Aug 28, 2023
seen from France
seen from France
seen from Netherlands
seen from China
seen from France
seen from France
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from Sweden
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Finland
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Finland
seen from Russia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Germany
seen from Türkiye
🏳️🌈 OTB Project 🏳️🌈
Week 3: Louis and Queer Coding - Yellow: Sunlight
I was so late for this week sorry / Click for better quality (Tumblr I hate u </3)
[Support and participate Project OTB]
Stream OTB Spotify | Shazam | You Tube | Apple Music
THE RANBOW LIGHT SHOW FOR SHE IS BEAUTY 🏳️🌈
Queer coding and symbolism - a short dose of queer history
oh my gosh. PLEASE tell me you have seen polaripolari 's instagram the last few days. They have posted FOUR pictures of louis and have mentioned news coming in the last two days!!!! If you look up polari on google, the first picture that shows up is a rainbow emblem with "friends of dorothy" at the bottom. Wikepedia describes its usage as "From the 19th century on, Polari was used in London fishmarkets, the theatre, fairgrounds, and circuses, hence the many borrowings from Romani.[9] As many homosexual men worked in theatrical entertainment it was also used among the gay subculture, at a time when homosexual activity was illegal, to disguise homosexuals from hostile outsiders and undercover policemen. It was also used extensively in the British Merchant Navy, where many gay men joined ocean liners and cruise ships as waiters, stewards, and entertainers.[10] "
FISHMARKETS? CIRCUSES? THEATURE? SOUND FAMILIAR AKA ADORE YOU, HARRYWEEN N2, ECT. OR AM I TOO EXCITED RIGHT NOW?!
Hi dear,
All of this is super exciting. It's all part of gay culture. I have this post about Polari, highly recommend reading it!
All of the symbolism that Harry uses has many roots in gay culture, we've seen that a lot throughout the years. Especially British gay culture. The same goes for Louis.
"Friend of Dorothy" is slang for "gay man", so I'm not surprised to see that in a poster for a Polari campaign. Polari was used as a way for gay men to communicate somewhat freely and avoid exposing themselves. It allowed them to identify other gay men in a time when being gay was a crime that put many in the community in jail.
I highly recommend reading more on it, there's a rich history to queer British culture, which includes Polari.
Queer signaling has always been at the core of the LGBTQ+ community, and it happens in many different forms, be it through the use of a secret gay language (Polari), code words (friend of Dorothy), symbolism (green carnation, pink triangle, and COUNTLESS more), vocabulary, colors etc etc...the list goes on.
It still remains to be seen whether the brand is teasing something new with Louis or they're just using their last campaign to garner publicity - but regardless, I like to see that they're back and would be soooo happy if Louis was involved again.
More about queer coding here, Harry specifically here, and Louis here.