crowley would “jump on his back as a monkey”…! Seems like there might have been something going on there :)
I'm enjoying your videos. Speaking of hidden meanings, I was wondering if anyone has ever mentioned Aziraphale's 'flaming' sword. God gave that to him for a reason - he is our angelic rep. ;)
Historically, christians have interpreted the word 'know' to be a euphemism for sex in Genesis 19:5. It is commonly accepted that there are instances of the Hebrew word 'to know' in the torah (old testament) that are euphemisms for sex, but they're rare and there's no proof about the meaning in that particular verse. The mob thought Lot's angel guests were foreigners, so the passage might be depicting bigots harassing strangers when they should be offering hospitality - which is a serious sign of moral decay in some denominations. But if it means sex... then the mob's intent is to gang rape them. That means centuries of christians conflating gay sex with rape.
The sins that Sodom and Gomorrah were specifically called out for in Ezekiel were lack of hospitality, cruelty to foreigners, and not sharing their food and comforts with the poor when they already had more than enough for themselves. I might feel a bit differently about the church if those were the sins that got criminalized.
Hi! Lovely video! A question, when you say they won't really be a part of the third chapter, is there anything else you can say about that? It's ok if it's something that you'll cover in the next video and so don't want to talk about now!
Thank you! So the way I understood Neil Gaiman's Forward that he wrote for the Good Omen's Script book it made it sound like the third chapter of the original book didn't really feature Crowley and Aziraphale (which is why the 3rd episode's first half is all about them). Being that they are the crux of the "Gay" Omens book review that I'm doing I kind of felt like if they aren't really in it then I'm not sure I'll have very much to talk about with regard to that chapter. So I'm hoping maybe someone will have like an idea of other things I should discuss during that video in case I run out of actual gay stuff to say.
Oh no I think we will. I meant the novel I've been doing a review of the original novel and I'm thinking it focuses more on like Adam and his friends and like the four horseman and all that.
@@NarcissaDeville oh, yea, that makes sense! Btw, I am really looking forward to having those characters back in the third series, especially the kids. They were my favorite part of the book apart from Crowley's gorgeous freaking English humor.
I forgot to mention that I feel like Crowley's full human name Anthony is a reference to Antony and Cleopatra as well in the section about Shakespeare.
My favorite take on the Sodom story in the context of this show is that the dudes knocking on Lot’s door were just some rowdy drunk friends of Aziraphale’s who saw him go in that house and were trying to get him to come party.
In Rome, Aziraphale was going to see Petronius, probably the author of the Satryicon, which is basically a very explicit gay sex comedy. Oh and Crowley’s rocking a women’s hairdo (30 years ahead of the trend). Crowley is also in historically feminine dress in the Flood and Golgotha flashbacks and has a feminine hairstyle Before The Beginning.
The “discrete gentleman’s club on Portland Place” has been confirmed specifically to be the Hundred Guineas Club, where gentlemen of means would pay soldiers for sex.
Iconic
Funfact the actor for Merlin, Colin Morgan, played Newton Pulsifer in Good Omens: The BBC Radio 4 Dramatization.
I'm enjoying your Good Omens series a lot! I have just a couple of things to add. About catching more layers to unpack upon rewatch, all I can say is, I follow a few GO blogs on Tumblr and they have archived quotes from almost every department that helped to create the show. They are all amazing geeks and they all agree, "everything is meant." These things that we see were purposely included. There are Easter eggs galore! And they check out fan postings occasionally to see how many we've found! Neil even said, he saw fans discussing Beelzebub/Gabriel post S1, and thought to himself, that could work..... I'm assuming he meant as a way to move Gabriel from his position in heaven and leave an opening for Aziraphale but also, to delight fans, especially while quashing Shop Wives and Ineffable Husbands, at least for the moment.
And as for gayness, NG still maintains that Aziraphale and Crowley look human but are another species and that gender identity isn't a thing for them as it is for humans. But however you look at it, both are Queer. They are unlike others of their family/species. Crowley, as we see in S2, was always unlike other angels and he was thrown out of the family without explanation and into a pit of boiling sulphur! Much of his character throughout the series can be attributed to that formative event.
