All About...gay-iconic divas

Cafe Society
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Starting note: by “gay-iconic divas”, I’m not talking about big-name famous people who are gay, I’m talking about the adoring worship (usually by gay men) of (most often female) celebrity personalities.

The idea for the topic came to me after a conversation over the Christmas weekend I had with an open-minded, but not particulary well-informed relative of mine - let’s call him “Mike”. In the midst of conversation, he expressed his assumption that gay men (not me in particular - since he knows my musical tastes don’t run that way, but gay guys in general) still worship & adore Judy Garland, Liza Minelli, Ethel Merman, and Barbara Streisand, et. al.

“Mike” wasn’t trying to be derogatory or insulting, but naively assumed that the gay male community at large tend to be enraptured by these women. He was genuinely surprised when I informed him that, while it is true all the above mentioned divas do have solid gay guy fan bases, they tend to be among older (50 +) gay men. There are at least two (maybe even three) generations of gay guys who don’t identify, worship or even know much about the above mentioned divas.

Even Madonna, who still does have a very sizeable gay following among younger gay guys, is (as far as I have seen) considered an “old-guard vet” by now - her fans acknowledge her past works (and antics), but don’t view her as especially cutting edge, or blazing any new trails anymore.

I also expressed my opinion to Mike of Streisand (my opinion simply based on being an out gay guy for 15 years) that her gay fan base is viewed by the larger gay community very much the way the overall American culture tends to view trekkies or deadheads. That is, the gay community see Streisand fans as obsessive oddballs who have questionable aesthetic tastes.

What’s more, Mike was surprised at some of the names I threw out as having huge gay-adoring followings: Annie Lennox, Patti Smith, Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell. (I was actually surprised to think that somebody could not think of Annie Lennox as being a gay-icon.)

There are of course, some timeless exceptions: Bette Davis & Joan Crawford will be revered & idolized as long as gay guys keep coming out of the closet. But associating Garland, Minelli & Streisand with today’s more youthful gay men is like saying that Janis Joplin is still hugely popular with rock & roll fans of today.

As a further note, as for some of the names that pop culture mags tend to throw out as “new” gay-iconic divas - such as Britney Spears, etc. - I don’t see much evidence of any strong followings. Paris Hilton, for example, gets mentioned off & on as having a lot of “gay fans”, but I haven’t seen much evidence of that. IMO, there is a lot more to being a ardor-worthy diva than just being a famous drunken mess; and whatever it may be, Paris & Britney don’t have it.

That of course begs the question about what qualities do gay men see & admire in “divas”? I invite your thoughts, speculations & suggestions you might have on this subject.

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Boogers! That should read "Even Madonna, who still does have a very sizeable following among younger gay guys, "

(proof-read your posts, Art! Proof-read!)

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No idea who Annie Lennox is, but just from googling her I can say she’s very hot in a butch sort of way. Kylie Minogue has a large gay following among the college crowd, I think. As for timeless classics, what about Cher?

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Here’s a post I wrote on this subject 5 years ago.

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She was/is the lead singer of Eurythmics, and along with Boy George was touted as part of an androgynous British pop invasion in the mid-80s. She’s had a good deal of solo success as well, and she and Eurythmics partner Dave Steward recently released a greatest hits album.

I will admit to being an unabashed Judy Garland queen. I have most of her movies on tape, close to three dozen CDs, the DVD box set of her TV show (which isn’t the complete series, damn you to Hell, Sid Luft), almost every biography of her ever written and at least a half-dozen biographical TV programs, both fact and fiction. My first edition copy of “Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume” is one of my most prized possessions. She is in my opinion one of the most talented people ever to walk the Earth and I will brook no opposition.

I have no clue why anyone, let alone gay men, is a rabid fan of Barbra Streisand. Yes, she was quite good in “Funny Girl,” mostly because she sang some of the numbers up-tempo, but she is just about the single most overrated performer I can think of.

Liza was great in “Cabaret” but if she had anyone else for a mother she probably wouldn’t have whatever devotion among gay men she has.

Ethel Merman? I don’t know of anyone who pays attention to her at this point, much less idolizes her.

I think Madonna and Cher will both have gay followings until they die and beyond. Same goes for Cyndi Lauper. I don’t follow pop or dance music well enough to be able to judge the longevity of the newer crops of so-called “divas” (and screw you VH1 for devaluing the word by applying it to anyone with a three-octave range and a hit single). If I had to guess, I’d say that Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez and Kelly Clarkson are the most likely to have any real diva staying power.

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My WAG–Gay Iconic Divas tend to have one of two traits: Involvement with gay causes, or one masculine trait that would enable a gay man to “be” her for, say, a costume party (Cher/Barbra’s nose, Annie Lenox’s neck and shoulders, Shirley Bassey’s voice, etc.). Sometimes both.

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Hmm. Don’t see it.

