Judy dedicates much of its runtime to Garland’s suffering. The film primarily takes place during the final year of the performer’s life, when Judy had already sullied her reputation (by showing up late, showing up under the influence, or not showing up at all). The opening scene finds Garland at one of the low-paying gigs she was forced to start taking on, incorporating her kids into her act because there was simply nowhere else for them to be. She returns to her hotel afterward only to find out that she’s lost her suite because she can no longer afford to pay for it. With nowhere to sleep, she shows up on the doorstep of her ex-husband, Sidney Luft, who ruthlessly threatens to sue Garland for custody of their kids. The film is drenched in Judy’s pain.
But that also makes the rare moments of joy Judy experiences (like her experience with the gay couple) stand out. For someone trapped in a cycle of unwavering misery, any pure moment has the ability to be life-changing (or, at the very least, life-affirming). Though the night Judy spends with the couple surely doesn’t prevent her ultimate downfall, it definitely offers her a brief bit of respite.
Elsewhere in his essay, Dyer argued, “Gay men’s use of Garland’s image constituted a kind of going public or coming out before the emergence of gay liberationist politics.” To support his claim, he spoke with a number of gay fans about their experiences at Garland concerts. One told Dyer, “There was an exuberance, a liveliness, a community of feeling which was quite new to me and probably quite rare anyway then. It was as if the fact that we had gathered to see Garland gave us permission to be gay in public for once.” In a 1972 article for Gay News that reflected on Garland’s legacy, theater critic Barry Conley surmised, “Perhaps the majority of those audiences saw in Judy a loser who was fighting back at life, and they could themselves draw a parallel to this.”
This latter quote rings especially true in Judy, particularly in the film’s conclusion. The residency at Talk of the Town was, arguably, Judy’s way of “fighting back at life.” She had accepted the gig with every intention to save up enough money so she could return to the U.S. and resume her role as a mother. But spurred on by her emotional trauma, she became the “loser” yet again, ultimately getting fired after suffering several on-stage breakdowns. Before she was willing to officially call it quits, however, Judy uses her charm to snake her way back into the spotlight for one final performance. And it’s here where she finally launches into the song the audience has been waiting for — her signature, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
She doesn’t get far into the performance before she breaks down crying. And when the tears overwhelm her ability to continue singing, the camera pans to the audience and then zooms in on the gay couple, who were there to see her again. Almost immediately, they stand up and begin to sing aloud, picking up where Judy trailed off. Eventually, others join in on the singalong, but it’s clear that this moment means more to them than it does to anyone else in that room. In that moment, they empathized with Judy’s pain; they saw a loser who was fighting back at life and chose to give her the support they always felt from her.
These men had been to jail and back for something that was out of their control, and Judy knew too well what it meant to be different. More importantly, she knew what it meant to find someone that can make you feel at ease in that difference. In modern parlance, this would make Judy an “ally.” But in the film’s late 1960s setting, it’s she who looks at them and says, “I feel like I have allies.” Surely, the feeling was mutual.
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