the met gala brings out the worst in you, straight people.
The annual day of celebrity excess represents many things — one of them is queer joy. This isn’t for you.
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Our relationship as a humanity of living creatures to the phenomenon of the red carpet is a pretty strange thing when you stop to think about it.
Here’s how the pattern repeats: Pretty regularly (at least pre-Covid), a gaggle of celebrities gather for some sort of Event (award show, fundraising gala, film premiere, store opening, etc. etc.) and line up to have their photograph taken wearing some sort of tasteless monstrosity of Fashion, then those photos are almost instantaneously disseminated by media outlets to social media platforms. The general public — that’s you, and me and all of us — takes it from there. We cackle, we ooh, we ahh and we roll our eyes. Then we move onto our lives, until the next red carpet distracts us from the latest calamity of the news cycle.
It’s all harmless fun, right? A Facebook message from a friend earlier this week — who’s been featured in this space before — made me question that belief.
This friend, Javi,, pointed out that more often than not, the subjects of social media scorn are individuals that — although they are, in the case of Monday’s Met Gala, wealthy public figures who can afford to pay $30,000 to attend a dinner — are on the margins. Whether they are people of color, queer people, or women, the harshest critiques at events like these rarely are directed toward the endless cisgender men who almost always wear an ordinary black tux to them. Despite the fact that the Met Gala raises funds for the Met’s Costume Institute and usually comes with a theme and expectation to wear something unconventional, these men get a pass, and instead we tend to mock the individuals who were brave enough to meet that moment.
Case in point, Zoë Kravitz looked stunning wearing Saint Laurent, and was reportedly criticized by some on social media for looking “practically naked.” Kim Kardashian’s Balenciaga look is now the subject of endless memes (some of which she is reposting herself). And AOC is facing ethics complaints over her “Tax the Rich” gown.
And though many of the men who did take fashion risks and pushed back on gender norms on Monday — like Dan Levy, Lil Nas X and Jeremy Pope — largely won the praise of the Extremely Online on Twitter, it doesn’t take much digging to see the Facebook comments accusing these men of having “mental health issues” at best, tools of Satan at worst. Trans stars Nikkie de Jager — whose dress paid tribute to legendary activist Marsha P. Johnson — and Hunter Schafer also faced ridicule in some circles for their Met Gala looks.
While the connection between hateful internet comments from strangers and feelings of safety might not be inherently obvious to many folks who are observing these sorts of comments and criticisms — and you might think folks like me and my friend Javi are overreacting — they’re instantly familiar to anyone who’s ever lived life in the closet. This sort of policing of queer expression directly contributes to an atmosphere where it’s infinitely harder to feel safe being yourself, to feel safe coming out as gay, as queer, as trans, as nonbinary. It enforces and strengthens a code of rules by which we are supposed to present ourselves as men, or as women, and it reminds us that we “should” feel uncomfortable seeing a man wearing a dress (“why couldn’t he just wear a tux?!”) or a woman wearing a tux (“why couldn’t she just wear a dress — though not one that’s too sheer!”).
Put simply: In moments like these I find myself thinking back to Emma Stone’s exasperated mother of a “sensitive” boy in SNL’s “Wells for Boys” sketch: “It’s not for you. Because you have everything. Everything is for you! And this ONE THING is for him!”
It is a privilege as a cis, straight person with a traditional gender expression to go through the world without ever having to question whether it is safe to wear the clothes/makeup/accessories that make them feel most comfortable and confident. This is not a feeling that most queer people experience, especially (though certainly not exclusively) those who live outside of urban environments.
For those of us on the fringes out here in the western ‘burbs or elsewhere, every time we leave the house wearing something that violates the “rules,” we know we are taking a risk of being harassed or even attacked. That fear causes us to tone down our looks, to avoid holding hands or publicly displaying our affections. It prompts many of us, in the words of my friend Javi, to dim our light as a matter of safety.
A few weeks back, my husband and I attended the glorious press opening of the Paramount Theater’s production of Kinky Boots (a show you can read more about here) in Aurora. What made the night so thrilling — besides the fact that the production is truly phenomenal and you should go buy tickets for it immediately — is that, for the very first time in our five years out here in the western suburbs, we found ourselves in a giant room that felt like a bubble where our queerness was celebrated and it was safe to let down our guard. Looking around and being surrounded by fellow queers, hearing the “yasss!”es and yalps of joy during the show felt like being transported back to a Salonathon or a Chances Dances — popular community spaces from our previous lives on the Chicago queer nightlife scene.