The closest thing I see to something that almost all gay-icon divas have in common is a winkingly exaggerated femininity; they tend to put exaggerated trappings of femininity on like a costume. There’s a certain ready-made drag-queen thing about them. Like, these women put a lot of thought and energy into choosing how they present themselves to the world. Their image is, to a great extent, artificial: a skillfully concealed rejection of things-as-they-are: a glamorous iconoclasm. Glamorli–controlling one’s mask–is a seductive metaphor for most gay men. [/li]
Many of these women also broadcast a winking bitchiness. Many gay men–perhaps less so nowadays–grew up victims of bullies, and had to learn how to avenge themselves with aggressive wit (sarcasm) in lieu of physical force.

So there’s a lot to identify with for many gay men.

*[Scots,* magic spell*, alteration of grammar*(from the association of learning with magic)*.]

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It’s very easy to see why Liza is a gay icon: Just look at her “husbands.”

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Holy Bono! How could I have forgotten Cher? Except possibly for the fact that I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to imagine a world where she, not Sunny, fatally clonked herself on the head in a skiing accident!

My personal tastes aside, I’ll give Cher her due - she has remarkably withered err – weathered the ages well.

And Otto – given that Ethel Merman was the inspiration for Helen Lawson in “Valley of the Dolls”, I’d say it’s fair to say she was (at least indirectly) a fairly well-respected gay-icon diva.

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I think you have your cart and horse flipflopped there.

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I’m not saying she wasn’t, 40 years ago. But she didn’t have the staying power of someone like Garland, who has a continuing presence through, if nothing else, The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy will be known and loved for generations, even if everything else Garland ever did disappears from popular consciousness. Merman simply doesn’t have anything even remotely iconic to compare. What, families are going to gather every year around the TV to watch Panama Hattie?

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  1. Devil’s Advocate: If Mike “wasn’t trying to be derogatory or insulting” by making ‘naive assumptions’ about gay icons, why perpetuate the sterotype by trying to come up with a more contemporary list?

  2. Was there a memo sent out officially proclaiming (the older) Bette Davis & Joan Crawford as timeless exceptions to the scrap heap that includes; Garland, Minelli & Streisand?

  3. Hi, oh, never mind.

  4. If you want to listen to someone a little more ‘now’ than Annie Lenox, Cher or Madonna, look no further than Le Tigre. They’re mega-talented, but unfortunately can’t be labeled as divas ('cuz they’re queer). The earn extra marks due to the fact they don’t sing show tunes. But do so only if you like them, not because you’re supposed to.

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Who sez gay girls can’t be divas? It’s pretty well accepted that Merman was a muff diver (she and Jackie Susann were allegedly an item) and there’ve been rumors forever that La Garland occasionally sought comfort in the arms of another woman.

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  1. Well, the fact of the matter is that I wasn’t disputing the stereotype as not having been true. What I found curious is that my cousin (and, I suspect, a lot of heterosexual America) STILL associates Judy, Liza and Barbara with gay guys. It’s a weird association that seems frozen in time. As an analogy, take James Brown (a relative contemporary of Minelli & Striesand.) Brown had widespread appeal throughout the black community of the late 60s / early 70s, not merely as an entertainer, but as an icon of the civil rights movement. But how many young black kids are rushing out to buy James Brown CDs anymore? Not as many as those buying 50 Cent CDs. Similarly, while Liza might have meant something important to gay guys in the early 1970s, the younger generations don’t care much about her as they would about, say, Avril Lavigne now.

  2. My assertion that Davis & Crawford (and, I concede, Cher) is based on the fact that they are indeed still popular after all this time. I know guys 20 years younger than me who can re-enact whole scenes of “All About Eve” or “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” right down to Davis’ exact vocal inflections. But it’s just my personal observation.

  3. BOO YA, Opal! (Just thought I’d be different.)

  4. Okay, I should have worded my OP better. I didn’t mean to suggest that the divas COULDN"T be gay, just that they aren’t necessarilly gay. Ani Difranco, for example, is an openly bisexual diva with a huge lesbian cult. And I perhaps should have made a statement to the fact that I - at the ripe old age of 36 and tending to be more of a homebody nowadays - was not intending to “speak for the younger generation”. I’m pretty well aware that there might be a whole new spate of divas out there that 20-something are into that I am not aware of. But you do raise an interesting question. Who, nowadays, does or might inspire the same type of cultish devotion that Judy Garland, or Madonna once did?

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I think that Dolly Parton, has to be a gay icon.

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She has her gay following, but I don’t think she’s at the top of the pantheon.

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Ellen and Melissa rule, IMHO.

A lot of lesbians that I know go for punk. And punk is all about deconstructing/demolishing icons of every sort, so fugeddaboutit.

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LOL. Considering the number of drag queens that do her, I am sure that she is up there, along with the “country queens” Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline.

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BTW The Advocate has started a new column called “Big Gay Following”. Their current subject? Annie Lennox :smiley: . You can read it here. Just click on her name.

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Curiosity from this thread led me to the page for “gay icon” on Wikipedia (which could use some work), which listed some of the ones mentioned here as examples, but left off Liza and included Orlando Bloom. While certainly not a diva, and thus a bit off-topic, when did Orlando Bloom become a gay icon? I’m not seeing any connection.