As Pedro Almodóvar's gay wboy short film starrg Ethan Hawke & Pedro Pasl, Strange Way of Life, premier, we're lookg at the history of queer wboys pop culture.
Contents:
- THE FANTASY OF THE STRAIGHT WBOY: HOW GAY ROOS UPEND PRUMPTNS ABOUT LIFE RAL AMERI
- GAY ROOS ARE QUEER SPAC RAL PLAC
- GAY ROO AND THE SUBVERSN OF WTERN CLICHéS
- AT MEXI’S GAY WBOY NVENTNS, MEN NNECT WH EACH OTHER — AND THEIR UNTRY’S GGED PAST
- THE REAL GAY WBOYS
- AMERI'S WILD WT WAS SUPER GAY? WUT.
- STAFF OPINION: COWBOYS MEDIA ARE HERENTLY GAY
- GAY COWBOYS? SURE, PARDNER.
THE FANTASY OF THE STRAIGHT WBOY: HOW GAY ROOS UPEND PRUMPTNS ABOUT LIFE RAL AMERI
A photo exhib asks viewers to ponr whether, reclaimg the ia of the wboy, gay roos renounce vlence or revt ." name="scriptn * homosexuality in cowboy culture *
Ask anyone who’s seen Brokeback Mounta (2005) to characterize the film three words, and you’re almost certa to hear some variatn of “gay wboy love-story. Detractors, largely spearhead by right-wg and relig groups, quickly and fervently emed the film’s pictn of a homosexual uple immoral, evince of an attempt to femize men, and even anti-Amerin. ” Other crics acced filmmakers of phg an “agenda” onto Amerins, wh one wrg that “Hollywood screenwrers and producers thk that ’s their duty to teach Ameri that homosexual nduct and cross-drsg are normal behavrs that should be affirmed Amerin culture.
In light of this ntentn, I will explore the reali of homosexualy and homosocialy amongst wboys the Old Wt, argug that they were accepted and monplace.
In this way, Cooper has embedd an acknowledgement of same-sex love the very heart of Amerin myth, directly ntrastg claims that homosexualy is an unnatural and/or morn ventn. Furthermore, the homosocialy scribed Cooper’s work is not purely imagative, but actually reflective of historil rerds ditg the prence of homoerotic relatnships among wboys the ontier wt, keepg wh Cooper’s assertn that the stori were spired by tal he had been told by actual wboys.
GAY ROOS ARE QUEER SPAC RAL PLAC
* homosexuality in cowboy culture *
This is also nsistent wh fdgs like those Aled Ksey’s notor 1948 study, Sexual Behavr the Human Male, which reported the hight equenci of homosexual timacy to be among men ral farmg muni; probably, Ksey nclud, much like their pneer forebearers the ontier wt. One such source, a limerick that allus to homosexual timacy between wboys, was found by historian Clifford Wtermeier and published his 1976 say “The Cowboy and Sex. As Peter Boag explas, “to intify a homoerotic re s myth about the supremacy of whe Amerin masculy is to imply that Amerin dienc want their ontiersman to practice nonnormative sir as part of their rol natn-buildg” (12).
In other words, if there is somethg natnal about the wboy and if there is somethg homoerotic about the partnerships he forms the wilrns, then there is somethg homoerotic about Amerin natnal inty.
This would be somethg seemgly ntradictory to the rercement of homosexualy as Other and anathema to the Amerin/mascule ials the wboy was supposed to reprent. In forcg the dience to regnize a eper nnectn between the two protagonists, one that may reflect feelgs held by many other Amerin men, the dience is pelled to acknowledge the artificial boundary between homosocial and homoerotic that is imposed by homophobia and rerced by the Hollywood Cowboy. As Eric Patterson ncurs, “By lotg love between men wh the inographic system of landspe, clothg, and activi that are fundamental to the Wtern, Brokeback Mounta oblig rears and dienc to beg to regnize how the Amerin natnal fantasy of Wtern adventure and particularly the ialized wboy hero have distorted history and endorsed a homophobic nstctn of masculy” (117).
GAY ROO AND THE SUBVERSN OF WTERN CLICHéS
Each sprg, hundreds of gay wboys gather Zates for a nventn that celebrat sexual eedom and romanticiz Mexi's ral past. * homosexuality in cowboy culture *
For “Natnal Anthem, ” his llectn of imag on display at Manhattan’s SN37 Gallery, Gilford photographed participants the Internatnal Gay Roo Associatn. Through the Gay Roo Oral History Project and other rearch, we’ve been able to highlight the experienc of Gilford’s subjects and reveal the plexi of ral Ameri. And we hope that the unashamed prentatn of queer, ral rooers refut the lazy dichotomy of the urban queer progrsive vers the ral homophobic nservative.
