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rfmcdonaldWhile Toronto's approaching the climax of its Pride celebrations (see the events's official site and its Wikipedia entry for more), something struck me via the Pet Shop Boys' 1993 hit "Can You Forgive Her?".
Other interpretations of the song may exist, but to me it seems pretty evident that the song's lyrics deal with an unhappy young man who turns out to be closeted, a condition described with some sympathy by a not-unsympathetic narrator addressing a young man and with little sympathy by a girlfriend who's using her suspicions as a weapon over him. The first sign that this isn't just a standard unhappy relationship comes from a couplet in the middle of the song: "She's made you some kind of laughing stock/'Cause you dance to disco and you don't like rock." The famous association between gays and disco lives, perhaps rightly so. *
Another sort of association with non-heterosexual males is, as expressed by Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbisias describes in her latest column about her gay stepson, is the assumption that they often possess a high level of cultural refinement, an ability to access and use cultural capital with ease, to know what to do, where to do it, and who to do it in front of. Another association, another stereotype with (perhaps) some truth to it.
What stereotypes regarding GLBT are you personally familiar with? I'm only familiar with Anglophone North America because, well, save for a couple of days on Montréal I've only had direct experience of Anglophone North America. Are stereotypes outside this cultural realm different, are they the same, are they converging towards one set of stereotypes or another? Say so in the comments.
As always, please be polite and respectful of fellow commenters. Anonymous posting is also quite fine.
* I'm not quite sure I understand why they made this association. Electronically synthesized popular music genres that descend directly from disco have consistently been quite popular to mass audiences outside of the United States (and likely Canada). To name a single example, Kylie Minogue's latest album bombed in the United States (and likely Canada) notwithstanding the reality that she has been consistently a major star for a couple of decades in Europe and Australia. The Pet Shop Boys themselves have had many more hits in Britain and Europe generally than in the United States (and likely Canada) since the late 1980s or so. That said, I'm entirely not that I understand how that couplet is supposed to work as some kind of cue to non-heterosexuality if disco and like forms are popular, at least outside of North America. After all, it's Europe that has ongoing parties featuring house music on Ibiza. Just saying.
Other interpretations of the song may exist, but to me it seems pretty evident that the song's lyrics deal with an unhappy young man who turns out to be closeted, a condition described with some sympathy by a not-unsympathetic narrator addressing a young man and with little sympathy by a girlfriend who's using her suspicions as a weapon over him. The first sign that this isn't just a standard unhappy relationship comes from a couplet in the middle of the song: "She's made you some kind of laughing stock/'Cause you dance to disco and you don't like rock." The famous association between gays and disco lives, perhaps rightly so. *
Another sort of association with non-heterosexual males is, as expressed by Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbisias describes in her latest column about her gay stepson, is the assumption that they often possess a high level of cultural refinement, an ability to access and use cultural capital with ease, to know what to do, where to do it, and who to do it in front of. Another association, another stereotype with (perhaps) some truth to it.
What stereotypes regarding GLBT are you personally familiar with? I'm only familiar with Anglophone North America because, well, save for a couple of days on Montréal I've only had direct experience of Anglophone North America. Are stereotypes outside this cultural realm different, are they the same, are they converging towards one set of stereotypes or another? Say so in the comments.
As always, please be polite and respectful of fellow commenters. Anonymous posting is also quite fine.
* I'm not quite sure I understand why they made this association. Electronically synthesized popular music genres that descend directly from disco have consistently been quite popular to mass audiences outside of the United States (and likely Canada). To name a single example, Kylie Minogue's latest album bombed in the United States (and likely Canada) notwithstanding the reality that she has been consistently a major star for a couple of decades in Europe and Australia. The Pet Shop Boys themselves have had many more hits in Britain and Europe generally than in the United States (and likely Canada) since the late 1980s or so. That said, I'm entirely not that I understand how that couplet is supposed to work as some kind of cue to non-heterosexuality if disco and like forms are popular, at least outside of North America. After all, it's Europe that has ongoing parties featuring house music on Ibiza. Just saying.
