ABSTRACT
During one of the semesters I taught at a Sacramento community college while I was researching and interviewing for this book, I was asked, out of the blue and out of a previously silent classroom, by a young woman in the first row, “So, Mr. Gorman! What is it about gay men and The Wizard of Oz?” Thirty or so pairs of eyes focused on me. It seemed lots of inquiring minds had the same question, but without the chutzpah to ask insistently during a quiet moment in English 1A. Never a teacher to discourage genuine curiosity, I searched my gray cells for record of a study on the subject. It was an unsuccessful split-second search. I fell back on my natural insight, born of years of watching The Wizard of Oz since its first showing on television, and even more years of humming “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” whenever things got tough.
