Homosexualy homogenized: What's lost when gay athetic go mastream? | The Seattle Tim

Contents:

• IN SEARCH OF A GAY ATHETIC
• IS THERE A ‘GAY ATHETIC’ TO POP MIC?
• WHICH GAY/LBIAN ATHETIC IS MOST LIKE YOU?
• HOMOSEXUALY HOMOGENIZED: WHAT'S LOST WHEN GAY ATHETIC GO MASTREAM?
• "YOU OUT-GAYED THE GAYS": GAY ATHETIC POWER AND LBIAN, BISEXUAL, AND QUEER WOMEN LGBTQ SPAC
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY
• 'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY
• GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN
• THUNR WAIVE RUDY GAY
• GAY MOSW · CY GUI
• GAY ATHETIC WALLPAPERS
• GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

IN SEARCH OF A GAY ATHETIC

“And she answered, ‘Probably not as much as gay men.

Steele and her lleague, Fred Dennis — mak a gent se for a more balanced view of fashn history, one that, given the wily held perceptn that gay men domate fashn, has curly tend to skew heterosexual and male. Steele add, “Was how are you to gog to monstrate that there is a gay athetic? ” That was the task when they began anizg the show two years ago, wh ltle to go on but a termatn to rtore to a proper place history the untls lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr people who, whout qutn, ntributed greatly to fashn.

IS THERE A ‘GAY ATHETIC’ TO POP MIC?

Somehow, gay men and lbians were left out of most official acunts of fashn history, Ms.

”Coverg three centuri through 100 garments, “Queer History of Fashn” intifi and chronicl the hidn--pla-sight prence of “queers” (the curators’ preferred term) — om the flamboyant 18th-century personag known as molli, to 20th-century avatars of butch lbian elegance, gay clon, drag queens and marquee signers whose open-secret sexualy was long kept ncealed. In the age of gay marriage, n seem almost implsible that signers like Christian Dr, Bill Blass, Halston and untls others spent their profsnal liv the closet, or that homophobia was rampant a field where stereotyp have long held that many creative typ were gay. ’ ” at tim which their sexualy was not jt unwele but often illegal, gay men, bisexuals and lbians improvised a social theater most notably exprsed, Ms.

“But then, when you looked more eply to the history, you found the proto-gay cultur ci like London, Paris, Amsterdam.

WHICH GAY/LBIAN ATHETIC IS MOST LIKE YOU?

” (In fact, you wouldn’t need to, sce the gay historian Rictor Norton thoroughly explored this particular gay subculture a 1992 book, “Mother Clap’s Molly Hoe. And that grim fact n be found sight to the necsy for visg systems of vert signs and symbols, visual s gay people improvised rponse to opprsn. Whether there evolved out of this a “gay athetic” is arguable, though n certaly be supposed that gay and lbian people may historilly have found a haven fashn bee, as Ms.

Steele suggted, offered “a chance to create another world reactn to a homophobic society. Steele add, notg that Dr, the great French uturier, never me out for fear of shockg his mother; that the Atrian-born novator Rudi Gernreich, a gay activist private life, never dared e out publicly for fear of portatn; that the visnary Brish fashn edor Madge Garland was shiered by Brish Vogue when her sexualy was revealed.

Even the award-wng ntemporary signer Narciso Rodriguez once briefly nsired abandong a reer fashn, as he explas an say the talog for the exhibn, bee his parents were alarmed that he would “go gay” if he did. “The perceptn now is that gay is O. “Even as a gay man, I don’t know my own history, ” he Sanrs, the archect and queer theorist who signed the exhibn, said: “As outsirs, as queers, gays and lbians have always had to have feelers out, to be more aware of d signifiers.

HOMOSEXUALY HOMOGENIZED: WHAT'S LOST WHEN GAY ATHETIC GO MASTREAM?

To suggt the implic reciprol relatnship between gay culture and high fashn, Mr.

Beneath ns a purple platform for displayg styl associated directly wh gay subcultur: fashn’s straight ego and s lavenr id. “Bill was one of the first openly gay men men’s wear, the Donna Karan of men, ” Mr. It was important to track gay prence and mark s progrs out of the closet.

“You n’t unrstand fashn until you put those gay people back . ”A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn E, Page 10 of the New York edn wh the headle: In Search of a Gay Athetic. Now that the Supreme Court has acknowledged that homosexuals have the same right to marriage as any other Amerins, perhaps we n beg to thk about Gay Amerins as we thk about Irish Amerins, Ain Amerins and Hispanic Amerins: as a muny wh s own tradns and cultural flavors while beg an sential part of the Amerin whole.

