The Real Story Of The YMCA That Inspired The Village People's Gay Anthem - Gothamist

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

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. 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. 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. “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?

A GAY IN REMEMBERS LIFE THE VILLAGE, AND THE VILLAGE PEOPLE

– 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. 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 REAL STORY OF THE YMCA THAT INSPIRED THE VILLAGE PEOPLE'S GAY ANTHEM

The song envisns a new age of sexual eedom, advotg for uny agast the homophobia that was rigur US society the late 70s.

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.

WE ARE NOT A GAY ACT, VILLAGE PEOPLE SAY (WH A STRAIGHT FACE)

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. A Gay In Remembers Life the Village, and the Village PeopleFifty years after Stonewall, Felipe Rose—“The Indian” om the Village People—remembers New York Cy’s Greenwich Village as the gay rights movement took Rose, origal member of the Village People, was high school New York Cy when the Stonewall Rebelln happened 1969. Felipe, who was disvered at a New York gay bar lled Anvil, claims to have actual Native Amerin anctry, but we’ve been unable to verify this claim.