Lessons from the Orange Juice Queen

I first encountered Anita Bryant in a grad school gender and women’s studies course called “History of Feminist Thought.” One week, our content area was conservative activists of the mid-twentieth century.  These women spent their lives pushing back on the contemporary feminist movement, advocating for traditional [read: white, middle class, American] ideas of womanhood.  That’s when I saw my first image of her.  Anita Bryant stood at a podium in a black and white, her perfectly coiffed, maternal hairdo standing out against a backdrop of protest signs reading, “Protect Our Children.”  

Anita Bryant had turned her Second-Runner-Up status in the 1959 Miss America Pageant into a thriving career.  The Oklahoman’s buttery singing voice landed her work in the jingle and spokeswoman field.  Between 1959 and 1977, she came to represent the most trusted American products in the nation, including Kleenex, Coca-Cola, Tupperware, and most famously, Florida Orange Juice.  Orange juice consumption in the 1960’s and ‘70’s was directed by the wholesome Anita Bryant.  Her commercial success and ongoing partnership with the Holy Grail of breakfast juices eventually led her and first husband, Bob Green, to relocate to Miami Florida, living in a swanky waterfront mansion.

In 1977, Miami-Dade County passed an ordinance to grant protections for LGBT people in housing and employment.  In response, conservatives launched a full scale campaign to overturn the measure, electing Anita Bryant as their fearless spokeswoman – a role with which she was intimately acquainted.  She became the face of the Protect Our Children campaign, which claimed the ordinance would allow gay school teachers to teach homosexuality to their children and “recruiting” them into their “lifestyle”, codifying the grooming myth.

Since seeing the image of Anita in my feminist thought course, I knew I wanted to portray her…in drag, of course.  I didn’t see a clear course for a storyline until the unthinkable happened.  It was revealed in 2021 that Anita has a queer granddaughter who announced her intentions to marry another woman. Like a bolt of lightning, I knew it was time to be Anita.  

Anita and the Save Our Children Campaign successfully overturned the Miami-Dade gay protection ordinance.  Emboldened by her success, Anita and husband Bob traveled the country lending support to conservatives in other cities seeking to combat similar protections for queer folks.  Their campaign is credited with spurring an entire generation of previously politically inactive queer people into action.  

Unfortunately for Anita, her close business associations with American products became a liability.  Queers and progressives led a nationwide boycott of any product Anita had endorsed, specifically her beloved orange juice.  Gay bars across the country stopped using orange juice in screwdrivers, favoring pineapple juice instead.  Anita was ridiculed on television programs including The Match Game and the Carol Burnett Show.  And in an ultimate humiliation, Anita was pied in the face on live television by a gay activist.  Look it up on Youtube.  It’s amazing.

The boycotts worked.  Anita lost her sponsorships, her home, and eventually even her husband.  The right wing Evangelicals keeping her afloat saw her as damaged goods and also abandoned her.  Miami ended up reinstating their gay protection ordinance.  Anita lost everything gambling on hate.

The first years of the 2020s have seen a surge of legislative attacks on queer people, specifically trans folks.  Florida, under the leadership of human bowl of rice pudding, Ron DeSantis, continues its anti-gay legislative agenda with the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.  Kentucky has recently passed its own anti-trans legislation, SB 150: a bill aptly termed the most oppressive in the country.  During these times of increased attacks on the lives of queer people in our states, Anita serves as a powerful lesson.  Boycotts work.  Resistance works.  It’s time for action.

Since seeing the image of Anita in my feminist thought course, I knew I wanted to portray her…in drag, of course.  I didn’t see a clear course for a storyline until the unthinkable happened.  It was revealed in 2021 that Anita has a queer granddaughter who announced her intentions to marry another woman.  Like a bolt of lightning, I knew it was time to be Anita.  

In an interview from 1977, reporter Barbara Howar asked Anita, “Suppose you found out in some way one of your children was a homosexual, what would you do?”  Anita responded, with her signature composure, “I would love them and not disown them.”  

In the fictionalized version of reality we create in my latest one-woman show, “Anita Do-Over,” we ask a question based on one assumption.  Assuming Anita wants to attend her granddaughter’s wedding–maybe a stretch, but not impossible after years of softening and aging–what would Anita be willing to do to get an invite?  In this imagined world, Anita’s granddaughter says Anita can attend the wedding if she tours gay bars across the country asking for forgiveness.

With heaps of dumb humor, Anita tries to grapple with her past.  Can her lasting legacy of demonizing queer people as child predators be softened by acts of atonement?  Probably not – but it’s fun to watch her squirm.

“Anita Do-Over,” co-written by Rev. Tara Dactyl and myself, produced by Drag Daddy Productions, has extended its initial run, being invited to participate in the 2023 Louisville Fringe Festival,  August 18 & 19th.