Culture Slut: Why is Diva Worship Important to Gay People?

Make it stand out

The first of December is World AIDS Day and this year I was able to return to the annual vigil held in Brighton, at the foot of one of the only public memorials dedicated to those lost in the AIDS epidemic. Covid prevented the gathering last year, and though the weather was against us this time, many turned out to hear the speakers and the recital of names being read aloud. The names ranged from the 70s to just this year, there were people who I had known, some I remembered from previous memorials, and some I heard for the first time. Many had no surnames, or were just nicknames; Auntie Phyllis, Pepper, Scottish John, people now who only exist in memories and stories. It was very moving, a necessary reminder of generational loss and community strength.

Later that night I watched a recording of a Bette Midler performance at a 1990s AIDS benefit in New York that I return to every year around this time, and it felt just as powerful as ever. She blends two great songs together, starting with In My Life, and smoothly transitioning into her career anthem Friends. The lyrics speak volumes: “ All these places have their moments with lovers and friends I still can’t recall, some are dead and some are living, in my life I loved them all,” and “I had some friends but they’re gone, something came and took them away, but from the dusk til the dawn here is where I stay.” She is joined on stage for the rousing chorus by all the other stars who performed at the benefit, some of them (like Carol Channing) identifiable in the grainy VHS footage, most of them just blurred shapes and colours. I think about how if something like this would be staged today, who would perform, what songs would be sung, what celebrities would come through for the cause, who would the queer community rally around, who would best represent their voices and feelings in 2021. Billy Porter, flamboyant and pioneering black gay representation whilst living with HIV? Lil Nas X, the new breed of gay pop megastars? The Queer Eye gang of happy helpers, dedicated to spreading self love and acceptance? All good, solid, marketable, crowd-pleasing answers, but I think we all know that the star who would step into this Bette Midler/Bereft Mother role would be Lady Gaga. Why is this? Why her? Why not the visibly queer people most affected? Is it just about fame, about Diva Worship? Why is Diva Worship so important to gay men and other queer people? Why do presumed straight (divas in general, not specifically the bisexual Gaga) female stars capture the collective queer experience and voice so strongly? The answer lies in the annals of Hollywood cinema, but also stretches back in time to the beginning of fame itself.

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Earlier this year I wrote about the excitement of seeing the performative lesbianism of TATU for the first time as child who knew they were different, and about how that kind of representation was thrilling, even if it was rooted in inauthenticity. What I want to talk about now is related to this, the performance of queer narratives by straight* women, but instead of it being to titillate and excite the heteropatriarchy, it was to speak to its hidden and repressed queer audiences. After the introduction of the Hays Code (a puritanical morality clause) in the 1930s, Hollywood could no longer present stories that included “sexual deviants” (gays), nudity (implied or actual), and “miscegenation” (interracial relationships, but that’s a whole issue that deserves its own exploration, justice for Anna May Wong, Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne!), but this doesn’t mean that they stopped sharing queer narratives, they just disguised them as straight stories. The 1942 film Now, Voyager is a famous example of this kind of misdirect. The protagonist lives a drab, depressing life, downtrodden by their family, unhappy and unfulfilled until they have the opportunity to escape to a new place where they can adopt a new persona (or more likely, surrender to their true self), a new way of dressing, of living their life the way they want. Eventually they run in to their family again, but have now grown powerful and beautiful and can no longer be cowed by small mindedness, leaving them to pursue their own romances and fantasies. This was a storyline that was lived by many queer people leaving small towns for New York, LA and San Francisco at the time, but was portrayed by Bette Davis in the film. The incomparable Miss Davis made her name by playing “difficult women”, women who didn’t fit in with traditional ideals of womanhood, and is an enduring gay icon because of these roles that present her as an avatar of queer experience. Gay men couldn’t see themselves on screen, but they could see Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland. They could see their life stories being played on the screen in films written by gay men, telling gay stories, but enacted by women.

“This potent, alchemical mix of female stars, gay men working behind the scenes in the industry and queer narratives helped give birth to some of the purest moments of camp the cinema has ever seen.”

