Homophobic Moments in Music: It's a Man's World

From the moment I turned 13 to the moment I moved to Texas at age 24, my life consisted of a nonstop interrogation of girls! girls! girls!

From parents, teachers, Sunday school teachers, bosses, neighbors, and friends:
"Is there any girl in school that you like?"
"That girl is cute -- why don't you ask her out?"
"You'd have a girlfriend if you weren't so picky!"

From friends, classmates, bullies, jocks, and strangers on the street:
"Doesn't that girl have large breasts - why don't you ask her out?"
"Which actress on tv would you like to have sex with?"
"How many girls did you have sex with last night?"

So the last thing I needed during my senior year in high school was the most uber-heterosexist song on Earth.

During Homecoming, the orchestra had to play for the Gong Show, an adaption of the popular game show where singers could perform for a panel of judges until they were "gonged" off.  The one who made it through the entire performance without a "gong" was the winner.

There were 20 songs, mostly pop hits of the era: "Convoy," "I Write the Songs," "Stand Tall," "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing."

Some dinosaur numbers that got quickly gonged: "Blue Suede Shoes," "My Boyfriend's Back," "Luck be a Lady Tonight."

A duet, "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better," from last spring's musical, Annie Get Your Gun.

"Voi che sapete," an aria from The Marriage of Figaro, got gonged after just a few bars.

The song that won: "It's a Man's Man's Man's World," originally recorded by James Brown, the flamboyantly feminine but apparently heterosexual "Godfather of Soul" (1933-2006).  It's a heavy-beated, immensely sexist number about how men are in charge of everything:

This is a man's world, this is a man's world, this is a man's world.
Men make cars and trains, electric lights, toys, well, just about everything.
If you're a man, you're in charge.
But you're nothing without a woman or a girl.
Yeah...you're nothing, nothing at all, without a woman or a girl.
You're lost in the wilderness
You're lost in bitterness

Great, just what I needed to hear.

Things haven't changed much since the 1970s.  Recently the song was played over a gay male couple who appeared on So You Think You Could Dance, to emphasize the producers' belief that same-sex relationships were worthless, "lost in bitterness."  The judge suggested that they try being with women: "Who knows, you might like it."

See also: So You Think You Can Dance; and 12 Songs I Hate.

Fall 1972: How M*A*S*H Saved My Life

I hated my childhood church.  Everything was a sin: movies, comic books, rock music, books beside the Bible, games with cards, games with dice, restaurants that served alcohol, stores that sold alcohol, dancing, mixed swimming, carnivals, circuses, theaters, curse words, premarital sex, extramarital sex, nonmarital sex, thinking about sex....

Plus we had to sit through three services per week, on Wednesday evening and twice on Sunday, and they were all the same: tedious hymns from Victorian times, 45 minutes of the Preacher pacing and screaming and literally pounding his Bible, and then an endless exhortation to come down to the altar and "get raht with God."

We usually skipped the Wednesday service, and I didn't mind Sunday morning so much; the service ended at 12:00 sharp, and there was nothing good on tv anyway.  But Sunday night services had no limits -- they could go on for two hours or more, with a tv paradise back home: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, It's About Time, Flipper, Land of the Giants, The Young Rebels, Hogan's Heroes...

How to get out of going to church on Sunday night?  When I was in grade school, I tried four tactics:

1.  "I don't want to go!!!! I hate it!!!!"

That didn't work.

2. "I have a lot of homework to do."

No.  Nazarenes were forbidden from working on Sunday, including homework.

3. "I have a stomach ache."

Stomach aches were foolproof...there was no way to prove that you didn't have one, and you weren't necessarily sick. Maybe you just ate something that disagreed with you.

That worked once.  But my parents picked up pie and ice cream on the way home, and some jello for me.  Nazarenes weren't supposed to buy things on Sunday, but...

4. "Bill invited me over for a sleepover.  I can go to his church."

Nope.  Bill was a Presbyterian, and Nazarenes couldn't set foot in a "liberal so-called church."



When I started seventh grade at Washington Junior High, my parents began to watch me carefully, searching for any sign that I had "discovered" girls and thereby become a man.  Did I hang out with girls?  Did I mention any girls, even in passing?  Did I sign up for a mostly-girl club?  Did I notice an actress on tv?

Notice an actress on tv!

The biggest buzz in the 1972-73 tv season was M*A*S*H, a comedy-drama about doctors sexually harassing nurses and getting drunk during the Korean War.  TV Guide was particularly ecstatic over the sexually promiscuous Hot Lips Houlihan, played by Loretta Swit (right).

5. "I want to stay home and watch M*A*S*H.  It sounds good...."

I didn't even have to mention Hot Lips Houlihan.  My parents nudged each other, beaming with pride, and joyfully gave me permission to stay home.


Turns out that I hated M*A*S*H (except for Gary Burghoff as the cute Radar O'Reilly), and there was nothing else good on Sunday nights anymore.

But anything was better than being screamed at for 45 minutes.

