How To Be Gay|David M. Halper

how to be gay halperin

A pneer of LGBTQ studi dar to suggt that gayns is a way of beg that gay men mt learn om one another to bee who they are. The geni of gay culture ris some of s most spised stereotyp -- atheticism, snobbery, melodrama, glamour, ritur of women, and obssn wh mothers -- and the social meang of style.

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HOW TO BE GAY

* how to be gay halperin *

No one rais an eyebrow if you suggt that a guy who arrang his furnure jt so, rolls his ey exaggerated disbelief, lik techno mic or show tun, and knows all of Bette Davis’s bt l by heart might, jt possibly, be gay. Inspired by the notor unrgraduate urse of the same tle that Halper tght at the Universy of Michigan, provokg cri of outrage om both the right-wg media and the gay prs, How To Be Gay trac gay men’s cultural difference to the social meang of style. Far om beg terred by stereotyp, Halper nclus that the geni of gay culture ris some of s most spised featur: s atheticism, snobbery, melodrama, adoratn of glamour, ritur of women, and obssn wh mothers.

Halper, a profsor of the history and theory of sexualy at the Universy of Michigan, Ann Arbor, provotively argu that when to fg what means to be a homosexual man, sex is overrated.

” The great value of tradnal gay male culture, he further poss, perhaps even more challenggly, “ris some of s most spised and repudiated featur: gay male femy, diva worship, atheticism, snobbery, drama, adoratn of glamour, riture of women and obssn wh the figure of the mother.

HOW TO BE GAY BY DAVID M HALPER – REVIEW

In “How to Be Gay,” David M. Halper argu that when to fg what means to be a homosexual man, sex is overrated. * how to be gay halperin *

Among the most unual thgs about “How to Be Gay” is that is, at heart, a 500-pl-page work that explor a fundamental kd of gay sensibily by ncentratg almost exclively on one actrs, Joan Crawford, and on a sgle scene a sgle movie, the 1945 drama “Mildred Pierce. Halper teas an enormo amount out of this scene, cludg the sense of “glamour and abjectn” gay dienc fd Crawford, and how the film packag the “transgrsive spectacle of female strength, tonomy, feists and power. Halper works up to an argument (impossible to summarize here) about how the film evok a “dissint perspective” on the very ia of romantic is articulate about many other thgs this book, cludg how gay men often fd more ronance straight cultural artifacts than gay on.

Halper even neatly mows down hipster irony the face of the kd of gay male irony that f ’s a kaleidospic book that at s base breaks wh what the thor lls “the ‘Brokeback Mounta’ crowd. What he n be ncerned about, seems, is the culture of Gay, passed down through generatns of slappers, proppg up the bars of Soho London, Chelsea New York, and the Marais Paris, all quarters which are now as ad as the proverbial Halper has wrten an over-long book, more lolised s applitn than he seems fully to appreciate, about the aspects of beg gay other than sexual choice. Naturally, when a urse "How to Be Gay" was announced the Amerin mid-wt, an army of enraged fay-first mpaigners rose up tpe leisurewear to nounce Profsor Halper for wantg to rec the nocent.

He adms that "Amerin" is an unspoken adjective much of what he has to say, cludg the tle of the book – I gus "How to be an Amerin Gay" would be an even more unvg subject than the one he has chosen.

HOW TO BE GAY

How To Be Gay by Halper, David M. - ISBN 10: 0674283996 - ISBN 13: 9780674283992 - Belknap Prs: An Imprt of Harvard Universy Prs - 2014 - Softver * how to be gay halperin *

Outsi Ameri, he reliably gets thgs wrong, suggtg that Bollywood mils may reprent the same sort of gay cult to Indian gay men that Sex and the Cy do to Amerins – he's clearly never seen a film a Calcutta cema, or he would have noticed that the appeal is not a gay thg at all at s source. He don't wre about cloth, or gtur, or ga, or any of what intifi a gay man to another at 80 pac, or the syntax and vobulary and slang which mak them mutually clear at closer quarters – I mean, you n't always be sayg "Have you seen Mommie Deart? The book would have been much stronger if were a discipled 120 pag about Mildred Pierce, and s off-shoots – Mommie Deart and var drag-show renstctns – specifilly examed om the viewpot of a middle-aged gay man.

