Category Archives: Naughty Librarian (male)

Naughty Librarians (boys’ night out)

Men of the Stacks male librarian calendar -- click to view more photos and ordering info

We have come to my final post in this series of reel librarian character types (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for previous posts). The male counterpart to the female Naughty Librarians, this type was originally entitled “The Sex-obsessed Male Librarian” in my undergraduate thesis.

Striking differences do separate the two varieties of Naughty Librarians. There are not as many examples of the males as there are females; obviously, the female Naughty Librarian fantasy reigns supreme (see here for a related post). The male charaters are more focused on actual sex, not a diluted vision of love, as sometimes seen in the female equivalent. Also, the female Naughty Librarians turn to violence more often due to repressed feelings, while their male counterparts almost never do.

The male Naughty Librarian, although a sexually charged character, is one who attempts to act out his desires because he is professionally and/or personally unsuccessful in some way. This marks the biggest deviation between the two sets of Naughty Librarians. The females are usually young to middle-aged, and quite attractive (after they let their hair down after work, of course), whereas the males are usually middle-aged to older, and usually viewed as a bit creepy or otherwise sexually unappealing to others.

The father in You’re a Big Boy Now (1966), I. H. Chanticleer (Rip Torn), illustrates the male Naughty Librarian type. While his son, Bernard, experiments with fantasies — in the film, they are expressed in Day-Glo ’60s colors — the father acts out by sexually harassing his pretty young secretaries. One scene, see above, involves Bernard’s landlady, Mrs. Thing (Julie Harris), who assumes that the father must want to rape her after she accidentally locks them both into the archives vault. She freaks out when she realizes the archives are full of “dirty” pictures of Ovid and ancient literature “pornography” (her perspective, not mine). In this instance, Chanticleer, the Curator of Incunabula at the library, is NOT sexually interested in Mrs. Thing; he is more preoccupied with saving the rare books. And let’s be blunt, she’s not the same type as the secretaries he’s used to going after.

Michael Habeck as Berengar in The Name of the Rose

In The Name of the Rose (1986), Michael Habeck plays the assistant librarian Berengar, a homosexual monk prone to staring and giggling. His white skin and googley eyes do stand out, and not in a good way. And then we find out that Berengar has caused a brilliant young monk to commit suicide after being forced to partake of the “sins of the flesh.” Knowing his sin, Berengar whips himself and becomes the third victim in the film because he has read the “forbidden” book, Aristotle’s second book of the Poetics.

Perhaps the most realistically lecherous of all the male Naughty Librarians, Peter Sellers plays John Lewis in Only Two Can Play (1962), a Welshman vying for a promotion of Sub-Librarian by embarking on an affair with the wife of a library board member (see below).

Still from Only Two Can Play

The beginning of the film sets up John’s character, saturating his vision with glimpses of women’s legs, breasts, and hips. He groans in frustration after he discovers a book he has dropped is called Is Sex Necessary? His obsession with the female sex is compounded by the fact tht he has a young, desirable wife — but also faces the realities of two messy kids at home. John never actually consummates the affair, and in the end, he agrees with his wife to work on his sex addictive behavior. I must note that the film does not reveal to us at the end if he has mastered his womanizing ways.

So there you have it! I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of reel librarian character types. For all the types I’ve identified thus far, please see the Role Call section of this site.

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Debbie does a play

During my research of librarian films, I have come across two erotic films, Debbie Does Dallas (1978) and Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy (1976) that reportedly include librarian characters. I haven’t seen either film yet, and I don’t intend to include straight-to-video adult films that include librarians on this site — that’s a whole other subset of Naughty Librarians that I won’t get into. But these two films were both highly successful at the time and considered classics of their kind, produced during the so-called “Golden Age of Porn” where adult films became more mainstream. Just telling it as it is, folks.

The plot of Debbie Does Dallas is quite simple:  a group of cheerleaders try to earn enough money to send Debbie to try out for the “Texas Cowgirls” squad (obviously a riff off the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders). How do they earn that money? There’s a reason it’s called the oldest profession in the world, of course. ;)

As I detailed in a earlier post about how I find new titles to watch, I routinely check my Master List against various sources. And imagine my surprise when I found a copy of Debbie Does Dallas in my local community college consortium — not the film, alas, but the play! I had no idea that the film had been adapted for the stage, but indeed, Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical was created in 2001 by Susan L. Schwartz for the New York International Fringe Festival. It was adapted by Erica Schmidt, with original musical numbers by Andrew Sherman.

And indeed, there is a librarian in the play, a Mr. Biddle. Here’s how he’s described in the script notes:

Mr. Biddle works at the high-school library. He is repressed and reserved. Biddle is of a forgotten generation in his principles and etiquette. (He is a male character in a porno and he does not want sex.) He is smart, rash, quick to anger and passionate about poetry.

From that description, I immediately thought Anti-Social Male Librarian, the male equivalent of the Spinster Librarian. This type of reel librarian tends to hoard knowledge, exhibits poor social skills, dislikes people, and focuses on rules. Makes sense, right?

Mr. Biddle is definitely a minor character, turning up in only a few scenes. In Scene 8, “Girls Get Jobs,” the poet cheerleader Donna asks if she can work at the library. He is reluctant, but is convinced by Donna’s scintillating argument:  ”I could help by watching books and stamping and stuff.” (Sigh.) His response?  ”Oh, ok.” (Double sigh.)

Getting spanked in Debbie Does Dallas the Musical

His biggest and final scene comes in Scene 20, “The Library.” Mr. Biddle catches Donna and her boyfriend Tim fooling around. Angry, he shouts, “You know the rules here. How could you so wantonly break them?” Afraid he will tell her parents, she allows him to spank her (see right). And then he asks her to spank him:  ”I always wanted to be bent over and spanked by a cheerleader ’cause I’m a bad and nasty boy.” Donna readily agrees, calling him “Bad Biddle.” This sets him back $105.

And with that, he also serves as a Naughty Librarian — the males of this type, unlike the female Naughty Librarians, are generally unattractive (check) and interested in deviant or unusual sexual acts (check).

So is the play successful? The scenes are extremely short, with repeated occurrences of inane dialogue. I lost count of how many times I read, “Oh, ok” and “Ok, bye.” The sex acts are hinted at or simulated or played with bananas (not kidding, see below). In truth, I rolled my eyes at the self-described tone of the play, as set out in the introductory notes:

The style of this piece is: rodeo-porno-football-circus. Every performer must be willing to go over the top and yet NOT BE CAMPY. The performances are meant to be big in size but never winking at the audience.

Debbie Does Dallas on the stage

Does Mr. Biddle’s character in the play mimic his reel counterpart? Apparently so, as according to Frank Vigorito’s review from the 2001 New York International Fringe Festival, “Debbie’s plot and script are word-for-word faithful to the original 1978 film.” And the scenes feel so short because of the removal of the sex scenes, so scenes “seemingly occur about every 30 seconds.” I agree with Vigorito’s final verdict:

Essentially, the play moves from one pointless scene of dialogue to the next, with the audience left waiting for something to look forward to, but that moment never arrives, unless you consider the final curtain.

The play is available from Dramatists Play Service, where you can also listen to music samples.

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