The 80s put the gay man ont and centre of pop. Then me the Aids crisis – and three s of monisatn, disrd and displacement. Now, wh Troye Sivan leadg a new wave of gay stars, has change tly arrived?
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AS A GAY MAN, THE '80S CRIPPLED MY INTY
While there have, undoubtedly, been signifint ton LGBT history earlier s, I believe the Eighti was a particularly important perd. That saw a major shift towards the emergence of a global gay culture. The gay genie me right out of s ltle pk bottle and to the streets (and the * gay fashion 80s *
In the UK, the Thatcher ernment created Sectn 28 of the Lol Government Act, makg illegal for lol thori to support anythg that might promote homosexual relatnships as a viable alternative to heterosexual ‘fay life’. And even the US Army, who had clared homosexualy to be “patible wh ary service” 1982, were forced to adm 1989 that gay recs were “jt as good or better” than heterosexuals. But when one particular look cropped up the post-Stonewall gay scene of the 1970s, was so popular—and so distct—that the guys who sported were dismissed as “clon.” Inspired by archetyp like wboys and bikers, the clone look was all about nim, plaid shirts, bomber jackets, and t-shirts, wh a body-nsc bent.
(The look was also known as the “Castro clone,” noddg to s likely origs the Castro neighborhood of San Francis before spreadg to New York Cy and elsewhere.)And while the nickname was ially pejorative, the clone perd marked perhaps the first time that gay men prented themselv wh a queer-signalg uniform that was a direct rponse to societal stereotyp. “The clone was a reactn to thgs you would see movi of gay men beg flty and nelly,” says John Calendo, a wrer who lived LA and New York Cy throughout the 70s and 80s, and worked as an edor at the clone-cubatg sk mags Blueboy and In Touch for Men. He pots to the gay mstrel stereotyp the 1967 film The Producers, along wh the timid-lookg guys on the illtrated vers of gay pulp books wh nam like All the Sad Young Men.
(Not to mentn the 1964 article Life magaze lled “Homosexualy Ameri,” which scribed a “sad and often sordid world.”) “That’s the kd of imagery”—backwards stereotyp that basilly villaized queer people—“that a lot of my generatn who beme the clone people grew up wh the ccible of the 60s,” Calendo ntu, when the civil rights and gay liberatn movements were expandg ias of equaly and eedom.