This article fits squarely into the "Why this band I really like is really really important" genre.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
What I want to know is, are the Pet Shop Boy learning to read?
About the gayness of Wham, from a source I can no longer locate (some book or other about the female gaze):
On the contrary homo-erotic representation, far from excluding the female gaze may actively invite it. What's more, as many shrewd businessmen have realised, it sells to young girls. When Simon Napier-Bell first saw Wham on Top of the Pops he immediately picked up on the homo-erotic tension between the two boys and saw it as a marketable phenomenon. Many people buzzed over what Andrew Ridgely's role was - he didn't write, play instruments or sing - but the combination of him and George Michael provided visual points of entry into many permutations of fantasy. Many of Wham's publicity shots play with classic homo-erotic traditions (George Michael looking ecstatic in the shower, etc.), for it is in this space that men can be presented as desirable. The use of Ridgely is a kind of third term that breaks down the binarism of either identification with the image or the controlling look of voyeurism. What we have here is a far more complicated scenario, one which allows fluid relations of activity and passivity across multiple identifications.
According to Wikipedia, Ridgeley is now married to one of the women from Bananarama and is active with the environmental group Surfers Against Sewage.
Ridgeley is now married to one of the women from Bananarama
The hot one?
7: Yeah, I was kind of joking. As I recall, they were all v. attractive.
Also, every member of bananrama was beautiful in her own way. Only a cad would deny this.
I think the one on the right is currently playing Calamity Jane on Deadwood.
From the Wikipedia bio of the Bananarama woman:
In 1985 she had an unplanned pregnancy with her then boyfriend, David Scott Evans. This resulted in a son named Thomas.
This is an odd thing to put in someone's Wikipedia bio, unless a big deal was made of the unplannedness at the time.
11: ac, that picture was supposed to be Bananarama. Now I have caught teh gay!
It's written by some high school kid. Who else would use the construction "This resulted in a son named..."?
How would someone currently in high school even know who Bananarama was?
16 -- Don't worry about it. Just click a little more carefully next time. I talk to old men in the Bowery every day whose downward spiral began innocently surfing the web, when they clicked on a Culture Club page that they mistook for a B-52's site.
How would someone currently in high school even know who Bananarama was?
17: Someone whose first language isn't English?
23: I sometimes think back to being a kid in the '70s and watching "Happy Days." The portrayal of the '50s in that show seemed so quaint and nostalgic, yet it depicted an era only 20-years-gone (at that time.)
Now the '80s are 20-years-gone.
I'm getting old.
In thirty years, the 80's will be what the fifties are now. I will be 66, like the route.
(The fifties are no longer precisely "retro", I think)
Hey BTW, here's your source for Welcome Back, Kotter fanfic.
Calamity Jane on Deadwood.
I'm too lazy to figure it out for sure, but I expect Ben would know: is Deadwood actually written in blank verse, or does it just sound as though it is?
23: A friend of mine who works with a lot of youngins says that they don't feel nostalgia for the music, TV shows, etc., of bygone eras. I have no way of knowing if that's true, myself.
And TMK: that "Welcome Back Kotter"-inspired story you linked to? Terrible.
Yeah I know, it sucked huh... Pickins are slim for those of us who fantasize about a sweat-drenched Kotter-Barbarino assignation after school. You Trekkies have got it so easy, reams of pages to pick through any time you want to think about Dr. McCoy examining Lt. Uhura. Spare a tear for the frustrated Diff'rent Strokes fan! Who will put pen to paper for him?
How 'bout some "Punky Brewster" fanfic? Or "Green Acres"? The horror, the horror . . .
33: Great. When you turn on the news tonight, that will be BitchPhD up on the watertower with the rifle.
No. Because even though you tempted fate by getting me to click on the link, I am not so sick that I clicked on any of the links therein. The world is safe from me.
For now.
Ooh! I'm the curly haired green-eyed American exchange student at Hogwarts with an unusual talent in Charms, the mostest unusual in 100 years, and everyone loves me except that bitch Hermione, especially Harry who falls in love with me and then I sacrifice myself to save the school from an attack of Hungarian Horntails and everyone cries and even Hermione is moved!
But don't you want to know what Kimberly found out about when she saw Willis in the shower?
38: Honestly, I'd rather have my eyes torn out by wild rats.
I'm with you there, B. I am convinced that the most terrifying combination of two words in the English language is "fan fiction."
No, it's "Diff'rent Strokes." Some fanfic is actually pretty entertaining.
So THAT'S whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis!
This is pretty poorly written.
But it guest stars Bunny DeBarge, so that's something.
What I'm talking about is you walking on the knife's edge, Apo. It's a damn good thing I live nowhere near South Carolina.
Only took 16 minutes.
Some of us can make it last, Joe. Don't worry, I've read it happens to lots of guys.
I don't live in South Carolina, B.
"Good Times" fanfic would be cool, though it could never improve on that actual episode where J.J. got V.D. (what STDs used to be called, for all the youngins reading) and had to go to "the clinic."
I don't live in South Carolina, B.
You talk enough about pig fucking, people are going to make assumptions.
North, whatever. Being as they're next to each other, if I live nowhere near the one, I live nowhere near the other.
North Carolina has way, way more pigs than South Carolina, Tim.
North Carolina has way, way more pigs than South Carolina, Tim.
But I'm sure you're doing your best to remedy that situation, apo.
Also, our pigs are much prettier and don't just go spreading their hocks for any Tom, Dick, or Harry. They have a little thing we call artistic integrity.
I hate the term "VD". Because of the "V", I feel like they're blaming women. I'm not usually picky on language usage but that one bugs me.