This potent, alchemical mix of female stars, gay men working behind the scenes in the industry and queer narratives helped give birth to some of the purest moments of camp the cinema has ever seen. The drunk temper tantrum given by the ageing, childless, glamorous actress Margo Channing because her man is paying attention to a younger woman at a party, the out-dated theatrical affectations and  manic sexual compulsions of Blanche DuBois, Esther Smith wistfully yearning for a boy who will never see her, all of these moments speak as much to gay audiences now as they did then, because these experiences are timeless. Feeling inadequate in relationships because you’ve never been taught how to love yourself, acting out sexually because you’ve been repressed for so long, spending your life desperately wishing for things that can never happen because of who you are, scared of growing old because the generations before you were either killed by disease, imprisoned, attacked, or lost to depression, alcoholism and substance abuse, these all hold just as true now as they did in the 40s, the 60s, the 90s. These women aren't just gay icons because of how they dress, what they say in interviews, how the look, they are icons because they WERE us. They were all we had for so long. They aren't just actresses, moving parts in an impersonal media machine, they were our reflections, avatars of our experiences.

I once had a conversation with another queer friend who didn’t understand my continued reverence for Old Hollywood actresses. “I don’t care about them, they aren’t gay icons that I care about, they aren’t even gay!” Whilst many of these women were publicly straight (behind closed doors was often another story), their intrinsic importance to the queer communities of the past is what truly elevated them to becoming Icons. They allowed gay men to speak openly in ways that they never had been able to before. When Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond tries to kill herself because her young lover leaves her for a younger woman, it spoke to every gay man who was left alone and friendless by a closeted lover, it spoke to every queen/fairy/trans woman who was left in favour of a “real girl”, it spoke to every single queer person who felt rejected because of who they truly are. When Judy Garland performed Old Man River on her hit TV show, old queens in every bar sank a little further into their drinks upon hearing the lines “I get weary, sick of trying, I’m tired of living but scared of dying.” Garland was, as is well documented, an outstanding performer, but she was also a conduit for all the suffering of the downtrodden gay community. A precocious child, early entry into stardom but always on the back-foot, not like the others, not “beautiful”, talented and raw, sinking into depression and alcoholism, increasingly difficult to work with, still on the outside, always on the outside, but a deep well of emotion, drunken pain and manic unfettered joy. Garland’s death is often cited as one of the catalysts of the Stonewall riots in 1969, and whilst I don’t know how true that would have been for the hustlers and street queens of the Stonewall Inn, her loss would have been felt keenly by the wider community, like the loss of a friend or loved one.

The world is a different place now, and for the most part queer people don’t have to hide in the shadows as much, or speak through other people. Queer cinema grew out of European Art House and became increasingly prolific from the 70s onwards. I mean, Jesus Christ, we even have gay high school romcoms now (not say they are good, but the fact they exist is something). There are still debates about queer roles for queer actors, but I’m confident its moving in the right direction. Just recently Eddie Redmayne admitted that his portrayal of artist and model Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl six years ago was insensitive in today’s climate. It has become much more commonplace to see queer actors and singers and writers talking openly about themselves and their experiences, but I’m not sure the mainstream straight white audience can ever truly understand how powerful it is to see and hear yourself being represented on screen.

A few years ago, a gay American country singer called Steve Grand released a song called All American Boy which told the story of his unrequited love for a straight man and it truly rocked my world. It was a melancholy country pop anthem, not a genre I usually have any interest in, but it really spoke to me. I remember listening to it in the student union bar with real tears streaming down my face as memories of my own unrequited loves exploded in my head: “Ripped jeans, tight shirt, he lights a cigarette - you know I’m glad that she can’t stand it, oh, I drink the moonlight from his eyes.” I remember thinking to myself is this what straight people feel when they listen to love songs? Is this how love stories are meant to make you feel? Not just considered intellectual appreciation but real raw emotion?

I am thankful every day for the prominent queer and trans voices in media today, Lil Nas X, Laverne Cox, Indya Moore, Janet Mock, Ryan Murphy, the Wachowskis, and many others, but I will never forget the contributions of Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Gloria Swanson, Vivien Leigh, Mae West and their kind to the queer canon. Again, I say that these women weren’t just stars that queer people and the lovers of camp latched on to, they are the reflections of us in a time where we had to keep ourselves hidden. Female avatars of queer experience stretch throughout time, from the goddesses and priestesses of the Sacred Feminine presiding over the spiritual balance of ancient peoples, to the grande dames of theatre and opera, to the early stars of the silver screen, to the 20th century popstars like Madonna and Whitney, to the current female pop canon of Britney, Beyonce and Gaga. They have been our voices in times when we were denied them. Diva Worship isn’t shallow, its not about being a bitch in a sparkly dress, its about reflecting the complex realities that the world fails to take seriously.

Words and Images: Misha MN