And I learned a valuable lesson: my parents were so anxious for me to be heterosexual that they would give me permission to do anything, if there was even a hint of a girl involved.

See also: Slow Dancing at the Canteen

Homophobic Moments in Music: My Girl, Bill

In the spring of 1974, while I was arguing about Freedom to Marry in Mrs. Dunn's class at Washington Junior High, a ballad-style song by Jim Stafford called "My Girl, Bill" began  playing on KSTT radio.  But not for long.  Parents and preachers started screaming, and radio stations cut it from the air, and record stores yanked it from the shelves.

In order to find out what all the fuss was about, my boyfriend Dan and I had to wait until his album, Jim Stafford, appeared.

We still didn't understand.  It seemed to be a straightforward song about two men who are in love with the same women.  They meet to talk things through.  The narrator says: "I know that we both love her, and I guess we always will, but you're going to have to find another, because she's my girl, Bill."

What was the problem?  Maybe parents got riled because it mentions wine?

Two years later, when I figured out what gay people were, I realized that Jim Stafford was playing a trick on listeners: the comma was inaudible, so they thought that Bill was "my girl," a gay relationship was being described.  Unthinkable in 1974!

Of course, gay men never referred to their partners as "my girl."  In the 1970s, the most common terms were "my lover" or "my boyfriend."  It was only clueless heterosexuals who imagined that gay relationships must be divided on gender lines, with "a boy" and "a girl."

I don't know who was more homophobic: Jim Stafford, with his  nasty "joke," or the audience, who got all riled over the possibility that two men might be in love.

Stafford hasn't had a charting song since "Turn Loose of My Leg" hit #98 in 1977, but apparently he's still performing in Branson, Missouri.  I wonder if "My Girl, Bill" is still part of his repertoire.

See also: Discovering what "Gay" Means; and 12 Songs I Hate.

The Heterosexual Gay Kid of "Ugly Betty"

Feminine boys on tv are usually ridiculed, made objects of jokes ("He's into fashion!  He's not a real man! Isn't that hilarious?"), and in the end heterosexualized ("You were worried for a moment, but he's not gay after all!  Isn't that hilarious?").

Justin (Mark Indelicato) on Ugly Betty (2006-2010) was an exception.  After a few years of dissimulating.

Based on the Colombian telenovela Betty la fea, Ugly Betty features a fashion-deprived journalism student (America Ferrara) who lands a job as an assistant to the editor at a high-profile fashion magazine.

 She draws the ardor of a huge number of men who have never seen anyone so attractive in all their years of working with supermodels, such as buffed staff accountant Henry (Christopher Gorham, left).

And the ire of some of the magazine's glitterati, including Marc St. James (Michael Urie), the stereotyped-gay assistant to big boss Wilhemina Slater (Vanessa Williams).

Back home in Brooklyn, Betty lives with her father, sister, and nephew, Justin, who is 12 years old and already a fashion-and-show-tune maven.

What do good moms say to their feminine sons?
"Of course you can wear that ascot to school!"
"For your birthday, I got you tickets to a Broadway musical!"
"No, you can't have those shoes.  36 pairs are enough for you to accessorize to!"

Grandpa and Aunt Betty are equally nonchalant about Justin's femininity.  Plus Mom has a series of boyfriends who try to score points with the boy by promoting his feminine interests ("Let's go shopping!").

Is the show-tune maven gay?  Mom is ready for that possibility: over and over again, she says, "I will love you no matter what happens..." (by which she means "If you happen to be gay.")

Other than the tip-toeing around the word gay, and the implication that being gay is bad enough to make Mom's continuing love a noble thing, this is all perfectly sensible.  Feminine boys aren't necessarily gay, and masculine boys aren't necessarily heterosexual, so no one will have any idea about Justin's sexual orientation until he starts expressing an interest in someone.

And he does: heterosexual interest.

1. In the second season, he becomes a juvenile delinquent and kisses girls.
2. In the fourth season, he insists "I'm not gay!"


Then he starts dating boys, but he's conflicted about it, and really worried that his family will turn out to be homophobic.

1.When someone seems him in a same-sex lip-lock, he begs, "Don't tell Mom!"
2. He postpones announcing that he is gay until the final episode of the series, whereupon everyone tries to look surprised and supportive.

Wait -- parents who accept feminine boys usually have no trouble accepting gay boys.  Besides,  the family obviously has gay friends, and Mom asks Marc to hang out with Justin to provide a gay role model.

What is Justin's problem?

Part of the hesitation may be due to actor Mark Indelicato's horrifying experiences on the show.  He received constant hate mail, including death threats, quite a lot for a 13-year old to deal with along with the stress of his first major acting role.

Maybe the writers hung back on his character's gayness to give him a reprise from all the hate.  Maybe, in the second season, they actually intended for him to be heterosexual.

Mark is now 20, in college, but still acting occasionally.  He is apparently as feminine as Justin in real life, but heterosexual or bisexual, with a long-term girlfriend.