I feel pretty much left out, never havg seen Mildred Pierce, as a blissfully funny book about homosexualy the 19th century, Strangers, Graham Robb provid a list of thgs that at the time were thought to e or to dite homosexualy. It was surprisg, fact, that anyone end up heterosexual, so all-enpassg were the the quali Halper intifi wh gayns are beg "a great dancer or ok, that you have a weakns for mid-century morn, or that you drive a VW Golf" – a VW Golf? Elsewhere, lists of gay-nnected activi n stretch to surprisg plac: "beg gay had somethg to do wh likg Broadway mils, or listeng to show tun or torch songs or Judy Garland, or playg the piano, wearg fluffy sweaters, drkg cktails, smokg cigarett and llg each other 'girliend'.

Elsewhere, Halper wonrs whether gay culture is dyg out, on the basis that – he claims – straight people bought up the ho of gay people after they died of Aids the 1980s and 90s, and that the numbers of gay bars major ci are on the cle om peaks the 70s. After all, those lns hookg up on Grdr are formg powerful nnectns wh hundreds, sometim thoands of other gay men, tossg each other asi afterwards wh savage abandon, and are dog whout the aid of mercial bars. That don't seem like such an awful age of the mp persona, the bg ment, the ironic alln is not passg, exactly, but is movg towards a particular sectn of a particular gay muny at a particular pot time.

‘HOW TO BE GAY’ BY DAVID M. HALPER

An tertg book about gay culture would spend time wh a range of gay men, of different ag and class and backgrounds, fdg out how their social works were formed, as well as vtigatg how they liked to be urse, that would be a great al harr than jt gog on about a uple of scen om 40s movi that you and your iends simply adore. You'd hardly gus, om Halper's acunt, that gay culture was anythg but owned and monstrated by late-middle-aged whe men about four Amerin cultural nfince is driven on by s ual fuel, money – some time soon the ccial gay diva will not be Lady Gaga, but Fish Leong.

If they ever read this book, which they won't, they would probably put their hands to their throat the gture known to German gays as "the necklace of pearls", roll their ey, and say what we always say of a tragic effort all round – "Pur-lease. : 25 cmInclus biblgraphil referenc and xB+ uld try harr -- Diary of a sndal -- History of an error -- Amerin falsettos -- Gay inty and s disntents -- Homosexualy's closet -- What's gayer than gay? -- Culture and genre -- The passn of the crawford -- Sufferg quotatn marks -- The bety and the mp -- Mommie queert -- Gay fay romance -- Men act, women appear -- The sexual polics of genre -- Tragedy to melodrama -- Bch baskets -- Gay femy -- Genr and genre -- The meang of style -- Irony and misogyny -- What is gay culture?

Contrary to what nservativ feared back 2000 when he tght his first urse at the Universy of Michigan tled “How to Be Gay”, David Halper do not have a “Straight to Sissy Five Easy Steps” method of doctratg youths to the gay liftyle. Rather, Halper’s book is an terventn agast those who tmpet the “ath of gay culture” (which he argu has been clared for over 40 years now) now that wing tolerance and greater visibily of gays the media should make Judy Garland, show tun, and drag queens obsolete. Instead he vtigat how a “distctively gay way of beg” is rooted a “dissint way of feelg and relatg to the world” that ntu to nourish a distct gay cultural practice terted mp, Lady Gaga, and re-ns of The Goln Girls, even though we have out gay entertaers and the melancholic realism of Brokeback Mounta to directly pict .

HOW TO BE GAY - SOFTVER

Halper very well uld have tled the book “Everythg I Know About Beg Gay, I Learned om Watchg Joan Crawford”, bee he spends over a hundred pag of his 500 pl page tome analyzg inic scen om Mildred Pierce and the mp classic Mommie Deart. The batn of feme glamour and abjectn that gay men assume through feme intifitn and appropriatn—through drag, other words, or through the cult of Joan Crawford—mak available to gay men a posn that is at once dignified and grad, ser and unser, tragic and lghable. ” It is not that gay men secretly want to be a woman like Crawford, but stead, the historil fascatn wh the diva-figure is based on seeg “s own plight, the distorted mirror of a valued femy.

Departg om many of San Sontag’s famo Not on Camp, Halper mak a se for mp as polilly subversive and a se study for the plited stcture of gay intifitn: “Camp works to dra sufferg of the pa that also do not ny. ” In one of his more movg passag, Halper prais the mp tactics of the Fire Island Widows, a group of gay men who lost lovers due to AIDS that don the tradnal Italian widow’s garment of mourng.

Sce there was no public mol for gay men to mourn their ad, they followed the gay cultural tactic of mp and appropriated one that intified solidly wh the feme posn of grief, but retaed a tone of parody to lsen the stg of loss.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* HOW TO BE GAY HALPERIN

How To Be Gay|David M. Halper .

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