60 - Did I claim that this was a logical pet peeve? No.
"Venereal" just means roughly "having to do with sexual intercourse." I don't see how that's different than 'sexually transmitted.'
Term VD is riskier than whole VD.
Etymologically, venereal does come from Venus.
63: I couldn't find the comment referencing "VD"; I just found the one referencing "V.D." So never mind.
The term "venereal disease" probably was a lot less stupid when the word "venereal" was found in other contexts. Since "venereal" is the adjective form of Venus, I can imagine it was a very pretty euphemism once in a while.
I also remember seeing an article about masturbation in which an 18th- or 17th-century term for it was "manual venery". I've always wanted to use that phrase as the title of something.
I've heard "social disease" mean the same thing, but not "love disease".
14: Now I have caught teh gay!
ac dropped Teh Gay Bomb!
69: Dude, that is so awesome. I joke about going to war on the basis of hypothetical SFP (superkoranic fellatio power) weapons constantly. Who knew we might be developing them?
Interesting. I had thought that "STD" replaced "VD" because "VD" referred to diseases that afflict the genitals, and diseases like AIDs, though (usually) transmitted sexually, don't.
But then I looked "venereal disease" up in the dictionary, and Cala's comment at 64 is correct: it just means "contracted by sexual intercourse."
So I wonder when/why "STD" replaced "VD"?
58, 59. Yeah, seriously. I know it's not PC, but, really, every single VD I've gotten I got from a woman. I bet the same is true for most the guys here, except Mitch. QED. Sometimes you just gotta let your vagenda go and face facts.
So I wonder when/why "STD" replaced "VD"?
Probably because it's the term used by scientists and epidemiologists, and therefore the term used in sex ed classes. It was the term used in my sex ed classes (or "health class" as it is actually called, including both sex ed and drug ed).
As a public health student in a department that deals largely with AIDS, I've noticed that we have a lot of terms that seem to be synonyms for non-scientific terms but are actually more precise.
For example, instead of saying that a risk group for HIV infection is "Gay men", we say it is "Men who have sex with men" (or MSM for short). After all, gay men may be celibate, while men who get raped in prison are at risk for HIV.
Although it has switched from VD to STD, the liberal biased MSM doesn't use the phrase "MSM" to indicate gay men at risk for HIV infection, I wonder why.
I know it's not PC, but, really, every single VD I've gotten I got from a woman.
A woman? That's an awfully impersonal way to refer to your mom, Michael.
So I wonder when/why "STD" replaced "VD"?
Late 70's, I'd say. I was old enough to know what VD meant before I'd ever heard the term STD, but by the time I got to highschool health class VD was no longer in use. And the why is just euphemism drift; you need a new term every couple of decades once people have gotten comfortable enough with the old term to use it as a term of abuse (cf. 'moron', which started out as a technical medical term.)
70: Yep. It's also amusing (in a sad sort of way) to imagine situation in which members of the US military are dishonorably discharged after a tragic gay-bomb accident.
I've heard now that they're called STIs, not STDs (infection.)
Mitch, I could take the low road, but it's incest- and teabagging-jokes all the way down. And I'm going to the asian grocery store. woohoo! see ya.
annoyance at the delay in a US release (which I would typify as American cultural narcissism)
Well it's taking the Dixie Chicks like extra weeks to get released over here in Germany. Is this German cultural narcissim?
(Or maybe it's the presumption of US narcissism that is itself teh narcissism.)
77: That's true, although it's an entirely pointless change, since you can't have a sexually transmitted disease that isn't an infection (except some side effects of pregnancy).
79: I think reverse narcissism works like reverse snobbery.
the liberal biased MSM doesn't use the phrase "MSM" to indicate gay men at risk for HIV infection
So Jeff Gannon was part of the MSM after all!
re: MSM
Plus, 'gay' as it's usually used in the West doesn't really correlate with a lot of sexual archetypes elsewhere. Someone working on AIDS prevention in Madras, for example, isn't targeting men who live typically Western 'gay' lives. [To the extent that any such typical individuals exist of course]
In some cultures it's fairly typical for 'men who have sex with men' to be married and to have kids and for them not to self-identify as 'gay' in the Western sense (and not in the sense of being closeted either).
Mitch, I could take the low road, but it's incest- and teabagging-jokes all the way down. And I'm going to the asian grocery store. woohoo! see ya.
What a gracious surrender. Well done, sir, well done!
80. it's an entirely pointless change, since you can't have a sexually transmitted disease that isn't an infection
But you can carry sexually transmitted infections that don't manifest themselves into diseases, viz., HPV in most men.
On Valentine's Day, I wish people a happy VD.
I have wondered why with the change from "STD" to "STI" too, and #85 cleared it up for me.
I worship and adore Pet Shop Boys and love that brilliantly written article about them.
Back in the day, we used to sing that old Go-Gos number as "We got VD!"
"We Got STD" just doesn't scan as well.
one of the brightest stars in the gay cultural firmament
One of the brightest stars in the pop cultural firmament, period. IMO, Tennant and Lowe have produced more witty, humane, singable, danceable pop songs than any band since the Beatles. And they have the Beatles beat on the breadth and length of their careers. If pop music is a valid cultural art at all, then The Boys are magnificent artists, by any measure.
A friend of mine who works with a lot of youngins says that they don't feel nostalgia for the music, TV shows, etc., of bygone eras.
I don't know if that's true, but it makes sense. If kids feel that the music, TV shows, etc. of all periods are equally available at the click of a mouse, then there's nothing to be nostalgic for. Nothing's lost or irrevocable. Or maybe the little bastards will sing another story once they get old.
