Diva Worship: Still A Gay Male Thing?

Executive Director of PhillyGayCalendar

Ten years ago Damien Cave wrote an article for Salon.com titled “Descent of the Divas,” where he said that in the past gay men have worshiped over-the-top female entertainers like Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Cher, Madonna, and so on. But with the increase of openly gay icons in the 1990’s, and with coming out being more accepted, he said that living through Hollywood’s women has been not as appealing to today’s gays as it was in the past, and that it would fade away as gay people continued to be more acceptable in society.

Or does it? Even though there have been more openly gay male entertainers, artists and singers in the past decade, it seems to me that with gay male diva worship has not gotten obsolete. Female vocalists are still very prominent on the gay dance clubs, and female entertainers are often discussed and obsessed on gay forum boards on the internet (and many forum boards on various divas have a openly gay contingent). And not only has worship of the divas remained strong in this past decade, new female icons for gay men have popped up as well, such as Kathy Griffin and Britney Spears. A good example of the female gay icon would be Lady Gaga, who rose up in the past two years on the pop charts with her music and outlandish sense of fashion, while she gave props to her gay fans in ways previous female divas haven’t done before, such as thanking “God and the gays” when she won an award at last year’s MTV Awards, as well as having been a speaker at the National Equality March in DC last October. There is also the case for “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale from the longtime cult documentary Grey Gardens, who crossed over and became mainstream gay icons when a HBO movie was made about them last year (also called Grey Gardens), which starred Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange.

I can guess that there are a couple of reasons why gay men still worship divas. One is that female singers, musicians, actresses, etc. are more accessible through the various mainstream media outlets than openly gay male entertainers. While there are more openly gay male singers, musicians, actors, etc., most of them don’t get major radio airplay or their shows don’t get a wide network audience like Beyonce or Mariah Carey would. Maybe it’s because many of them are deemed as not having a “wide” or “mainstream” (i.e. heterosexual) appeal. There’s also that many openly gay artists and musicians do not have a big record label or some sort of corporate backing and are on small independent labels or have put out their records themselves. (Adam Lambert is one of the few openly gay men that are crossing over onto the mainstream US pop charts today; certainly having the American Idol machinery behind him gives him a big advantage that many other openly gay men don’t have.) And with many gay men/boys growing up they tend to have more access to the mainstream media outlets that will feature more female celebrities than to the gay media that features more openly gay male celebrities.

There’s also the fact that even today, female celebrities are given a wider range to express their emotions through their acting and singing styles then male celebrities are. Females are also given a wider palette of clothing, hairstyles, and mannerisms while males are given a narrower range of acceptable fashion. And the male celebrities that don’t follow role expectations for men or criticize the ways of male-dominated society, such as actor Alan Alda (who vocally supported women’s rights in the 1970’s) and rocker Kurt Cobian of Nirvana (who challenged the role of masculinity and heterosexism in music–particularly rock–in the 1990’s), tend to get derided as traitors and “fags” and viewed with suspicion by other men. Men who followed the more conventional script were often given more exposure and approval through mainstream media. Gay men growing up using mainstream media tended to be drawn towards female celebrities because they identified more with the women who could express the range of strong emotions and feelings that the gay boys were experiencing. The male celebrities seemed boring in comparison. (For example, take rappers Eminem and 50 Cent, who have the same fucking scowl in hundreds of photos!)

I’m not saying that in the past ten years no one cares about or looks up to the out gay male (and lesbian as well) figures in the media. There is a definite audience for them as well, even if they don’t always have to same access to it that “diva” figures do. Nor am I saying that you can like only one of the other; you can listen to Maria Callas and Rufus Wainwright records, be fans of both Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert, or watch to new Sex & The City movie and then see the latest gay romantic comedy at the next gay film festival. Either way it’s about offering “role models” to budding gay men and opening them up to the possibilities out in the world today.


While I’m on the subject about divas, a few months back I talked to author and professor Michael Montlack, who was at Giovanni’s Room doing a reading of his book My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, which consists of essays by writers and poets on the famous women that inspired them. He told me that his anthology “does look back to those figures whom one would expect to see in the line-up (Cher, Midler, Ross) but also acknowledges that there is diversity in the community and that not all gay men are identifying with the glamorous or “bruised.” My Diva also features essays on women like Grace Paley, Queen Elizabeth I, Princess Leia, even Sappho, as well as many other surprises.” He also said that the inspiration for the book was his love for Stevie Nicks.

Michael said that he had read the aforementioned Salon.com article, finding that there were valid questions and points to it. “Such as, will we need our divas as much now and in the future as we have in the past? I can’t say for sure, of course. But it seems the article was looking at Divas through the historically narrow or stereotypical definitions of the word: as mainly entertainers who were larger than life “bitchy characters” (for example, Davis and Crawford) or tragic stars with “bruised” lives (a la Garland) or sexually in-charge icons (like Madonna). Later in the article, the argument is made that we have more out role models now than previous generations and can even look up to, depending on our varied interests and styles, philanthropists like “the guy who started Quark, Inc.” This is exactly what I was after in putting together My Diva.”

“The word “diva” is one that is defined and redefined over and over in the anthology. Yes, there are common threads, the most important being the need to identify with someone who can guide us and show us how to be strong or overcome, which may relate back to the original attraction we had to divas in previous generations. That need might have dissipated for many of us, thankfully–but certainly not for all of us. Yet. I live in New York City and San Francisco, so it’s easy for me sometimes to forget how hard it still is, even in the United States, for some gay people. And then there are so many other places in the world where both women and homosexuals are terribly oppressed. So this relationship with divas still may be not only relevant today, but necessary for many gay men.

“And even for those of us who have benefited from gay rights and more and more acceptance, we still have our history to consider and honor. Those women, whether they intended to or not, propped us up in the past and continue to do so today. Maybe they have not done this for all gay men. Maybe they do it for fewer and fewer as society becomes more accepting. But it was my goal to provide a platform for those men who did and do love divas (be they the traditional “entertainer” types or more subtle/unconventional figures) so that we might thank them for having our backs. And for being there for us today too–if some us need them. And some of us still do.”

I then ask him if he felt that diva worship among gay men has increased or decreased in the past decade. “I cannot gauge accurately how that sort of worship has increased or decreased; I can only say that I recognize how the role may be filled today by a broader range of women– and even men, which is encouraging. The book and its diverse roster is testament to that.”

One final question—if gay men were allowed to openly express themselves in society without reprisal, would divas still be necessary? “Yes, I do think that if men (gay or straight) were encouraged and permitted to express themselves more freely, we might not have had to rely on our divas as much. Or there might just be more male “divas” for us, and why not? Again, the whole Diva phenomenon is really about role models. Everyone should have people to look up to. It shouldn’t matter what gender or age or profession or race those role models are. Gay boys/men have attached themselves to women because historically women have “been there,” where we have been (and often times still are), socially, politically and emotionally. We have learned to express ourselves through them. Maybe that is why in the past (more so than now) they have been larger-than-life figures: They had to be large if so many of us were riding on their shoulders.”

Read Related Posts...