Why Beg “Gay the ’70s New York and L.A. Was Magic” (Gut Column) – The Hollywood Reporter

Contents:

• A GLIMPSE INTO 1970S GAY ACTIVISM
• WHY BEG “GAY THE ’70S NEW YORK AND L.A. WAS MAGIC” — AND HOW HOLLYWOOD HAS CHANGED (GUT COLUMN)
• THIS IS WHAT GAY LIBERATN LOOKED LIKE IN THE '70S
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• THE END OF GAY CULTURE
• GAY RIGHTS

A GLIMPSE INTO 1970S GAY ACTIVISM

A gay-rights monstratn New York's Greenwich Village, June 8, 1977 (AP)This article is the 11th a seri featurg clips om the Amerin Archive of Public Broadstg, which is workg to digize televisn and rad piec so that they may be prerved for years to e. For more about the project, see our troductn to the seri, where you'll also fd a handy list of all the seri' piec so 1960s me to a close wh what is still perhaps the most nsequential event recent Amerin gay history: the Stonewall rts of June 28, Charl Kaiser put his history of gay New York, "No other civil rights movement Ameri ever had such an improbable unveilg: an urban rt sparked by drag queens. That's not to say that progrs followed a clear urse: The 1970s also saw Ana Bryant's succsful mpaign Miami to repeal a gay-rights legislatn and the assassatn of Harvey Milk, one of Ameri's greatt advot for gays and lbians and one of the first openly gay men elected to public office.

WHY BEG “GAY THE ’70S NEW YORK AND L.A. WAS MAGIC” — AND HOW HOLLYWOOD HAS CHANGED (GUT COLUMN)

“The clone was a reactn to thgs you would see movi of gay men beg flty and nelly, ” says John Calendo, a wrer who lived LA and New York Cy throughout the 70s and 80s, and worked as an edor at the clone-cubatg sk mags Blueboy and In Touch for Men.

THIS IS WHAT GAY LIBERATN LOOKED LIKE IN THE '70S

”) “That’s the kd of imagery”—backwards stereotyp that basilly villaized queer people—“that a lot of my generatn who beme the clone people grew up wh the ccible of the 60s, ” Calendo ntu, when the civil rights and gay liberatn movements were expandg ias of equaly and eedom.

Drsg like a clone, he says, was a rejectn of those olr gay ’s not so easy to ppot precisely who origated the clone ial, guys who were alive at the time ually brg up Al Parker, an adult film star turned producer and director who worked om the 70s to the early 90s.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

“The clone look was certaly about a whe gay man’s rponse and engagement wh those archetyp, ” says Ben Barry, the an of the school of fashn at the New School’s Parsons School of Dign, whose rearch foc on fashn’s relatnship to masculy, sexualy, and the body.

The years saw Ana Bryant’s homophobic csa through the “Save Our Children” mpaign 1977, the electn and assassatn of Harvey Milk 1978, and the Whe Night rts the followg summer after the lenient sentencg of Milk’s murrer, Dan Whe.

THE END OF GAY CULTURE

There was a powerful work of olr succsful gay men like theatril agent Milton Goldman and entertament attorney Arnold Weissberger who troduced younger gay men to succsful showbiz typ at their betiful apartment on Sutton Place overlookg the East River. Tommy Nutter, who was known for the betiful pipg on the cloth he signed for Mick and Bian Jagger, picked me up at a dis New York one night and I end up at Stigwood’s offic at 135 Central Park Wt, n by Peter Brown, who ed to be Tommy’s boyiend and who had worked for the very gay Beatl manager Brian Epste. Many untri around the world have their own versn of queer slang, om Brish gay slang rived om the rhymg slang Polari to beki – the Philipp’ queer language that borrows om a slew of sourc, cludg pop culture, Japane, Spanish, and the untry’s lol languag.

The Stonewall rts were a seri of spontaneo, vlent monstratns by members of the gay (LGBT) muny agast a police raid that began the early morng hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York Cy. Charl Piece 1926-1999 was what might be lled a female impersonator (he lled himself a Male Actrs) who found favor wh dienc both straight and gay wh his knowg imprsns of Bette Davis, Mae Wt, Tallulah Bankhead and Carol Channg, Such impersonatns were que tradnal for a ic performer of this sort.

However, throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly om the 1870s to today), lears and anizers stggled to addrs the very different ncerns and inty issu of gay men, women intifyg as lbians, and others intifyg as genr variant or nonbary.

GAY RIGHTS

Such eyewns acunts the era before other media were of urse riddled wh the bias of the (often) Wtern or Whe observer, and add to beliefs that homosexual practic were other, foreign, savage, a medil issue, or evince of a lower racial hierarchy.

The European powers enforced their own crimal s agast what was lled sodomy the New World: the first known se of homosexual activy receivg a ath sentence North Ameri occurred 1566, when the Spanish executed a Frenchman Florida. Biblil terpretatn ma illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female drs, and sensatnalized public trials warned agast “viants” but also ma such martyrs and hero popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chillg origs of the word “faggot” clu a stick of wood ed public burngs of gay men.

The blu mic of Ain-Amerin women showsed varieti of lbian sire, stggle, and humor; the performanc, along wh male and female drag stars, troduced a gay unrworld to straight patrons durg Prohibn’s fiance of race and sex s speakeasy clubs.