Returning home from the Paramount felt like waking up from a dream because there truly aren’t spaces like that out here. Queerness in the ’burbs is “accepted,” but not celebrated — it is condoned but not amplified. And many of us are consigned to live in fear. I’ve been out of the closet for nearly 20 years now — and I still feel that way sometimes. As supported as you feel and the more years that pass, it’s still almost impossible to totally outgrow.
I deeply commend the individuals who are working to change that. Look no further than the numerous Pride events that took place in the Fox Valley over the past few months, as well as the wonderful Annie Hex whose pink tent makes its second-last appearance of the year tomorrow (Saturday) morning as part of the Batavia Farmers’ Market’s Artisan Collective. But these efforts take a lot of energy and require so much vulnerability to sustain.
What will take it take for the suburbs to have fifty Annie Hexes and mount 100 productions of Kinky Boots? Lord knows we need them.
Letting comments cutting down celebrities who challenge the gender rules fly is not a victimless act. It directly reinforces a world that often isn’t a safe one for queer people to move within. And I challenge you, if you say you’re with us, to do something about it. Call it out and challenge the hate. But don’t do it for me — do it for all those closeted kids who might now know that it’s OK to be themselves.
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HERE COME THE LINKS (What I’m reading, watching, listening to and thinking about this week):
Listen, this Nicki Minaj thing is getting out of hand. In case you’re fortunate enough to have missed it, Minaj tweeted last week that she is still doing “research” on the Covid-19 vaccines and was not yet vaccinated, and separately claimed that the vaccine caused her cousin’s friend’s testicles to “become swollen.” Of course, that is a myth, but as this Washington Post op-ed by public health advocates Oni and Uché Blackstock, the spreading of falsehoods like this by stars with such massive followings (like Minaj) could have a troubling impact on Black Americans, who are already three times as likely as white people to be hospitalized with Covid-19 and are under-vaccinated compared to other racial demographic groups.
Britney Spears is newly engaged to her boyfriend Sam Asghari (yay, I think!), Octavia Spencer was pressured into apologizing for commenting on Instagram that Spears should “get a prenup” (boo!) and Spears subsequently deleted her Instagram account (huh?). A tweet to Spears’ Twitter account (did she write it?) claims that she’s “taking a little break from social media to celebrate my engagement.” Just last week, Spears’ father, Jamie, formally filed to end his daughter’s conservatorship. I’m sorry, but this whole situation is moving very quickly and feels a little weird again. We just want Britney to be happy and free!
An Associated Press Twitter account retracted a tweet they had sent out last weekend with a reminder that September 11 marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Nickelback’s album Silver Side Up (which, yes, contained “How You Remind Me”). Thoughts and prayers go out to this social media manager.
In happier Twitter news, the cover of newly divorced Kelly Clarkson’s forthcoming Christmas single, ladies and gentlethems:
Also thanks to Twitter, I’m nearly aware that in the late ‘90s Lifetime released a knockoff TV-movie version of Twin Peaks starring none other than Candace Cameron Bure. This newly resurfaced clip from this obviously incredibl(y bad) film contains the most blatant ripoff of a song — Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” — I’ve ever heard. If anyone reading this is able to locate a means by which to view Nightscream in full, I agree to pay whatever ransom you desire.
CBS recently announced a new reality show called The Activist that would have pitted six activist-contestants in competition against each other to prove who had the best ideas to change the world for the better based on metrics such as “online engagement” and social media response, and it’s already been canceled because the premise received such a heavy (and valid) backlash. NPR has the rundown, and y’all should have known this was cursed from the start since the incredibly problematic Julianne Hough was attached as host.
Stefin and I had a big live music weekend last weekend, catching the Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco at Ravinia (so many lesbians!!!) and a bevy of acts at one day of the Pitchfork Music Festival (so much dust!!!). One of the highlights of Sunday was seeing Caroline Polachek (formerly of the band Chairlift) perform almost her entire debut album, Pang, live. Ahead of the set, I also really, really enjoyed this Jia Tolentino profile of Polachek that ran in The New Yorker.
Another highlight of the weekend was seeing the genre-defying, non-binary artist Yves Tumor in their total element on Sunday afternoon. Yves’ set ranged from elements of shoe gaze, post punk, hair metal and more as they thrashed and writhed while wearing a Slipknot t-shirt and a mini-skirt. It was electric and I haven’t been able to stop listening to their music ever since. Here’s the QTB bop of the week, the music video for “Jackie,” off their last EP (The Asymptotical World):