Angel Crowley was a creator and retains the imagination. Aziraphale was supposed to be a soldier but we see how uncomfortable a fit that role was for him right from the start. "Where is the flaming sword I gave you?" Sword, right, sharp cutty thing...... I seem to have misplaced it. He's still trying to guard the sum of all knowledge though and keep it out of human hands in his bookshop! So all along we have seen Crowley turn his back on both heaven and hell as much as he dares while Aziraphale is still clinging to that connection even while he's doing his own thing behind the backs of his group. Heaven and Hell's problem with Aziraphale and Crowley is that they don't think they should work together/jointly, not the idea that they are boyfriends. I think Neil and Terry wanted it to be clear that God, or the Almighty, doesn't have any issue with love in all its forms. It's the bureacracy governing both sides now that can't stand deviation from what they see as "normal" and expected. Heaven didn't appear to have issues with two human women falling in love. And everyone's problem with Beez and Jimbriel seemed to be that they are from opposite sides, like Romeo and Juliette. Jim referred to not knowing what a "wife" is while shelving books and Beez has always been referred to as they/them. The Scottish barman takes both of.them to be Freemasons, an all male organization.
I’m doing research for writing a school paper on the queerness of Good Omens so thank you for this video lol very excited to see an analysis of some of the history included in the show!
That sounds amazing
This video also made me feel like Charlie from Always Sunny pointing in an unhinged way at the Pepe Sylvia wall so prepare for A LOT of words!! I apologize in advance!!
To your point about them being sexless but still technically gay, I always think of the line in the book that says "Both [Crowley and Aziraphale] were of angel stock, after all". They are part of two opposing sides that are never meant to care about each other, but they are also the same sort of sexless otherworldly entity, and are deeply in love anyway, and if that isn't gay idk what is!!
As for the oysters, according to my brief research both the Romans and the Greeks actively looked for stuff that was considered to be an aphrodisiac (though I assume only the Greeks used that word as the Roman counterpart would be Venus) as an attempt to produce larger families which were considered a sign of status. Oysters were also a sign of status, they were mostly a delicacy for the wealthy, so the restaurant Aziraphale mentioned was probably fancy, he has standards! People at the time believed that all things born in the sea, including oysters, had aphrodisiac properties since Aphrodite was born from the sea too. They also probably noticed that oysters were super suggestive looking, because some older qualifications for what was an aphrodisiac seemed to be "if it's genital-shaped it probably inspires lust". So, with that context, Aziraphale HAD to know what he was doing: he was sitting down to have drinks (another aphrodisiac!!) with Crowley and offering to tempt him to a very coveted, expensive meal that increased libido, was associated with a goddess of love, and looked super yonic. That's FLIRTING, BAYBEE. (also at some point there was apparently an oyster shortage in Rome because they were in such high demand. I'm fully convinced Anthony J "never eaten an oyster" Crowley and Aziraphale "so hungry that he ate a whole ox" Fell had something to do with this.)
Huge tonal shift but 1941 is so unbelievably tense for me queer history-wise, I will say I disliked the Nazi zombie plot because I would have preferred not to see them come back after they were so satisfyingly killed, they weren't funny to me and largely didn't add much narratively that Furfur could not have done on his own, HOWEVER there was a line that stuck with me. As if Nazis pursuing a forbidden couple isn't obvious enough, one of the Nazis straight up calls Aziraphale "a real sissy type, a proper faygeleh" and "sissy" is obvious, but "faygeleh" is also Yiddish slang for "homosexual" as well as "little bird". In fact I recently learned it only ever meant "little bird" up until its use around 1930s America, and more than likely started being used as derogatory with Yiddish speakers there because it sounded similar to another notable f-slur. As a Jewish queer person this really stuck out to me, it's a much more deeply alarming version of seeing that little girl at Warlock's party call Aziraphale a slur in the book, because unlike little girls, Nazis were actively killing queer people, and he's specifically utilizing a homophobic term in a language spoken by Ashkenazi Jews that is now less commonly spoken due to the Holocaust. But on the bright side, "faygeleh" has a much more friendly, reclaimed usage in the modern day with a lot of Jewish gay people, sort of like "queer", I have a shirt that says "faygeleh" that my girlfriend got me for Hanukkah and I love it lots :)
I'm right there with you bringing them back as zombies felt very like mmmm can we not? And yeah I didn't notice that he called Aziraphale that at first which I found very odd and I was like oh dear. It's like they really wanna hammer home how people see Aziraphale I guess which like I get but also I would have almost preferred the 11 year old girl say it like in the book. That said that shirt sounds adorable and I love that for you.
