Queer Issue: How Queer was Super Bowl XLVII?

One might say that Football being an inherently masculine sport, gaying it up might be pretty hard. Not really. And one doesn't even need to go into the detail about the players grabbing each others buttocks, chest bumping, and the other forms of physical intimacy on blatent display.

Let's start with the music.
-The intro song, We Will Rock You was originally by Queen, whose lead singer Freddie Mercury died of complications from HIV/AIDS.
-The Sandy Hook/Newton Elementary School performers sang America the Beautiful, whose lyrics were written by Katarine Lee Bates, a lesbian.


Advertising
-Unfortunately there was a ridiculously transphobic Doritos ad. Yeah, guys wearing dresses is all you need to do apparently in order to create mirth these days...


-Which was then followed up by a Calvin Klein ad featuring a muscular guy wearing only underwear. Go figure.
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-This Coke ad reminded me of both The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Lawrence of Arabia (about T.E. Lawrence, who historians now accept as likely as having being gay). Probably the only reason I was reminded of Lawrence of Arabia was because I had just watched it about a week ago.



Miscelaneous
-The 49ers are from San Francisco, which at one point was considered a gay mecca and where the first openly gay politician, Harvey Milk, was elected to major office in the U.S.
-Half-Time show was by gay icon Beyonce.

So after my last post regarding the music industry, I ended up coming across the music video "Hell Yeah" by Rapper Jayne Dooe. It's only fair now that I share it.

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Queer Issue: Looking for Queer Orientated Music? Good Luck.

I was never a big music fan when I was a younger teenager. That changed the summer before I entered 11th grade, when I heard Three Doors Down's "Kryptonite" playing on the radio. Something about it's funky guitar riffs caught my attention. Later that summer, when my dad and I were preparing for the long drive to visit Clarkson University, which I was planning to apply to, I bought their album, "The Better Life". After all, I was facing many hours in which my other options were listening to the radio or whatever my Dad's generation called "music". What would any other teenager have done?

However, "The Better Life" was my gateway album, leading me down a path towards harder stuff. Soon I was buying albums by Creed, P.O.D., Metallica, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Pink, Sum 41, The Red Hot Chili Peppers amongst a lot of other bands. Of course, my tastes were not fully formed initially and I also bought "what was I thinking" items, such as an early Avril Lavign album.

Later my tastes did mature a little bit and I learned to appreciate a wide variety of musical genres and styles, including songs that my Dad's generation called "music". For instance, I think The Beatles "The White Album" is definitely one of the greatest albums of all time and Jimi Hendrix's version of "All Along the Watchtower" by Bob Dylan is one of my favorite songs.

Now recently, I decided to watch Logo's "Top 10 Countdown" featuring "Gay, Lesbian, Bi, and Trans videos". I'll have to admit to being a little bit surprised by their choices. Out of the 9 videos I was able to watch (I tuned in after #10 had finished) only 2 featured any obvious queer subjects or themes. Now granted I was not watching the videos that closely, nor do I know what Logo was considering "Gay, Lesbian, Bi, or Trans" but the almost complete lack of queer content shocked me a little bit.

Awhile back, my boyfriend made the claim to me that the music industry is the most hetero-normative mass media today. Having to go through music videos on Logo with a fine tooth comb in order to find Queer themes, certainly would lend credence to his claim.

Not to get too off topic, but in comparison, of TV shows airing today, "Modern Family", "Shit My Dad Says", "Glee" all feature positive and/or sympathetic characters. Now those are just what I can name off the top of my head. Then there's the TV channel Logo, which produces it's own shows, such as "RuPaul's Drag Race". There are also older shows that are no longer on the air waves, such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "The Shield" which also prominently featured gay characters.

If I really wanted to, I could also easily name books and movies that also feature prominent LGBTQA characters. The point I'm getting at is that there is definitely a discrepancy here between the music industry and other popular forms of mass media.

I'm not sure why the music industry is so far behind the curve here. Do individual songs represent too much of a risk, that musicians and producers shy away from anything that might alienate even a small portion of their audience?

In any case, I don't want to get too negative here, so I thought I'd highlight a few music videos that I enjoyed that feature prominent Queer Content.

First, the one queer music video that I noticed on Logo that I really liked, Farrad's Misunderstood:


(Actually after re-watching that I almost want to take that back, I thought when I first saw it that Farrad was acting in a more non-gender conformist manor, until I realized that most of what he does is simply weird, with the only thing non-gender conformist behavior is wearing purple lipstick and an otherwise ambiguously effeminate style.)

Then there's Lady Gaga's "Alejandro":


And one of my favorite songs that came out this year, Jimmy Eat World's "My Best Theory":


So if anyone out there knows of any songs/videos with obvious queer content/themes, I'd appreciate it if you let me know, preferably by leaving a comment here with a link.