An troductn to Polari, the old Brish gay slang, cludg a word list.
Contents:
- WHAT DO CAMP MEAN IN GAY TERMS
- THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
- QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL
WHAT DO CAMP MEAN IN GAY TERMS
When gay and lbian people had to vent their own languag wh which to talk wh each other, mp led the way. * camp gay language *
This was the ght experience for many gay men, lbians, and others who intified as queer durg a time when same-sex sex was a crime. Polari (or Parlary, Palarie, as ’s also known, om the Italian “to talk”) is one lost language om Bra that beme primarily associated wh gay men (and to a lser extent wh lbians). Acrdg to Pl Baker, foremost lguistic expert Polari, this secret language, far om beg a lorful fad that jt fell out of fashn (before beg cryptilly revived by Bowie) was val to the many gay men who ed to munite wh each other unr the radar—at least until homosexualy stopped beg a crime the late sixti, renrg the secret language somewhat obsolete.
It’s a phenomenon that seems to replite across different cultur, such as Bahasa Gay, a gay speech style of Indonia, which has ma s way to mastream Indonian life whout the public beg particularly aware that gay people even exist.
THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
so bad ’s good. except ’s gay." name="Dcriptn" property="og:scriptn * camp gay language *
The spreadg of the sorts of gay speech styl might be thanks to drag queens and other queer performers. The above clip for example, om 1938’s screwball edy Brgg Up Baby, shows what is probably the first appearance of the word “gay” wh a cidly queer, cross-drsg meang a mastream movie.
Ad libbed by the reputedly bisexual Cary Grant, mastream dienc would not have unrstood the slang term, and passed right unr the nose of the Hays Office, which strictly enforced the censorship of such unspeakable thgs as homosexual referenc film. It wasn’t until the Stonewall Rts of 1969 ( which drag queens played a proment role) that this slang meang of “gay” really took hold mastream English. San’s Sontag’s much celebrated 1964 say “Not on ‘Camp'” brought awarens to this hard-to-scribe emergg athetic of over-the-top yet ironic theatrily, attributg to gay culture.
But Sontag also threw a b of sha at s origs, murrg that “one feels that if homosexuals hadn’t more or ls vented Camp, someone else would. In 1950s Bra, men were still beg imprisoned for nsensual homosexual acts, numberg over a thoand by mid-, trapped by unrver ps posg as gay men. Thoands of gay men and lbians were purged om ernment agenci and the ary, spied on, arrted, and severely penalized, their reers and futur stroyed.
QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL
* camp gay language *
This genr-nformg group, known as the homophile movement, directed their genr anxieti and anger toward more flamboyant members of the queer subculture who were out there the open, givg the rt of them a fabuloly bad name.