For years gay people were tolerated the arts – and were then acced of takg over. Gregory Woods trac the works of wrers, artists, tellectuals and film stars who transformed 20th-century culture
Contents:
- FROM GAY NSPIRACY TO QUEER CHIC: THE ARTISTS AND WRERS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD
- THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT AND GAY RIGHTS: THE HIDN HISTORY
- PASTOR HAGEE: THE ANTICHRIST IS GAY, "PARTIALLY JEWISH, AS WAS ADOLPH HLER" (PAGG JOE LIEBERMAN!)
FROM GAY NSPIRACY TO QUEER CHIC: THE ARTISTS AND WRERS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD
And so, jt when you thought the Twtersphere might be about to explo wh homophobic abe about misplaced special terts, there was nothg to pla urse, by highlightg the sexuali of the wrers, I’m engagg much the same impertence. However, I feel fortable wh havg raised the issue, sce prompts tertg qutns about the nature and fluence of gay culture – whether is a stagnant oxbow or a strong current at the centre of the uld be that official regnn is a relevant ditor here. To what extent was fluence ed by homosexual powerbrokers (Diaghilev the Ballets Rs, Hugh Bemont London’s Wt End theatr, David Geffen Hollywood) to further the reers of other homosexuals?
The great Icelandic novelist Halldór Laxns noted 1925 that Reykjavik had fally acquired all the acutrements of morny: “not only a universy and a movie theatre, but also football and homosexualy”. Durg a discsn 1949, when the archect Frank Lloyd Wright said that “this movement which we ll morn art and patg has been greatly, or is greatly, bt to homosexualism”, he was tryg to prent mornism as unacceptable; but on the same ocsn Marcel Duchamp intified lbians and gay men as beg largely rponsible for the healthy state of the arts: “I believe the homosexual public has shown more tert [] or cursy for morn art than the heterosexual.
THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT AND GAY RIGHTS: THE HIDN HISTORY
You uld say that acceptance of homosexualy beme one of the key measur of morny long before societi like ours Bra nscend to update their anti-gay 1869, Friedrich Engels had already noticed, as he put a letter to Karl Marx, that “the perasts are begng to unt themselv”, speculatg half jokgly that they might one day amount to “a power the state”.
Prs verage brought the existence of homosexualy to the foreont of the llective nscns a way that turned out to be both threateng and enablg to homosexuals: threateng bee sndal uld happen to any of them, but enablg bee gave them accs to rmatn about the homosexual muny a world where was rarely oute of this sense that homosexual people existed large numbers while still remag more or ls visible to the naked eye was the spicn that when they got together they were likely to engage somethg more, somethg even worse than the dulgg of a perversn. Notorly, the works of homosexualy seemed to transcend many more formal social and polil boundari, reifyg crossovers not only between natnal and ethnic cultur, but between high society and the mi-mons of bohemian artists, and so forth.
PASTOR HAGEE: THE ANTICHRIST IS GAY, "PARTIALLY JEWISH, AS WAS ADOLPH HLER" (PAGG JOE LIEBERMAN!)
The Homtern certaly helped cross-fertilise the history of f and bars Europe and Lat Ameri is full of artistic groups whose drkg and smokg oiled the wheels of nversatn, helpg to tegrate gay men to mastream cultural velopment.