Martin D. Goodkin

Profile

Username:: greatmartin
Name:: Martin D. Goodkin
Location:: Fort Lauderdale, FL
Birthday:: 02/29
Status:: Single
Job / Career:: Other

Stats

Post Reads:: 707,962
Posts:: 6133
Photos:: 2
Last Online:: > 30 days ago

View All 6133 »

My Friends

20 days ago

> 30 days ago

> 30 days ago

> 30 days ago

> 30 days ago

> 30 days ago

> 30 days ago

> 30 days ago

My Bookmarks

All That Chat
NY Times Theatre
UAS--Birds
My pictures
Movie base
My Published Books
A Chorus Line
counting calories
Movie,TV, reviews
conures and more
Missmel58
from Australia

Feeds: RSS | XML

Gay, Poor Old Man

Entertainment > Music > She Died 41 Years This Week and Won't Be Forgotten

She Died 41 Years This Week and Won't Be Forgotten

Judy Garland is

considered a gay icon; The
Advocate has called
Garland "The Elvis of homosexuals." The reasons frequently given for her

standing as an icon among gay men are
admiration of her ability as a performer, the way her personal struggles
seemed
to mirror those of gay men in America during the height of her fame, and
her
value as a camp^[1] Garland's role as Dorothy Gale in The
Wizard of Oz is
particularly noted for contributing to this status. figure.
The film,
along with A Star Is Born, her shows at the Palace, her TV appearances,
her voice and her persona turned her into a legend and gay men claim her
as one of their own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8UWNv4wkb0

"Stonewall riots">Stonewall riots

Conventional
wisdom is that Garland's death and funeral, in June 1969, helped
inspire the
Stonewall riots,
the
flashpoint of the modern Gay Liberation movement. However, some observers of the riots contend that most of those involved
"were
not the type to moon over Judy Garland records or attend her concerts at

Carnegie Hall. They were more preoccupied with where they were going to
sleep
and where their next meal would come from.
There was certainly
an awareness and appreciation of Garland among Stonewall Inn patrons. Because the bar had no
liquor license, it was passed off as a bottle club and patrons were
required to
sign in. Many used pseudonyms and
"Judy Garland" was among the most popular. Regardless of the
truth of the matter, the Garland/Stonewall connection has persisted and
has been
fictionalized in Stonewall,
Nigel Finch's feature film
about the events leading up to the riots. Lead character "Bostonia" is
shown
watching Garland's funeral on television and mourning, and later
refusing to
silence a jukebox playing a Garland
song during a police raid, declaring "Judy stays."

Garland as camp

In discussing Judy Garland's
camp appeal, gay film scholar Richard Dyer MGM films
camp in their "failed
seriousness" and her later style "wonderfully over-the-top. Garland
herself acknowledged her camp appeal during her lifetime, saying "When I
die I
have visions of fags singing 'Over the Rainbow' and the flag at Fire
Island
being flown at half mast." Fire
Island, a resort community with a large LGBT presence, is also
referenced in
Garland's final film, I Could Go On
Singing, described as
"her most gay film" and as the film most aware of its gay audience. has
defined camp
as "a characteristically gay way of handling the values, images and
products of
the dominant culture through irony, exaggeration, trivialisation,
theatricalisation and an ambivalent making fun of and out of the serious
and
respectable." Garland is
camp, he asserts, because she is "imitable, her appearance and gestures
copiable
in drag acts". He calls her
"ordinariness" in her early

Judy Garland from
the trailer for the 1939 film
The
Wizard of Oz.

Other connections between Garland and LGBT people include the
slang term friend of Dorothy,

which likely derives from Garland's portrayal of Dorothy Gale in The
Wizard of Oz and became a
code phrase gay people used to identify each other. Dorothy's journey
from
Kansas to Oz "mirrored many gay menâ€™s desires to escape the
black-and-white
limitations of small town life...for big, colorful cities filled with
quirky,
gender-bending characters who would welcome them."^[15] In the
film, Dorothy immediately accepts those who are different, including the

Cowardly Lion. The Lion identifies himself through song as a "sissy" and

exhibits stereotypically "gay" (or at least effeminate) mannerisms. The
Lion
offers a coded example of Garland meeting and accepting a gay man
without
question.

Rainbow flag

Six-color rainbow gay pride flags in a
parade on
the anniversary of Stonewall

Another connection is the rainbow
flag, symbol of the LGBT communities which may
have been inspired,
in part, by Garland's song "Over the Rainbow."

Garland's performance of this song has been described as "the sound of
the
closet," speaking to gay men whose image "they presented in their own
public
lives was often at odds with a truer sense of self that mainstream
society would
not condone.

posted on June 28, 2010 5:16 PM ()

Comments:

GREAT COMMENTS FOR A GREAT ARTIST

comment by kevinhere on June 29, 2010 12:36 AM ()

Comment on this article

6,133 articles found [ Previous Article ] [ Next Article ] [ First ] [ Last ]

Martin D. Goodkin

Profile

Stats

Recent Posts

My Friends

My Bookmarks

Subscribe

Gay, Poor Old Man

She Died 41 Years This Week and Won't Be Forgotten

Garland as camp

Rainbow flag