7 openly gay lears have served as heads of state. Latvian print Edgars Rkēvičs is the latt

Contents:

• TURNS OUT, BARBIELAND ISN'T AS GAY AS S QUEER FANS HAD HOPED
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS KEV MAXEN BE FIRST PROFSNAL MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• THE GAY ECSTASY OF THE VILLAGE PEOPLE
• JAGUARS’ KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY US MEN’S PRO SPORTS
• LATVIA BE 7TH NATN TO BE LED BY AN OPENLY GAY HEAD OF STATE
• VILLAGE PEOPLE GIV TMP OK TO PLAY GAY ANTHEMS 'YMCA,' 'MACHO MAN' AT RALLI
• OKLAHOMA TOWN'S FIRST OPENLY GAY MAYOR RIGNS, CG HARASSMENT

TURNS OUT, BARBIELAND ISN'T AS GAY AS S QUEER FANS HAD HOPED

“First of all, I’m gay, ” he said, “and this movie is gog to be gay non. "Alex AvilaAnd Gay Tim, a Brish LGBTQ news se, celebrated Friday, the day of the film’s official release, as “Barbie day“ and lled the world-renowned doll a “queer cultural phenomenon. PicturIn an terview wh Fandango, actor Kate McKnon, who is openly gay and plays “Weird Barbie” the film, said Barbie is about “imagatn.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS KEV MAXEN BE FIRST PROFSNAL MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

Many also flagged the teased scene which Barbie, now the real world, exchang a longg look wh Ameri Ferrera’s Gloria character; though, the relatnship between the two turns out to be a tribute to motherhood and the tradnal, nuclear before the film’s release, Robbie all but squashed the mors that some or any of the Barbi and Kens would be gay, tellg the Brish LGBTQ magaze Attu: The dolls don’t “actually have sexual orientatns. There are brief appearanc by Earrg Magic Ken and Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken, both of which Mattel has always nied were tentnally gay-d.

THE GAY ECSTASY OF THE VILLAGE PEOPLE

”As far as the queer-d trailers and promotnal clips for the new “Barbie” film, Rand poted to a phenomenon known as “gay wdow advertisg, ” or the practice of advertisers gturg to queer dienc a way that will go over the heads of those who would disapprove. 5 ln fe agast the Temecula Valley Unified School District ls than a day after nservative board members voted to reject a state-endorsed curriculum that clus a short bgraphy of gay rights lear Harvey Milk. Komrosky, the board print, has lled Milk a "pedophile, " while dozens of atten, many om outsi the school district, livered impassned speech agast teachg anythg that refers to sex or homosexualy to elementary school-age stunts.

Michael Sam beme the first openly gay player to be drafted when the then-St. 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. 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.

JAGUARS’ KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY US MEN’S PRO SPORTS

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. 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.

LATVIA BE 7TH NATN TO BE LED BY AN OPENLY GAY HEAD OF STATE

“As the cultural adjunct of the gay pri movement, dis was the embodiment of the pleasure-is-polics ethos of a new generatn of gay culture, a generatn fed up wh police raids, dranian laws and the darkns of the closet, ” he wr. That said, the genre’s lyrics tend to chew more overt polil statements – and the few that did rry an unambiguo msage of gay liberatn didn’t chart well. I thk to myself that gay people have no group, nobody to personalise the gay people, you know?

– Jacqu MoraliIn her dis chronicle Hot Stuff: Dis and the Remakg of Amerin Culture, Alice Echols rells a 1978 Rollg Stone article which Jacqu Morali – the French producer who, alongsi Henri Bolelo and eventual group lear Victor Willis, created the Village People – put forward a manifto of gay visibily: “Morali outed himself, and emphasised that as a homosexual he was mted to endg the cultural visibily of gay men. ‘I thk to myself that gay people have no group, ’ he said, ‘nobody to personalise the gay people, you know? The album is prised of paeans to the Uned Stat’ gay unrbelly, focg on four plac: San Francis, Hollywood, Fire Island and Greenwich Village.

The batn of lol alone should immediately tip you off as to who Village People was beg sold to, as any gay man the late 70s would regnise this as a lndry list of US gay mecs. It knowgly evok the sex-as-polics attu of gay liberatn (“Love the way I please / don’t put no chas on me”), and Victor Willis’ cry of “leather, leather, leather baby” speaks to the era’s emergent gay macho archetype.

VILLAGE PEOPLE GIV TMP OK TO PLAY GAY ANTHEMS 'YMCA,' 'MACHO MAN' AT RALLI

The song also evok the great gay urban migratn of the 1970s, durg which gays and lbians across the US moved to urban centr – San Francis, Los Angel, New York Cy – en masse.

This theme is seamlsly rried over to In Hollywood (Everybody is a Star), which envisns Hollywood as a rtoonish hub of opulence, universal succs and stardom – an aspiratnal portra for a historilly margalised their reer went on, the Village People creasgly urted the mastream, cludg wh 1980 film Can’t Stop the Mic (Cred: Alamy)For somethg unabashedly homosexual you need only turn to Fire Island, named after the most inic gay hotspot the world, a th strip of land some 50 off the ast of New York Cy, revered for s hookup spots and iastic danc. And then we e to the tular track Village People, the most emphatilly polil of them all; a percsive chant that lls upon the ‘Village people’, th for gay men, to “take our place the Sun”: “To be ee, ” Village People clare, “We mt be / all for one. The song envisns a new age of sexual eedom, advotg for uny agast the homophobia that was rigur US society the late 70s.

OKLAHOMA TOWN'S FIRST OPENLY GAY MAYOR RIGNS, CG HARASSMENT

Empowerg and queer-foced as their early lyrics may have been, the msage quickly shifted once mastream succs was urted and emed to be more profable than their ial target group of gay dis-goers. And so would be haggraphic to enshre them as gay polil pneers, Jacqu Morali’s manifto for gay cultural visibily or otherwise.

But for a gay man, is impossible, too, not to have a visceral rponse to Village People and s – somewhat superficial but credibly energisg – ll for gay liberatn, such unambiguo terms. Certaly, if the tune mak me ecstatic, I n’t beg to thk of what would be like for a guy 1979, newly disverg his gayns and hearg for the first time a pulsatg New York nightclub.