AT MEXI’S GAY WBOY NVENTNS, MEN NNECT WH EACH OTHER — AND THEIR UNTRY’S GGED PAST
Wtern film in Sam Ellt might be the next to be nceled, bee he exprsed some wrongthk about the Amerin Wild Wt and gays. * homosexuality in cowboy culture *
Urban gay bars adopted untry-wtern motifs, attractg a clientele of urban “wannabe” wboys and ral transplants lookg for a muny that remd them of home. Phil Ragsdale, a bsman om Reno, Nevada, anized the first gay roo 1976 as a fundraiser, wh proceeds benefg the lol senr center and the Mcular Dystrophy Associatn. In 1985, the Internatnal Gay Roo Associatn formed, brgg together other gay roo associatns, standardizg l and creatg a formal circu for participants.
Rural queer folk went on to create other spac that uld exist beyond the imaged rtrats of ral and urban life: gay untry-wtern bars, square danc and cloggg groups. In an terview for the Gay Roo Oral History Project, gay rir Joe Rodriguez scribed the disfort he felt upon movg to San Fransis: “It was day and night g om a ral muny where I grew up, movg to the cy, but still wasn’t right, wasn’t the right f.
THE REAL GAY WBOYS
Four years after the first gay roo, Ameri elected Ronald Reagan, a stalwart nservative who played wboys on the silver screen, as s 40th print. As gay rooers worked tirelsly to raise money for chary, some non-LGBTQ anizatns started refg to accept donatns om roos affiliated wh the Internatnal Gay Roo Associatn. In creatg a space that allowed for overlappg – and sometim nflictg – inti, gay rooers have upend some of the long-held unrstandgs of queerns.
(Image cred: Alamy)The actor Sam Elltt's ntroversial recent ments cricised The Power of the Dog's 'allns to homosexualy', but queer readgs of wterns stretch back s, and Zachariah is a prime example, wr Sean the ialistic 1960s gave way to the cynil 1970s, US cema began servg up creasgly nihilistic and psychologilly plex stori, all wh sour endgs to match. Zachariah ptur the overlap between anti-Vietnam War, rock mic, sexual liberatn, femism, the emergence of gay rights, civil rights, environmentalism – they're all alcg – Gary NeedhamZachariah's screenplay was rewrten many tim. In all s Firign-fuelled youth-culture provotn, Needham tells BBC Culture, the film "ptur the overlap between anti-Vietnam War, rock mic, sexual liberatn, femism, the emergence of gay rights, civil rights, environmentalism – they're all alcg" wtern was a predomant mo through which mascule performance was tght, pecially to young whe Amerin menThe boys' embrace at the end of Zachariah, then, is an earnt rebuttal of the toxic, vlent mascule mor on which the wtern genre was built.
AMERI'S WILD WT WAS SUPER GAY? WUT.
Wh Don Johnson gracg s ver, the March 1971 edn of The Advote, the US's olst LGBT publitn, featured a review wh the headle "Are they gay?
STAFF OPINION: COWBOYS MEDIA ARE HERENTLY GAY
On the homosexual implitns of the iendship, he wrote, "I'm aaid that's all is – iendship, " addg that the film's script leads to the brk of homosexualy only to back away before be explic. In his book Idol Worship: A Shamels Celebratn of Male Bety the Movi (2003), Michael Fergon refers to Johnson at this stage of his reer as "an stant h wh gay dienc", and "sold as chicken feed and pecked at wh light". Nu stills om his works were regularly prted gay magaz, and Johnson was, says Fergon, "extremely gay-iendly and gay-thankful".
When Zach first approach Matthew, he’s shirtls and sweaty, wearg ltle but a blacksmh's smock, Fergon wrote: "the homoerotic possibili of this exchange [might] turn to the first gay wtern sce Andy Warhol's Lonome Cowboys (1969)". Red River (1948), a film laced wh nuendo which John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, a closeted gay man, admire each other's firearms, was labelled a queer touchstone – alongsi Calamy Jane (1953) and Johnny Guar (1954), which also upend genr rol – Vo Rso's 1981 book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexualy the Movi, and the documentary of the same name (1995). "The wboy has always had a lot of currency gay eroti and eventual pornography, " says Needham, who pots also to gay-liberatn films such as Song of the Loon (1970), and gay porn featur such as The Savag (1971), as exampl.
GAY COWBOYS? SURE, PARDNER.
Zachariah picts men, even if they're not terpreted as gay, as unbound by the mascule paranoia that surrounds touch, feelgs and emotnsIn 1969, Midnight Cowboy would repackage the them and athetics to ask qutns about Ameri's mols of masculy.