Also thank you for sharing that bit of history I always enjoy learning new things and I would not have known a lot of that. I mean I had heard the term used on like Will and Grace once but didn't really know more than that.
But was that word used as a euphemism for homosexual in the UK at that time? I looked the word up and I couldn't find anything about it meaning the same thing in the UK as the US.
Btw, love these comments! ❤
your analysis of the second ww part open my eyes. Will see that part in a completely different light in the future. Love your videos!😊
Thank you so much. 😊
I thought the same thing when I watched the scenes with Furfur, he was acting like a jealous ex or something!
And the way Shax says Poor old Furfur when I first heard that it sounded like she was inferring there was more there.
@@NarcissaDeville YES that was my first reaction too
Absolutely! Furfur also referred to the old times when Crowley would “jump on his back as a monkey”…! Seems like there might have been something going on there :)
I kept trying to figure out what the Heaven he was talking about in that scene I was like what is he saying I could never make it out lmfao
Looooved this vid! Learned some new stuff and saw things in different ways. Good job on this!
Thank you.
Had no idea about Buddy Holly. That is so cool!
Great video! 💜🌈😈😇
I didn't either until researching for this video
32:47 oh wow, i never thought about it like that! That's a brilliant observation. Very interesting video :)
I'm enjoying your videos. Speaking of hidden meanings, I was wondering if anyone has ever mentioned Aziraphale's 'flaming' sword. God gave that to him for a reason - he is our angelic rep. ;)
Aziraphale patron saint of the LGBT
Historically, christians have interpreted the word 'know' to be a euphemism for sex in Genesis 19:5. It is commonly accepted that there are instances of the Hebrew word 'to know' in the torah (old testament) that are euphemisms for sex, but they're rare and there's no proof about the meaning in that particular verse. The mob thought Lot's angel guests were foreigners, so the passage might be depicting bigots harassing strangers when they should be offering hospitality - which is a serious sign of moral decay in some denominations. But if it means sex... then the mob's intent is to gang rape them. That means centuries of christians conflating gay sex with rape.
The sins that Sodom and Gomorrah were specifically called out for in Ezekiel were lack of hospitality, cruelty to foreigners, and not sharing their food and comforts with the poor when they already had more than enough for themselves. I might feel a bit differently about the church if those were the sins that got criminalized.
Hi! Lovely video! A question, when you say they won't really be a part of the third chapter, is there anything else you can say about that? It's ok if it's something that you'll cover in the next video and so don't want to talk about now!
Thank you! So the way I understood Neil Gaiman's Forward that he wrote for the Good Omen's Script book it made it sound like the third chapter of the original book didn't really feature Crowley and Aziraphale (which is why the 3rd episode's first half is all about them). Being that they are the crux of the "Gay" Omens book review that I'm doing I kind of felt like if they aren't really in it then I'm not sure I'll have very much to talk about with regard to that chapter. So I'm hoping maybe someone will have like an idea of other things I should discuss during that video in case I run out of actual gay stuff to say.
@@NarcissaDeville aw, do you think we might not get a resolution to their story? I hope that's not the case!
Oh no I think we will. I meant the novel I've been doing a review of the original novel and I'm thinking it focuses more on like Adam and his friends and like the four horseman and all that.
@@NarcissaDeville oh, yea, that makes sense! Btw, I am really looking forward to having those characters back in the third series, especially the kids. They were my favorite part of the book apart from Crowley's gorgeous freaking English humor.