Good news! Your favorite gay magazine has an exclusive interview this month with one of the hottest female pop stars around. She’s here to tell you what makes her so fabulous, what gives her that who-cares attitude, and why her gay fans mean oh so much to her. Is it Gwen? Is it Kylie? Is it Beyoncé?
Are you still reading?
Guess what: straight female pop stars are not what the gay community needs endorsing it. Yes, it is nice. Yes, they are kind to boost the profiles of lesser-known periodicals by granting interview time. Yes, gay people like their music, too. But no, no, no, they are not unique to our cause or breaking any ground.
Unique recording artist support of gay rights would have to come from the likes of Ice Cube, Toby Keith or Mötley Crüe. Those are interviews I would read, because they have more at risk. Those are people we haven’t seen grace the cover of every other gay rag. Those are artists whose fans aren’t quickly thought to be gay, and whom some would think have no gay fans at all.
Maybe those interviews have already been done and I just slept through that month. I haven’t seen it all, and perhaps more genres of music and types of musicians are being profiled by these magazines than I’m aware. It just seems to me that every time I’m told by cover photos and splashy layouts to be excited by so-and-so’s exclusive dish session, it’s a Top 40 heterosexual female with little to lose when she declares, proudly, “My gay fans have always meant a lot to me. They’re my people.”
Boring!
Not all gay men like dance music. We don’t all worship Madonna, and some of us wouldn’t be caught dead at a nightclub. Yet one would think, from glancing at the covers and leafing through the pages of our own digests, that we wait with baited breath for the next instruction to “be ourselves” and “love who we are” from someone who has danced on our floors but not walked in our shoes.
What does a straight girl have to risk here, anyway? Nothing, near as I can figure. To a straight female artist, gay men are more or less free money; they’d be stupid not to target us. Rarely will other straight women come down on a diva for giving a shout out to her gay fans. Either women are more polite when it comes to things like that, or they’re less territorial about whom their favorite artists represent. Most girls just don’t care to spread the hate. Rock fans, on the other hand, might actually go breaking CDs and boycotting concerts if Iron Maiden (hey—they still have a career in Europe) were to perform at Pride. Not that any of us actually wants to see Eddie in drag, but you catch my drift. (OK, I should have gone with Metallica for my example. Still…)
I want to read about someone whose ego is on the line. I want people outside of our comfortable circle to step inside the ring and support us. Love feels good no matter where it comes from, and I don’t suggest we stop the flow of that. I just think we should make a big deal out of things that are different, not things that are easy. Straight girls are too easy.