How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization - Cathy Crimmins [13]
Another favorite line of gay men that has become more universal comes from Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire: “I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers.” Of course, Blanche was created by a gay playwright, Tennessee Williams, and many gay men saw themselves in Blanche’s vulnerability, promiscuous sexuality, and loneliness. Yet in the last decade I’ve heard more straight people than gay people use this line in conversation.
In one of the final episodes of Sex and the City, Charlotte’s gay designer friend Anthony does the movie-line tradition proud by introducing a new generation of cinematic reference. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) tells Anthony (Mario Can-tone) that her new dog, Elizabeth Taylor, is ready to compete at dog shows even if her former owner didn’t appreciate her qualities. “Nobody puts Baby in the corner!” says Anthony. When Charlotte doesn’t get the reference, Anthony explodes: “Dirty Dancing! Helloooooo!”
Homo-Wit: The Power of Description
Is there a more descriptive elocution in the whole world than “gaydar”? This combination of “gay” and “radar” captures perfectly the fun and the stress of being a gay man trying to connect with someone. Is your gaydar working, or will you be rebuffed? There is no straight equivalent, and yet I hear heterosexual women use the word more and more if they are worried that a man they’re trying to seduce is really not playing for their team.
“Breeder” is another great gayspeak term. Recently I’ve heard married couples refer to themselves that way. Homosexuals used to deride the breeder lifestyle. Yet the word “breeder” has suddenly become the “faggot” or “queer” of the straight world, a derogatory word now embraced. It’s become less loaded, like a synonym for a soccer mom or dad. Ironically, too, children have become the newest accessory for gay men, so they’ve become breeders themselves in greater numbers. (I eagerly await what stylistic and psychological innovations gay men will bring to parenthood. I’m sure they’ll raise kids with more flare than their heterosexual counterparts.)
Yet why stop at one-word coinage? Gayspeak inspires everyone to wittier locutions. The narrative of our lives is becoming richer because gay men supply striking verbal versions of visual images. Who can beat Noel Coward’s seemingly effortless comment, “She stopped the show—but then the show wasn’t traveling very fast.”
People tune in to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy as much for the banter as they do for the fashion makeovers. Carson Kressley, the skinny blond, is the series wit. He has a snappy comment about almost everything. Seeing one hapless victim’s long boxer shorts, Kressley quips that he should be churning butter in colonial Williamsburg. “Clothes tell a story,” he tells another young man, “and yours tell the story of a crazy, deranged kickboxer who still lives with his mother in Queens.”
I was surfing the Net and found myself on a gay man’s blog in which he painstakingly rated all the fashions worn on TV reality shows. He referred to one contestant in a yellow shirt as “Matt Damon-tasty.” Gayspeak is descriptive and exaggerated at the same time. The queer celebrity gossip Michael Musto described himself in one column as “looking like a cow flop.” Asked about the artist formerly known as Prince, Boy George opined, “He looks like a dwarf who’s been dipped in a bucket of pubic hair.”
A friend told me about a very effeminate gay man she adored who walked into a bar, not knowing it served a rather rough leather crowd. He immediately puffed himself up, pulled up a barstool, and said, “Bring me something pink, and make it snappy!”
One instant-wit verbal game created and played by gays and then passed on to straight people is the “your porno-star name”