Middle-America is Kind of Gay

(Cirque de Soleil)

Caitlyn used to say that the tastes of middle-America always leaned toward the fabulous. I was never very inclined to believe this until I started taking notice of the mainstream culture with more than a fleeting eye.

Now when I say gay, I’m not talking about the most true sense of the modern meaning of the word, i.e. a man who engages in sexual congress with another man. I’m speaking to the “gay culture” which is expanded to grotesque proportions through the funhouse mirror of institutions like Perez Hilton and the San Fransisco Pride Parade. I’m talking about the bizarre sexually-obsessed advertisements in the back of local gay magazines that advertise fetish nights at Crobar. That type of “gay taste” is somehow more acceptable to Indiana than big-breasted hotrod magazine women.

One of the most coveted tickets in Orlando and Las Vegas is Cirque de Soleil. RuPaul-esque fire dancers and acrobats who can twist their genitals over their heads… that’s what cousin Fay is spending $100 to see. Cousin Fay is also watching Dancing with the Stars and fawning over the red faux feathers. Cousin Fay’s daughters all watch Gossip Girl, which I might add was tailor-made for Rickie Vasquez, the lovable emo gay teen character from My So-Called Life. Rickie would cuddle up with his little emo girfriends and maybe bake something and talk about shoes while uttering the show’s OMFG tagline ad nauseum.

Two shining examples of exactly how gay mainstream America is can be summed up in the names Lance Bass and Clay Aiken both of whom have topped the Billboard top 200, the only true measure of America’s taste in recorded music. I don’t say this in jest. Billboard is compiled by royalty data from airplay and soundscan data from actual sales. Billboard doesn’t fuck around. If Cousin Fay is listening to Clay Aiken’s Christmas album you can be assured that Pearl, Dina and Paulette are also doing so and Billboard is going to let me know it.

In a predominantly straight culture, why are so many aspects of popular culture so gay? Well, to be honest it’s bad comedy. With fundamentalist ideals owning the heartland we see a crack down on depictions of heterosexuality. A woman scantily clad implies a pact with Satan, but a rugged young man with his stetson hat tipped to one side and an open shirt is just Luke’s boy from down the street after football practice. It’s safety by virtue of ignorance. There is no debate as to what an import girl in seven inch heels is selling, but that cat-man with the banana skirt… that could represent island culture… and we don’t want to be racist.

To further this point of deception we need to fully understand that the wool is only being pulled over the eyes of men. Women, after a certain age (see teen idol effeminate male worship), know full well that ballroom dancing is gay and Clay Aiken is a “sweet” young man. They want to nurture them. They want them to be dirty, slutty daughter-figures that they can dish with. Society has long survived with the eunuch class. Men who are of no threat to the superiority of those in power, but who can safely take care of the affairs of the ruler’s women. The relationship has evolved to the modern dynamic of a “fag” and his “hag”.

America will keep churning out the slightly-homoerotic and selling it to housewives with a wink and nudge while society turns its blind rage toward much more dangerous ills. I hear that mixed bathing and skirts are still in fashion and they really should get on that. Is it wrong? No. Its just an updating of the same social conventions which have existed at least as far back as glory days of Rome.