When the gay muny, wh uncil backg, breathed new life to the heart of Manchter, other ci began to see the bs sense chasg the pk pound. But the area's growg populary brought wh straight vars ... As Manchter gets back the pk aga, <B>Beatrix Campbell</B> reports on the lsons learned.
Contents:
- THE GAY ECSTASY OF THE VILLAGE PEOPLE
- A GAY IN REMEMBERS LIFE THE VILLAGE, AND THE VILLAGE PEOPLE
- THE REAL STORY OF THE YMCA THAT INSPIRED THE VILLAGE PEOPLE'S GAY ANTHEM
- WE ARE NOT A GAY ACT, VILLAGE PEOPLE SAY (WH A STRAIGHT FACE)
THE GAY ECSTASY OF THE VILLAGE PEOPLE
Fifty years after Stonewall, Felipe Rose—“The Indian” om the Village People—remembers New York Cy’s Greenwich Village as the gay rights movement took hold. * village people were gay *
Were the Village People actually gay or was that jt a joke at their expense?
A GAY IN REMEMBERS LIFE THE VILLAGE, AND THE VILLAGE PEOPLE
After 35 years of beltg out YMCA and In the Navy, the Village People are still bothered by one qutn: what’s this gay subtext that people keep mentng?They have been scribed as “the first" name="scriptn * village people were gay *
I don't know enough about the people or their mic to know whether people jt lled them gay based on those stum or if there was more to . However, be this memory real or simulacm, strik me as hilar given what the Village People are universally known for: tongue--cheek gay nuendo, sparsely vered by a flimsy veneer of hyper-macho drag.
But they’re not ‘jt’ gay. They’re almost overtly (homo)sexual.
THE REAL STORY OF THE YMCA THAT INSPIRED THE VILLAGE PEOPLE'S GAY ANTHEM
However the service’s tomatic n-on feature clearly disagreed and cid that, when Cowley’s sensual, gay bathhoe-ready rhythms end, ‘Macho Man’ would be a great follow-up. And I was fascated by the empowerment I felt om Village People, the tle track on their eponymo but album, and an unambiguo ll for gay liberatn that sounds more ak to a prott chant than a chart topper.
WE ARE NOT A GAY ACT, VILLAGE PEOPLE SAY (WH A STRAIGHT FACE)
Said first three albums (and pecially the first two) rry a surprisgly polil energy; the more popular tracks, such as the eponymo Macho Man, might be vacuo but others – take I Am What I Am, a fiant chant that suggts exactly what you’d expect to suggt – envisn a world which male bodi uld be ee to e together whout Francis was one of the gay mecs the Village People celebrated on their visnary but album (Cred: Alamy)As far as evokg same-sex love go, there was a precent – om dis’s genis, queered sexual posivy was the life blood of the genre, as Peter Shapiro intifi Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Dis.