Tony Guadagno, talks about the annual ftival of Halloween, and whether or not has bee a tradnal gay holiday.
Contents:
- WHY HALLOWEEN IS 'GAY CHRISTMAS' TO MANY LGBTQ AMERINS
- HALLOWEEN IS THE GAYT HOLIDAY — AND EVERYONE IS FALLY CATCHG UP
- POP THEORY: HALLOWEEN IS GAY, BUT IS LBIAN?
- IS HALLOWEEN A TRADNAL GAY HOLIDAY?
- WHY FOR SOME LGBT+ PEOPLE, HALLOWEEN IS THE GAY CHRISTMAS
- HALLOWEEN IS GAY CULTURE AND SO IS THE BABADOOK
WHY HALLOWEEN IS 'GAY CHRISTMAS' TO MANY LGBTQ AMERINS
Long before June beme Gay Pri Month and October beme Comg Out Month, Halloween was unofficially the LGBTQ+ muny's yearly celebrated "holiday." * halloween is gay *
"Merrie cherryAn extravaganza of the supernatural, all thgs sweet and larger-than-life stum, many LGBTQ Amerins like Roberts hail Halloween as "gay Christmas. " But the ntemporary excement around the supernatural holiday has a long history wh the LGBTQ morn phrase "gay Christmas" actually stems om an earlier queer nickname for the holiday, "bch Christmas, " acrdg to Marc Ste, a profsor of history at San Francis State Universy, and thor of "Cy of Sisterly and Brotherly Lov. "Durg the 1950s and '60s, Philalphia's LGBTQ muny celebrated "bch Christmas" by drsg up drag and partyg the cy's gay bars, Ste said.
"Followg the wave of LGBTQ activism and visibily sparked by the 1969 Stonewall rts, more formal versns of queer Halloween celebratns began poppg up "gayborhoods" around the untry.
" As a gay man, he scribed Halloween as one of the only tim a year growg up when he was not "ostracized or punished or cricized for havg the flamboyant, creative tennci. I was dog my typil TikTok scroll one day, and the sound of Jsi Lange's famo voice sayg, "That's what gays do! Even though Dty isn't known to speak tths about the "gays, " the latter part of her statement do rg te for a lot of people the LGBTQ+ muny.
HALLOWEEN IS THE GAYT HOLIDAY — AND EVERYONE IS FALLY CATCHG UP
* halloween is gay *
But, for a lot of queer people, there's fely some accuracy to the notn that "Halloween is for the gays.
In fact, 's known as "Gay Christmas" bee of how popular is for queer people.
POP THEORY: HALLOWEEN IS GAY, BUT IS LBIAN?
A holiday wh no nnectn to relign is very attractive; mak sense to dub Halloween "the great gay holiday, " as lbian poet and thor Judy Grahn once lled . Halloween Drag Balls and queer Halloween bash make up more of the gay history surroundg Halloween, but that didn't always translate to the greater narrative, nor did ntribute much reprentatn of queer people horror movi. And of urse, clud l that had to do wh "sexual perversns, " which heavily applied to homosexualy on screen.
Jt like a lot of movi and TV did, horror implemented the e of the "Bury Your Gays" trope whenever there was a queer character on screen. Sexualy was often a reason behd the aths and a major parallel to an outsi world that already vilified homosexualy. You've got your gay ins like The Babadook — whose "fiant" act of terrorizg an Atralian fay stuted him as a queer meme — or the homoerotic relatnship between Billy and Stu Scream.
Then there's Ltat and Louis Interview Wh a Vampire, who not only uld be terpreted as gay if the viewer sired but also troduced a fay un ma up of two men and a child. Wh the uple spendg 13 years together and Dani sacrificg herself for the betterment of others, she don't fall to the "Bury Your Gays" trope. When this holiday around, "the most wonrful time of year" tak on a whole new meang for the gays.
IS HALLOWEEN A TRADNAL GAY HOLIDAY?
Give me your fearsome ghouls and your flamg gays, your slutty zombi and your zany queens, for is time for Halloween.
Still thk our "liftyle" is to blame for all that's wrong wh the Dallas, Texas, I easily fet how odd I am to some people simply bee I am gay. (If we show those ghouls a good time, you never know who might jt stay gay town permanently.
WHY FOR SOME LGBT+ PEOPLE, HALLOWEEN IS THE GAY CHRISTMAS
Contributg edor Tyler Curry is also edor at large at Pl magaze, the thor of A Peack Among Pigeons, and a gay man livg wh HIV. Halloween is Ameri’s “gay” holiday.
HALLOWEEN IS GAY CULTURE AND SO IS THE BABADOOK
In the words of lbian poet and scholar Judy Grahn, Halloween is “the great gay holiday. Long before June officially beme Gay Pri Month and October beme Comg Out Month for the LGBTQ+ muny, Halloween was unofficially our yearly celebrated “holiday. By the 1980s, gay enclav such as Key Wt, Wt Hollywood and Greenwich Village held annual Halloween street parti.
Gay cultural fluence on Halloween has bee such an unstoppable phenomenon here and abroad that Universy of Florida anthropology profsor Jack Kugelmass scribed Halloween as an emergg gay “high holiday” his 1994 book Masked Culture: The Greenwich Village Halloween Para:. The “masked culture” first veloped by the gays of San Francis has reached across the l of orientatn — and now jumped across the boundari between natns and languag. It has been the Gay muny that has most flamboyantly exploed Halloween’s potential as a transgrsive ftival, as one that operat outsi or on the margs of orthodox time, space, and hierarchy.
Ined, is the Gay muny that has been arguably most rponsible for Halloween’s adult rejuvenatn. But as Halloween flourished as a gay cultural phenomenon, so too grew a backlash by fundamentalist Christians wh their “Hell Ho.