1 Criticism Winter 2016, Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 001–033. ISSN 0011-1589. doi: 10.13110/criticism.58.1.0001 © 2017 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201-1309 IN AND OUT, OR “THE AMBIGUITY OF THE JEWEL” Daniel Humphrey You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair. —Attributed to Martin Luther To be penetrated is to abdicate power. —Leo Bersani, “Is the Rectum a Grave?” (1987) 1 In a remarkable coincidence, two unusually frank films involving male homosexuality opened within a day of each other in Western Europe. Anders als du und ich (§175) (Different from you and me [§175], dir. Veit Harlan, West Germany) premiered in Austria on 29 August 1957 under its original title, Das dritte Geschlecht (The Third Sex), and can justly be criticized for being virtually as homophobic as Jud Süβ (Jew Süss, 1940)— its director’s notorious Nazi-era feature—is anti-Semitic. The following day, however, the surprisingly gay-positive Les oeufs de l’autruche (The eggs of the ostrich, dir. Denys de La Patellière, France) appeared in its country of origin. Had they been released two years apart, rather than a single day, one might be tempted to consider the latter a deliberately produced countertext to the former. Ultimately, despite a number of strik- ing similarities, the French film offers a very different attitude than does its German correlate toward nonnormative sexualities, attitudes that are expressed through crucially divergent narrative and cinematic approaches. In terms of the films’ similarities, both involve repressed, authoritar- ian fathers who suddenly find themselves confronted with the horrifying (for them) specter of a homosexual son. Additionally, both present their “at risk” adolescents as being on the crucial threshold of manhood—although still living at home, each is eighteen years of age. 2 Each son is further char- acterized by a strong interest in modernist aesthetics, something regarded