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Recently, I saw a call for poetry and prose submissions on gay chic. This intrigued me, though it seemed more suited to essay form, since it is a matter of analysis and opinion.
How would one approach such a subject? Anything that embraced trendiness would turn my stomach; an angry attack on consumerism and conformity, while closer to my feelings on the issue, would be bad writing and too easy to dismiss. Given that the selected contributions would probably be the most palatable ruminations on either approach, I will give my three guineas' worth here, rather than in a major publication.
I first met the term 'gay chic' in connection to the Vanity Fair picture of Cindy Crawford pretending to shave k.d. lang. There was talk that this represented embracing of dyke culture by straight Cindy, and that this was part of a trend towards tolerance and opportunity for (nice) queers. lang's coming out and the relative non-response was also said to be an open invitation for the flood of recent closet vacancies and a sign that it was possible and okay to be queer and still have a big career.
Is k.d. lang really a good test case for this theory? Was there anyone who did NOT know she was lesbian? I knew in high school, and I was almost terrifyingly naive then.
Furthermore, it reminds me of two of the ironies about the supposed 'gay chic' trend where television is concerned. (Note: this was written well before ELLEN - but that program hardly serves to disprove my points...).
It is possible to be identified as a gay, lesbian or bisexual character on television. There are several such examples (in 1996; now, of course, there seems to be a gay character on every show!). It is, however, true that such characters are rarely shown to be in any kind of relationship (tell me I'm wrong, even now - I dare you!), unlike heterosexual characters. They are, however, always beautiful by the standards I am told society holds up as ideal (bear in mind I think Nicolas Cage and Pete Townsend are cute). If there are queer women, they are either of the Melissa Etheridge/lipstick/dress image or (if played for a cheap laugh) toned-down diesel dykes. In short, they are Hollywood Central Casting queers - neutered at birth.
None of this is particularly surprising. When Hollywood can make a movie set in Detroit or Philadelphia or East Los Angeles and not have one black or Latino individual depicted, we are not dealing with people who picture reality (and the same goes for magazines, videos and the music industry).
Let us be kind and imagine that there is some force preventing all arbiters of culture from depicting diversity. Let us assume that they mean to create a greater tolerance for all types of queers with these limited images/sounds. Is it happening?
I can't count the number of times I have heard homophobic slurs coming from the mouth of people wearing Smiths or Morrissey T-shirts. Some of those who hassled me in high school had Culture Club records and went around humming 'Small Town Boy'. I saw a video arcade guy throw a 'fucking dyke' out of his store while Melissa Etheridge was blaring on his stereo. You can convince someone to like Boy George - that doesn't mean trannie prostitutes don't get killed on the streets of Toronto. High-profile dykes like lang, Etheridge or DeGeneres (okay, so I added that...) don't keep a young lesbian from being gang-raped by moronic dickheads who want to teach her to 'like a man' (sexual assault makes ME love a guy all to pieces, let me tell you...). That kind of glitzy 'so-and-so, who's queer...' garbage does nothing - don't kid yourself.
Gay chic is a marketing device. It can be used in small doses to sell jeans, to give someone a liberal sheen or attempt to sell vodka and beer.
While I don't buy knee-jerk reactions to things, such as "major label=sellout" or "profile in big magazine=corruption" (at least not automatically), it is probably true that when a trend has reached the front of Vanity Fair, it is time to examine the motivations of those who are constantly pushing the value of acceptance and mainstreaming.
I don't especially relish violent opposition. I would prefer some degree of smoothness in my life, and don't always enjoy swimming upstream. However, I hope somebody shoots me before I start talking about the need to 'normalize' (i.e. join a conservative party, harass prostitutes, fail to question the norms of sexuality in society, and embrace consumerism), accept the rule of law (when it accepts me - and I'm not holding my breath - unless the State is trying to shove its dick in my mouth), or 'act queer' (define it first, pals!).
(That was rhetorical, by the way, so no 'phobes, conservative queers or the gaily chic need stop by with shotguns, thank you very much!)
The closest I have ever come in my life to scaling an icy fire escape in the dead of winter with a can of spray paint was the time in Ottawa I saw a billboard by Canada Customs congratulating itself for protecting 'our' borders from pornography and drugs (not that it really has...).
Several thoughts came to mind. I suppose money could be better spent. They could donate the dash they would have spent on the ad to under-funded drug treatment programmes or the victims of abuse that they claim pornography encourages. Then I thought of the books and porn for queer bookstores that they seize, while letting the same volumes pass on to capitalist scum chains and rarely messing with het smut, despite being told repeatedly by judges that they cannot grab those publications. These include: treatises on safer sex; books about gays in Nazi concentration camps; anti-pornography treatises (irony? Don't give them that much credit...); and books about combatting homophobia.
Thank you so for your paternal concern, Canada Customs. I'm sure that multitudes who might not have contracted AIDS, had they received information; historians and Holocaust survivors; some feminists and victims of bashing will get down on their knees and thank you personally. Of course, you just might like that (as long as it isn't a person of the same sex, I guess).
I have dreams in which I have thrown myself on piles of books that Customs wanted to seize and destroy, something I like to think I would do in a second if I had to.
In a world where the likes of Ontario Premier Mike Harris say the value of a book is in its sales (this is a man who can't remember having read one), I say that I will not rest until WE get to decide what will enter 'our country', and not narrow-minded censors who insist on misreading laws that they consider themselves above anyway.
If this makes me a threat, then so be it. Perhaps people who destroy the records of others' thoughts, hopes and dreams deserve to feel threatened.
Goddess knows Canada Customs and other right-wing forces terrify me, but terror inspires me to action, not cowering.
So, thanks for your protection, Canada Customs, but tell me - who is safeguarding me from YOU?
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