#sometimes internet rabbit holes are. hmm. revealing.

[antigonewinchester]

No matter where Little Lord Fauntleroy opened and no matter the forecast, there were broken box office records and “standing room crowds.” It was a testament to the enduring popularity of the character, an aristocratic young boy created by author Frances Hodgson Burnett. Yet, curiously, even as men and women were racing through the rain to see the production, there was backlash building. Little Lord Fauntleroy not only entered the slang lexicon as an insult, but inspired a panic among certain parents, who feared their sons might turn out “priggish,” “sugary,” or, as all these coded words seemed to suggest, emasculated... The little lord fit neatly into this panic. “Little Lord Fauntleroy” became shorthand for a snobby, fussy, or maybe just well-dressed man, an insult uttered in such varied movies as 42nd Street and Sylvia Scarlett. He was also derided in the press. In a 1937 column, Marian Mays Martin warned that Little Lord Fauntleroy was “no model for any self-respecting small boy.” She elaborated that “boys of today are not the Little Lord Fauntleroy type. They may be sweet, but not sugary. They are reasonably good, but not priggish, and they are capable and enterprising enough to take on all manner of grown-up occupations.” The mayor of New York even joined the chorus of jeers. At a massive Boy Scouts of America show held in Madison Square Garden, in 1936, Fiorella LaGuardia “applauded the Boy Scouts’ denial of Little Lord Fauntleroy as their hero,” and praised the group’s “continued virility and healthy growth.”

speaking of maintaining masculinity... very weird to learn that the actual child character of little Lord Fauntleroy was written to be an un-entitled, kind, and generous kid, but his name then became culturally associated with the idea of a spoiled privileged brat instead.