The rise and fall of gay culture by Harris, Daniel | Open Library

Contents:

• THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY: A CULTURAL-HISTORIL APPROACH TO GAY INTY VELOPMENT
• THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE
• THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE
• THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE /

THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY: A CULTURAL-HISTORIL APPROACH TO GAY INTY VELOPMENT

The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture.

Gay Men and Hollywood. To an secure gay teenager strand the uncivilized hterlands of North Carola, the grac ladi of Park Avenue and Sutton Place embodied a way of life more glamoro and ls provcial than his own. pervasive among young homosexuals that suated self to our voic, weakeng the grip of our regnal accents, which were gradually overridn by the artificial language of this imagary ele.

This strange act of ventriloquism reprents the hight form of diva worship and is the direct oute of my perceptn my youth that, as a homosexual, I did not belong the muny which I lived, that I was different, a staway. show others how out of place I felt, and, moreover, to fight back agast the hostily I sensed om homophobic rednecks by beltlg their cns through unremtg displays of my own polish and sophistitn. to Hollywood stars bee of their femy, nor did my admiratn of them reflect any burng sire to be a woman, as the homosexual's fascatn wh actrs is ually explaed, as if diva worship were simply a ridiculo.

THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE

For me and untls other gay men growg up small-town Ameri, film provid a vehicle for exprsg alienatn om our surroundgs and lkg up wh the utopic homosexual muny of our dreams, a sophistited "artistic" mimon. Homosexuals' volvement wh Hollywood movi was not only more tense but fundamentally different om that of the rt of the Amerin public. At the very heart of gay diva worship is not the diva herself but the almost universal homosexual experience of ostracism and secury, which ultimately led to what might be lled the atheticism of maladjtment,.

the gay man's exploatn of cematic visns of Hollywood granur to elevate himself above his antagonistic surroundgs and simultaneoly exprs membership a secret society of upper-class athet. Richard Friel's novel The Movie Lover (1981) provis a tellg illtratn of how gay men ed cema for the fensive purpos of dramatizg their alienatn. Burton Rair, s gay protagonist, is such a prec xb that he reads Vogue.

In this affectnate riture of the gay. young homosexual who "never que belonged, never que f " wh the other children on his block. and Brish accents, reflects ls the homosexual's nate affy for lovely thgs, for bety and sensualy, than his profound social disntent, which we attempt to overe by creatg flatterg imag of ourselv as nnoissrs.

THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE

The hard-bten personali of such Machiavellian reerists as Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich were, of urse, not irrelevant to gay men's fascatn wh them. In the homosexual's imagatn, Hollywood divas were transformed to gay men, unrgog a strange sort of sex change operatn om which they emerged as drag queens,. as men women's clothg, honorary butch homosexuals as fearls as Joan Crawford Johnny Guar playg Vienna, a hard-boiled saloon keeper who guns down her rival, Merces McCambridge, or as Tallulah Bankhead Lifeboat playg.

Drag queen imagery has, fact, always pervad gay men's discsn of the legendary Hollywood actrs, of Gloria Swanson,. whose "actg has more than a whiff of the drag queen about "; of Vivien Leigh, whom gay thor Pl Roen intifi wh "for the simple reason that I know she's really not a woman"; or of Mae Wt, who was.

THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE /

gay fans that her curvaceo hips and imposg bosom were the real thg and not prosthetic foam bber vic. Bee of our fiercely fetishistic volvement wh diva worship, the star even a sense trad plac wh her gay dience, who ed her as a naked projectn of their trated romantic sir, of their abily to exprs their sexual impuls.