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Gay old time - Life - The Phoenix

Gay old time - Life - The Phoenix
Dwayne Jenkings  |  by thephoenix.com. All rights reserved. 17.07 | 15:14

Gay old time

Ten moments when the mainstream assimilated gay culture and made it its own
By
May 30, In our post–Queer Eye for the Straight Guy world, many people — particularly younger people — take for granted that the divide between gay culture and mainstream culture is as thin as the latex of an expensive condom. This has not always been the case. Since the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the underground gay counterculture has consistently, and vitally, influenced mainstream popular culture in style, music, fashion, language, sexual mores, and politics.

Here are 10 moments — all of them decisive — that chart the gradual, but irrefutable, queering of American culture. 1970: Bette Midler, camp out In 1970, Bette Midler, mixing an outrageous blend of camp, sex talk, and Andrews Sisters tunes began performing at Manhattan’s Continental Baths. Within six months, she was one of Johnny Carson’s favorite guests, and in early 1973, her LP The Divine Miss M went gold.

The rest has been wind beneath her wings. 1984: Madonna, art of the shallow Her impersonations of Marilyn Monroe in her 1984 “Material Girl” video and appropriation of black-gay voguing in the 1990 hit “Vogue” made Madonna a premiere conduit of gay culture to the young masses. Aside from instructing teenage girls to wear devotional jewelry, she also was vehement in her endorsement of gay rights.

1985: Rock Hudson, a crack in the mirror Rock Hudson, the 1950s’ most vital, masculine, heterosexual heartthrob, died of AIDS-related infections in 1985, making Hudson’s long-rumored homosexuality all too visible. The culture shock was a result not only of his death, but of the new understanding that life beneath the tinsel of Hollywood was queerer than moviegoers had previously suspected. 1998: Dennis rodman, boa bad
Dennis Rodman’s 1998 autobiography Bad as I Wanna Be was as revealing as his flagrant display of body art.

Rodman’s fondness of tattoos, piercings, flamboyantly colored cranial plumage, and wedding dresses was a triumph of mix-messaged drag/punk/biker gay sensibility — the precursor to the milder metrosexual.

  •  Mitt Romney has a steely-eyed mission to crush his opponents. Next battlefield: Ames, Iowa.

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    Keywords: In Her, Rock Hudson, Bette Midler
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