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The Rituals of Revival
By Sarah Drepaul
This is what distinguishes the festival from other queer art performances, at least in the U.S.: it is not afraid to understand and showcase queerness in all the ways it impacts us.
Queerbaiting History: Maestro and Fellow Travelers (Part Two)
By Jonathan Alexander
I didn’t realize at first that this series, especially when seen alongside Maestro, actually epitomizes queerbaiting: it titillates with the specter of gay sex while ultimately punishing the faggots.
Queerbaiting History: Maestro and Fellow Travelers (Part One)
By Jonathan Alexander
Both of these shows also offer us portraits of queer life and love amidst the homophobia of the mid to late twentieth century. But as I watched and thought about the film and series, I came to feel more and more…baited — queerbaited by the representation of our own history.
Here's My Story View all
An Unconventional Coming Out
By Thomasin Lockwood
I frequently thought of women, but could barely admit it to myself, let alone go out and explore it. A drunk make out with a female colleague was as far as I went.
The Straight Men that Made Me Gay
By Gregory Walters
I grew up at a time when there weren’t any visible or out homosexuals. Liberace had stated under oath he wasn’t gay. Elton John was married to a woman, Paul Lynde was a harmless, snarky coot on Hollywood Squares, and Charles Nelson Reilly, a regular on Match Game, just seemed kooky.
Remembering Edwin
By Ronald Valdiserri
It began with the illness and death of my brother’s partner Tommy, the loss of our dear college friend (the character Lenny in the novel), and my brother Edwin’s HIV diagnosis. Like so many gay men, I felt compelled to take action.
Book Reviews
How ‘Gender’ Became a Scare Word
WHO’S AFRAID OF GENDER? by Judith Butler Farrar, Straus and Giroux 320 pages, $30. IN THE INTRODUCTION to her new book, Judith Butler recalls an encounter with a woman she met after giving a talk in Switzerland. The woman approached Butler and told her that she “prays for her.” Butler is in needMore
The Suits in Garbo’s Closet
A new biography, Ideal Beauty: The Life and Times of Greta GarboI, by feminist historian Lois Banner—who’s the cofounder of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians—presents Greta Louisa Gustafson (1905–1990) as Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. So much has been written about the actress that the Hollywood dream factory exploited as a marketable commodity during the 1920s and ’30s, when Garbo was billed as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” that it’s a challenge to say something new. Banner’s book offers a feminist rehash of Garbo’s childhood and reprises the well-known struggles on her quest for cinematic fame and financial freedom.
Deep History of the Culture Wars
IN THE SUMMER OF 1997, I gave birth to two beautiful drag babies on Pier 54 in Manhattan. We were at Wigstock, the raucous drag festival. Like many mothers, I neglected their development, but they have since grown into upstanding, fierce queens. Hundreds of drag mamas, whom Elyssa Maxx Goodman lovingly documents in Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City, were far more committed to their drag careers and to nurturing newcomers to the culture of drag than was I.
A Poet of the Dying Years
Saint was a founding member of the Blackheart Collective, and published numerous collections of his own poetry, editing two anthologies, notably The Road Before Us: 100 Black Gay Poets (1991). Sacred Spells is a collection of exemplary poems, essays, stories, plays, and even some performance pieces.
A Power Couple in a Time of War
At fewer than ninety pages, Rowe’s Liberated merely scratches the surface of Cahun’s life and art. But perhaps that’s appropriate as Cahun’s art often dealt with surfaces: poses, masks, assumed or discarded identities. The book pays tribute to Cahun’s Surrealistic photography and æsthetics, her aggressive anti-fascism, and her enduring, indestructible love for Marcel Moore.
Short Reviews
Reviews of About Ed by Robert Glück, The Distance Between Us by A. C. Burch, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World by Sean Hewitt and Luke Edward Hall, The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz, Mourning Light by Richard Goodkin, and Queer Networks: Ray Johnson’s Correspondence Art by Miriam Kienle.