MUSIC Rock & Roll and Butt Pirates
Foam gushes from the mouth of a rabid tween girl as she fervently plasters a poster of her favorite boy band onto her garishly pink wall. She uses her scissors to cut out pictures of her head to interject alongside images of the Jonas Brothers and a life-size cardboard cutout of Justin Bieber. Elsewhere, a scantily clad pop diva gyrates her hips and sings of seduction and sex and all things sinful. At the same time a neo-glam rocker dons an outfit covered in sequins and rubs makeup on his face, preparing to sing some falsetto laden song. The pretty boy band that the rabid tween girl worships, the gyrating diva, and the glam rocker lure in their audiences with a tool that’s had its power amplified by the rise of our mass media culture: the public persona. But the characters our favorite musicians play are often nothing more than lies. What the tweens of the 90’s didn’t realize was that one of those NSYNC guys they worshiped didn’t like girls, he liked boys. And that dreamy guy with the leather pants that sings about la vida loca is a sure fire butt pirate. The adoration of many music fans, not just those tween girls, relies not only on the music they create but also the façades they manufacture. Where does this leave homosexual musicians in a heteronormative environment? Do homosexual musicians have to put up a heterosexual façade to win the adoration of fans? The analysis of successful homosexual musicians requires some time travel back into the era of sexual liberation that saw such acts as David Bowie and Elton John. These performers became known not only for their music but also for their flamboyant styles. Bowie dressed himself androgynously, performed glamorously, but maintained a strong mainstream sexual appeal, blurring the lines between sexes while maintaining a magnetic charisma. Elton John also bathed in extravagance with flamboyant outfits and performances. The two infused sexuality into their images, which was acceptable amidst the free love and sexual awakening of the 70s at the time their edgy sexual public images were vogue. Another icon of the glam rock era was Freddie Mercury. Where Bowie and Elton John laced their performances with allusions and merely flirted with sexual queerness, Mercury was a brusque outpour of visceral sexual energy. Like Elton John and David Bowie, he was known for his flamboyant, glamorous performances and sexual attitude, but Freddie was much more upfront with his sexuality. The name of Freddie’s band “Queen” was partially derived from its homosexual connotations. When asked by a reporter if he was gay, Mercury, a man known to have frequent samesex partners, responded tongue-in-cheek, “I am as gay as a daffodil, my dear.” Despite his candid attitude, Freddie hid certain facets of his personal life. He maintained a long term female partner for some time and after leaving her would distance himself from his gay partner in public events. He hid his HIV status from the public up until twenty-four hours before it killed him. Mercury himself admitted “When I’m performing I’m an extrovert, yet inside I’m a completely different man.” Even more so than the Elton John and David Bowie before him, Mercury made his sexuality a performance, but was unable to reveal the more personal aspects of his sexuality to the public. Unfortunately for queer musicians, their audiences are not always looking for flamboyant queen-ish glam rockers in near drag. Sometimes all they want is a simple,
heteronormative heartthrob. The late nineties saw the rise of several boy bands to appease such an exploitable infatuation. With these boy bands came NSYNC, and with NSYNC came Lance Bass, a closeted gay man. Unlike the glamorous rockers of the 70s and 80s, Lance Bass and these boy bands weren’t trying to push the boundaries of gender definition. No, their job was to simply be sexual objects to the hoard of tween fans that drove their record sales. Lance Bass engaged in performance art like Elton John and David Bowie before him to capture his audience. However, while Elton John and Bowie channeled their own eroticism to create by: Robbie Marllin their sexually ambiguous personas, Bass completely repressed his so that he could staff writer remain the “dreamy heartthrob” in the eyes of his tween girl audience. The same was true with Ricky Martin. Torn over making the genre of music he wanted but having to create a false façade to be appreciated by his audience, Martin chose the façade and became a steamy Latino lover that hetero girls could fawn over. Once he created that image, he was stuck with it. If he changed it, he would lose his audience. The adoration of his fans relied on the image they had of him, it relied on their love, and it relied on his lie. It wasn’t until after the sun had set on Bass and Martin’s careers, after there was no more immense fame or audience to lose, that the two finally came out. Adopting a middle ground between the closeted tween girl heartthrobs of the 90s and the flamboyance of the 70s glam rockers is the American Idol Contestant, Adam Lambert. Before American Idol, Adam Lambert was openly gay and performing in underground clubs and venues. But once Idol began he disguised his sexual orientation and dodged inquiring questions. Lambert also allegedly stripped his Facebook and MySpace profiles of any pictures that could identify him as gay. He still preformed his sexuality adorned in eyeliner and sequined outfits and belted out loud falsettos in a way that would have made Elton John, Bowie, and Mercury proud, but his true sexual orientation remained hidden. American Idol commands a broad mainstream audience that spans the country and pressured Lambert to keep his orientation under wraps to appease its viewers. Rock, pop, and modern music has become an expression of identity. It has become performance art. Musicians have devised and marketed the unique personas they have created not only to gain attention, but also to allow their art to proliferate out of the song sheet and into the way they act, dress, and talk. So do homosexual artists have to hide their sexuality to gain a mainstream appeal? The answer is not Illustration by: Jessica Hatrak so simple. All of these artists have faced a dilemma. They could stay true to their identities and find acceptance as a mere niche artist, or sequester their souls from the world and hide behind the sexual caricatures they have created. Perhaps far into the future when queers are a fully accepted fixture of society and a marketed-to demographic we’ll have gay musicians that can fully express themselves and still be mainstream. Just don’t hold your breath.
Gay Musicians and Coming Out
14
OUT
write
Spring ‘10