"YOU OUT-GAYED THE GAYS": GAY ATHETIC POWER AND LBIAN, BISEXUAL, AND QUEER WOMEN LGBTQ SPAC

If that's te, we n ask the qutn: n we intify a “gay” athetic mic the same way we n pot to a Celtic, black or Lato athetic?

You don’t have to look very hard to fd not jt one but multiple gay currents mic. But one aspect of gay-pop worthy of tailed examatn is the sub-genre I ll “Glam Piano. But he giv that craftsmanship a gay athetic by tweakg everythg to make more theatril.

” Sal like that imply that many non-gays have been buyg his songs, but that's no different really than Otis Reddg’s and Kanye Wt’s abily to articulate specifilly Ain-Amerin experienc and at the same time nnect to a non-black dience. From his earlit rerds, his fect melodi have been employed to tell stori about people wh embarrassg secrets, such as “Billy Brown, ” a gay man wh “an ordary life: two kids, a dog, and a preutnary wife, ” or the gay man who says, “I try to be like Grace Kelly, but all her looks were too sad.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY

Wh each album, he has bee more explic about addrsg issu the gay muny. “Last Party” is a tribute to Mercury, the Queen lead sger and gay in. The mic is melancholy, but the lyrics are fiant, argug that the early ath of so many hard-livg gay men is not to be pied but admired.

'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

“Good Guys” is a siar tribute to all the gay role mols that meant so much to the songwrer “when I was 14 years old and my hero [were] drsed up gold.

Like Ain-Amerin mic, gay mic is neher required of nor limed to gay micians. Jt as black micians such as rock 'n' roller Jimi Hendrix and untry crooner Dari Rucker uld build succsful reers outsi black styl, so has Bob Mould, a gay man who created brilliant post-punk mic as part of Hker Du and Sugar and as a solo artist. Gay Rights,.

GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN

Fellow gays!

What would be your rponse to someone sayg somethg homophobic to you?

THUNR WAIVE RUDY GAY

The gay athetic has long shaped the arts, pecially the performg arts. But some wh the gay muny feel that the mastreamg of certa aspects of gay culture, cludg drag and high mp, has e at the st of s polil edge. Madison Avenue has recently regnized the gay and lbian market, tailorg same-sex ads first for gay publitns, then for eeway billboards.

For 15 mut, thoands of people were actually gettg married San Francis and now the "gay agenda" is a keystone of the printial mpaign and daily ic strips that are not Doonbury. "Metrosexual" has bee shorthand for straight guys who shop, and rate, and groom themselv like gay guys; and the word "queer" has been transformed om a pejorative to a semi-snooty school of thought — even sual nversatn, "queer" is likely to be followed by terms such as "cema" or "athetic" or "studi. Such are the maniftatns of the much-sctized Growg Acceptance of Gays Ameri.

GAY MOSW · CY GUI

Gay culture has always been tricky to fe, now more than ever. Pl Rudnick was recently taken to task the New York Observer for lterg the New York stage wh trashy gay plays the name of social equaly. And Fierste, who ught flak om gays and straights for "Torch Song's" premise that gay men might want somethg like a nuclear fay of their own, agre that much of gay culture seems too ncerned wh the mastream and not enough about the qualy of the art.

GAY ATHETIC WALLPAPERS

Although he was thrilled at the rponse his Thanksgivg Day appearance evoked — "lns of people jt screamg my name, and wh the Macy's para, lns isn't even an exaggeratn" — Fierste was very aware that this was the only way he, an openly gay man and longtime gay-rights advote, was gog to get on a float. But the only real person there was me, a gay man.

He se much of the popularizatn of gay sensibily as "wks to straight people. "In our efforts to homogenize, " Fierste says, "we've dumbed down gay culture. "The two pneerg forc of morn sensibily are Jewish moral serns and homosexual atheticism and irony, " wrote San Sontag her semal 1964 say "Not on Camp.

(The Amerin remake is a good example of what happens when the gay sensibily is dumbed down. "There n be a lot of homophobia around the vtment this culture mak children as the future, " he says.

GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

"That is one way gays were margalized — whout children, they lerally had no future. Ground-breakg thor John Rechy fears gay culture is beg ntered to make more palatable for public nsumptn. He hat "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" — "the men are like gay nanni, terg to straight people, tryg to make them prettier" — and "Will & Grace" — "Will never has sex.

What kd of a gay man is that? "The edge between si and outsi has always been weird, " says David Ehrenste, thor of "Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-2000. " "Gay culture has always existed wh straight culture, unlike the blacks or the Jews or the Irish who were lerally 'over there.