Tag Archives: Adam Lambert

The Queer Matrix Through the Decades

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Hoping not to prove you can have too much of a good thing, I’m continuing my queer ponderings this week, visual arts-style, with new Queer Matrices.

I spent way more time on these than I’d like to admit, but the results are quite a bit more polished than last week’s laughable mock-up.  I guess I was the last to know:  you can’t do diddly in Paint.

Some definitions first…

The X axis is Queer Content, which could include portrayals of same sex love and relationships, homoeroticism, gender bending, trans experiences, drag, or any representation of queer culture, politics and/or community.

No Queer Content is the absence of any of these.

The Y axis is Queer Sensibility.  The way I define it is looking at the world with a queer lens, through which homoeroticism and same sex love are celebrated, transexuality is transcendent, queer oppression is illuminated and indicted, and heteronormativity is challenged, subverted, and asked to please leave the building.

Non Queer Sensibility is the opposite, meaning looking at the world with a non queer lens, through which heteronormativity is centralized, traditionalized and/or assumed, a gender binary is de rigueur, and opposite sex relationships are the default setting.

Now we’ll take a look at Queer Matrices through the decades…

 

 

 

So what’s next?  The Queer Matrix:  Boy Bands?  Disney?  Punk Music Icons?  I’m open to entertaining suggestions.

Celebrating Pat Parker

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So I got this blurb and poem from White Crane as my daily e-mail dose of gay wisdom, and I couldn’t resist posting it here.  Born January 21, 1944, Pat Parker was a Black, lesbian poet who I was unaware of until today.  She was a fierce advocate for social justice (she died in 1989) and author of several books:  “Movement in Black,” “Child of Myself,” and “Jonestown and Other Madness.”

One of her poems is an excellent skewering of heterosexism, and I think its message still holds up today (e.g. the brouhaha over Adam Lambert’s performance at the American Music Awards covered in Rolling Stone here).  Enjoy.

For Straight Folks who Don’t Mind Gays but Wish They Weren’t So Blatant

You know, some people got a lot of nerve.  Sometimes I don’t believe the things I see and hear.

Have you met the woman who’s shocked by two women kissing, and, in the same breath, tells you that she’s pregnant?

But gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

Or this straight couple sits next to you in a movie and you can’t hear the dialogue because of the special effects.

But gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

And the woman in your office spends an entire lunch hour talking about her new bikini drawers and how much her husband likes them.

But gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

Or the “hip” chick in your class rattling like a mile a minute, while you’re trying to get stoned in the john, about the camping trip she took with her musician boyfriend.

But gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

You go into a public bathroom and all over the walls there’s John loves Mary, Janice digs Richard, Pepe loves Delores, etc., etc.

But gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

Or you go to an amusement park and there’s a tunnel of love with pictures of straights painted on the front and grinning couples are coming in and out.

But gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

Fact is, blatant heterosexuals are all over the place. Supermarkets, movies, on your job, in church, in books, on television every day and night, every place–even in gay bars–and they want gay men and women to hide in the closet.

So to you straight folks I say, “Sure I’ll go if you go too. But, I’m polite, so after you.”

Happy Birthday Pat Parker!!