Jamie Donahue | Billy's Dad Is a Fudge-Packer! / 2004

the happy household

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jamie Donahue (screenwriter and director) Billy's Dad Is a Fudge-Packer! / 2004 [10 minutes]

 

For those who do not like puns or those many of my friends who are disinterested in camp gay innuendo, certainly Billy’s Dad Is a Fudge-Packer! may not be their cup of tea, particularly if, like Billy’s father (Robert Gant) they prefer to do their own “tea bagging.”* For me, nonetheless, this short 2004 film remains an hilarious example, although purposely highly exaggerated, of a coded film that perhaps, even today, some innocents may experience as somewhat strange in its language but otherwise quite innocuous.

    Employing the genre of family friendly black-and-white educational films of the late 1950s and early 1960s such as Boys Beware (1961)—although that film was most certainly not friendly to the gay community, intimating that gay men are natural child stalkers—Jamie Donahue’s satire superficially presents a typical day in the life of an outwardly “normal” American family, while simultaneously presenting Billy’s father and mother was being utterly involved with male gay and lesbian sex.

     Assigned a paper on his aspirations for Career Day, Billy is somewhat troubled in facing the difficulties any future job might present to him and, for a moment, is even envious of his sister (Gina Rodgers) whom he is convinced need only keep herself pretty and sociable as she prepares to become a housewife. Yet director Donahue reveals the young girl’s duties visually as she spends most of the movie stuffing her mouth with hot dogs, coke bottles, and fruity icicles, signifying what her daily activities may eventually entail. Mother (Cady Huffman) is busy saving and licking green stamps into her little book so that she might buy her daughter a pearl necklace.

     As Billy returns home, his father soon after, Mother is visited by the friendly female grocer, Betty Henderson (Alex Borstein) who our always reliable narrator describes as very independent for a woman, but notes that it’s all okay since her husband is away serving the nation. Betty always knows just what Mother needs, delivering her goods to all the wives in the neighborhood.

      Betty, a short, stocky woman who fits the description of a dyke, bring nutritious things like melons, eggs, and avocados. While mother checks the bird, Betty offers some helpful hints on using the turkey baster.

      Billy pours himself some milk, but Mother warns to be careful, worried that he may spill on himself before dinner. She wonders if he doesn’t have some homework to do, trying to get out of the kitchen so that she may accept a helping hand before dinner from Betty.

  

       Dinner is finally served, Father, as always, never too tired to toss the salad.

The conversation soon turns to Billy who tells of his assignment. The father perceives it as serious business and asks his son he wants to be. Billy can’t decide between being a policeman or a cowboy. His father remarks that at Billy’s age, he two had made those choices, although he also considered being a construction worker or even an Indian. That is before he found his true forte as a fudge-packer!

       Billy is still not sure exactly what his father does at the candy factory for he works, so his Dad, with the help of our trusty narrator, explains his job to his family.

 

      Father rises at the crack of dawn. He comes early every day of the week to the Creamy Precious Candy Company. Billy’s Dad has several men under him and likes to stay on top of things. He realizes that there will be less friction if his men work together as a well-oiled machine. As the boss, he realizes that one of his employees always appreciates the gesture of having his stool pushed in. But he comprehends was well that in order to maintain his position he must also be a little rigid, as he picks up what appears to be a fudge-packing tool and asks another of his employees to make sure that it’s not dirty. Yes, Father keeps a tight grip on things and in the end is satisfied each and every day.

        Billy wonders whether he too might not grow up to be a fudge-packer. But his Dad, wisely explains that it is simply too early to know.

 

A short dictionary of this film’s language:

 

Bird. Generally speaking, a slang term for a female, but it can also refer to a woman’s sexual organs.

Coming early. In heterosexual terms, in generally means ejaculating before the penis has entered the vagina or rectum, but in this case it means oral sex, the act of cumming before fudge-packing or anal sex.

A Dyke. A slang term used to mean a lesbian. It began as a homophobic slur to describe masculine, butch, or androgynous women, but was later reappropriated by some lesbians to imply assertiveness and toughness.

A fudge-packer. A homosexual male who engages in anal intercourse. It appears to have been a demeaning term applied to gay men by straight individuals, since it mistakenly asserts that rectal fucking is unclean, the ass being always filled with excrement.  

Hot dogs, coke bottles, and fruity icicles. These are all phallic objects signifying that the girl is preparing for oral sex.

Melons, eggs, and avocados. All round or oval eatables, suggesting the female, and in the case of the sliced avocado, the vulva and vagina. Actually, the root meaning of word avocado comes from the Nahuatl word āhuacatl, meaning testicle. But in this case, the director uses it quite differently.

Policemen, cowboys, construction workers, and Indians. The four male iconic figures first represented by the gay-popular musical performers, the Village People. The group later added a leather man and a soldier, all representing the most common human sexual fetishes of gay men.

Spilled milk. To ejaculate semen over oneself.

Stool pushed in. Presumably what the “fudge-packer” does, pushing in the excrement as he engages in anal sex.

Tea-bagging.  The act of a male dipping his testicles in and out of his partner’s mouth. In the case of gay male dancers, it often refers, as in John Waters’ film Pecker, of bouncing the testicles on a customer’s head or into his face.

Using the turkey baster. In this case it the turkey baster primarily represents a large dildo. But it also can define the act of women sucking the sperm out of a condom, without their partner’s knowledge, in order to impregnate themselves.

 

Los Angeles, December 6, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2023).