when two musicians sing into the same microphone and lean in very close to each other… like omg are you guys gonna kiss now to relieve the homoerotic tension?😳
Okay, but this is really important: Bruce Springsteen occupied this really weird place in music history. His songs were all from this pessimistic, nihilistic view of an America that had let him down:
Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn’t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.
Politicians used his music to promote their ‘Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He’s over here asking when we’re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren’t helping the people.
It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson’s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.
Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.
So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.
Passages from American Popular Music by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman
I used to think that Bruce and Clarence kissing onstage was exuberance, showmanship, and telling racist homophobes to fuck off. Like, they picked up a certain kind of audience and went “Racist homophobes? Not in our house!” And started the kissing then but then I actually looked it up and
It was a story where… we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn’t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen
It wasn’t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage
It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he’s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence’s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own
Clemons said in one interview. “Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.” In another version of the story, Clemons says “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.”
I’m having some emotions about it!
“He was elemental in my life,“ Springsteen adds, “and losing him was like losing the rain.”
Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!
We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!
apropos of nothing, here are some gay historical fiction novels that engage with historical queerness in thoughtful, complex, and interesting ways (organized chronologically)
hild by nicola griffith
↪ early 7th century england
a tip for the hangman by alison epstein
↪ 1585-1593 england
confessions of the fox by jordy rosenberg
↪ 1702-1724* england
the confessions of frannie langton by sara collins
↪ 1812-1826 jamaica to england
patience and sarah by isabel miller
↪ 1816 america
devotion by hannah kent
↪ 1830s prussia to australia
the sweetness of water by nathan harris
↪ 1865 america
whiskey when we're dry by john larison
↪ 1885 america
the city of palaces by michael nava
↪ 1897-1913 mexico
tipping the velvet by sarah waters
↪ 1890s england
at swim, two boys by jamie o'neill
↪ 1915-1916 ireland
the gods of tango by caro de robertis
↪ 1913-1920s argentina
uncommon charm by emily bergslien and kat weaver
↪ 1920s america
the book of salt by monique truong
↪ 1930s vietnam to paris
the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay by michael chabon
↪ 1939-1954 america and beyond
the flight portfolio by julie orringer
↪ 1940 france
the savage kind by john copenhaver
↪ 1940s america
a thin bright line by lucy jane bledsoe
↪ 1950s america
*this one has a framing device and footnotes from the present day but the bulk of the story is set in the early 1700s
As we close out Black History Month here in the US, I decided to cover a monumentally important black author who is constantly overlooked:
Samuel R. Delany (b.1942)
Delany became a major figure in what's now known as the "New Wave" of science fiction literature, where he helped shape the direction the genre would take. His first novel, The Jewels of Aptor, was written in 1961, and I need you to understand why that's so crazy:
At the time, he was a gay black teenager who was in an open marriage with a white lesbian.
I won't get into all the subtle facets of his identity and personal life, or how they shaped his early career, but it's really interesting. If you want to learn more, read his 1988 memoir The Motion of Light in Water.
Instead, I'm just going to give brief overviews of a few of his major works, along with links on where you can read them for free:
Babel-17 (1966)
Linguists and philosophers have long theorized that language might shape how we see the world. This book speculates on how language might actually be weaponized for manipulative, nefarious ends.
(Full text)
Aye, and Gomorrah... (1967)
A story that feels far ahead-of-it's-time. It follows what appears to be a societal caste of androgynous, neutered "spacers," along with a subculture of what we might consider "chasers" that fetishizes them.
(Full text)
Nova (1968)
A dazzling space opera on a vast scale, focused on a high-stakes hunt for a rare element that could reshape the galaxy’s balance of power. It explores class, obsession, art, and the lingering power of old stories.
(Full Text)
Dhalgren (1975)
There was a movement within science-fiction called the "New Wave," and this is the book that took it's ideas to their most extreme limit. Specifically: stylistic experimentation, a move away from traditional "sci fi" tropes, and a focus on more transgressive content.
(Full text)
Triton (1976)
Delany’s sharpest social thought experiment, set in an incredibly permissive future society where gender, body, and identity can be changed as easily as clothing. But what if you lived in a society built for maximum freedom and inclusion... and you still couldn't fit in?
(Full Text)
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984)
After a planet is mysteriously annihilated, a seasoned interstellar diplomat becomes captivated by the sole survivor, a traumatized man whose importance may extend far beyond just personal desire. It's also noteworthy that the book’s radical approach to gender, sexuality, and pronouns still feels ahead-of-it's-time today.
(Full text)
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999)
Written in the wake of New York’s "clean-up" of the many seedy sex shops in Times Square, Delany reminisces on his many lurid, anonymous experiences there, and defends the value of such spots.
(Full text)
Dark Reflections (1999)
In an impressive shift of subject matter, this is a bleak, intimate, deeply literary portrait of a black gay poet looking back on a life that was shaped by repression, missed chances, and resentment.
(Full text)
stormborns
origamiaround
jbbartram-illu
2087
tangentwithtanner
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
andulkaphoto
