2 w. ago My unexpected Pride icon: they were not cool, but bands like Mumford & Sons eased the turmoil of coming out

As a queer, black woman raised on jazz and soul, discovering the genre of indie folk felt like an antidote to the guilt and self-loathing I was battling throughI am coming out again, this time as a lover of stomp and clap music. This will probably get me in trouble with my mother in a way that coming out as bisexual never did, because she believed that you should always be your authentic self, so long as you have good taste. Stomp clap music has often been the subject of much derision and a bit of a punchline. But despite the ridicule, I’m willing to defend my taste.The genre, sometimes referred to as stomp and holler or indie folk, peaked in the 2000s, with bands such as the Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men and, of course, Mumford & Sons – think a lot of guitars, banjos, the odd fiddle, literal stomping and clapping, with the occasional rousing “hey!” in the background. It was largely associated with hipsters – the twirly moustached, braces and Henley-shirt-wearing kind – and wit...

Politics

2 w. ago My unexpected Pride icon: as a bullied teenager, I found safety in slasher films

Watching mild-mannered schoolgirls overcome serial killers such as Freddy Krueger and emerge as survivors spoke to my younger self in a way no other films couldI have always been morbidly obsessed with the horror film genre. As a small child, I’d gaze up at the posters of Freddy Krueger or Pinhead in our local video rental shop with a curious mix of fear and desire. I wanted to be scared, and I also did not. I was 11 when Channel 4 screened A Nightmare on Elm Street. My poor mum, assuming it couldn’t be that bad if it was on TV, let me record it. I watched through my fingers, drunk on anxiety, the anticipation of the kills almost unbearable. There is, I would argue, something quite queer about this complicated urge. Horror is titillating.The golden age of the slasher movie was the 1970s and 80s. I’m sure film-makers were inspired by the cultural austerity of the Reagan era, the Moral Majority and the unfolding Aids crisis. But, as a child, I was blissfully unaware of those things or...

Politics

3 w. ago My unexpected Pride icon: Jurassic Park’s strutting, swaggering T rex is pure camp

From Jeff Goldblum’s unbuttoned shirt to the dilophosaurus wobbling her wattles, the film is an enduring queer staple‘That’s camp,” proclaimed my drag queen friend Vanity as we watched the T rex rip a tyre off a Jeep in the first Jurassic Park movie. It’s 2012, 2am and we’re in her bedroom playing our favourite Jurassic Park drinking game, where you swig every time you see a dinosaur.“Is it, though?” I said, doubtfully, dipping a Walkers Sensation in some coleslaw. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago My unexpected Pride icon: the diva women of fighting video games inspired me

As a young gay kid who was often teased and bullied for prancing around like a ballet dancer, I drew confidence from self-assured characters like Nina from TekkenGrowing up, fighting video games such as Tekken and Street Fighter were a core part of bonding during summer holidays for my brothers and I. For me, beat-em-ups were less about nurturing any masculine impulses toward strength and destruction, and more about the lore of the fighting game and its varied fighting styles, which played like a dance on the TV screen. That, and the ever-expanding rosters of sexy, glamorous femme fatales.There is a joke I have often heard that you know a young boy may be of the lavender persuasion if he only picks female characters in beat-em-up fighting video games – the parents might think it’s because he fancies them, but really it’s a form of diva worship. That was certainly true for me. Continue reading...

Sport

3 w. ago My unexpected Pride icon: indie breakup songs said all the things I couldn’t say to other boys

From John Lennon’s takedown of Paul McCartney to the Libertines’ Can’t Stand Me Now, songs by straight men about falling out with their friends were strangely romantic to meWhen I was a teenager, in the late 00s in central Scotland, being gay was something I experienced as painful made me feel overwrought. This didn’t match the depiction of gayness I encountered in mainstream culture at the time, which was mostly very cheerful. Almost all of the gay men on my radar were comedians – figures such as Graham Norton and Alan Carr, both of whom I found funny and still admire today, but who were too easy-going and unpretentious to satisfy my desire to see myself as a tortured poet.When I got to university, I found the representation I was looking for – solemn and beautiful – in writers such as Edmund White and James Baldwin, but earlier in my teenage years I had to make do with what was available: romanticising being gay through songs about straight men falling out with their platonic frie...

Events

3 w. ago My unexpected Pride icon: Pokémon, small fluffy monsters battling in a gender

As a queer child in the early 2000s, I never fitted in with the hyper-masculine world of Action Man. But in the gender-nonconforming Pokémon universe, I found safetyWoolworths, Woking, Surrey. I’d walk up to the till, place my Barbie or Britney Spears CD player on the counter, and before the cashier had the chance to ask if we wanted a bag, I’d blurt out: “This is a present for my sister, it’s not for me!” Sharing a smirk with my mum, they’d offer replies such as, “Wow, she’ll love it!” and “Aren’t you a kind brother?” (If you hadn’t already guessed, I do not have a sister.)This was a regular occurrence in my childhood in the early 2000s. I was acutely aware, even as early as the age of five or six, that these were not the usual toys a little boy should be playing with. Where was my Action Man or Scalextric track? Why were my bedroom walls covered in posters of pop stars wearing crop tops and not footballers with muddy knees? Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago My unexpected Pride icon: Free Willy helped me see the radical power of coming out

An oppressed orca breaking free to find its true family? It may not be obviously queer, but I’ve found much comfort in Willy and Jesse’s story in this filmI don’t know precisely when I first watched Free Willy. But I do remember that the film was central to a childhood obsession with whales – orcas, specifically – that followed me well into adulthood. (I still remember a lot of random facts, such as “killer whales can live up to 90 years old!” and “their pregnancies are 17 months long!”)Released in 1993, just a few months after I was born, the film follows Jesse – a moody 12-year-old foster kid with abandonment issues – and his unlikely friendship with Willy, an orca confined in a far-too-small pool at a local marine park. Jesse and Willy have a lot in common. Both are antisocial, stubborn and mistrustful, but form a close bond – one that sees Jesse determined to free Willy from the park where he is being exploited for profit by an evil businessman. It’s a classic good v evil tale –...

Politics

3 w. ago My unexpected Pride icon: The Green Roasting Tin, a cookbook no lesbian vegetarian can be without

Sure, Rukmini Iyer’s recipes are not specifically aimed at queer people, but the first time I cooked one, it was with my girlfriend – and she is now my wifeWalk into a queer woman’s kitchen and the chances are that the lime-green spine of Rukmini Iyer’s The Green Roasting Tin will be poking out from a surface or a shelf – if it is not already on the counter and splattered with food. You are likely to find it in the homes of allies, too – this is the holy grail of what-to-feed-my-queer–vegetarian-offspring cookbooks.Not only does The Green Roasting Tin play into stereotypes about gay and bisexual women – all vegetarian recipes, half vegan and supremely practical (the USP of The Roasting Tin series is that all the recipes are oven-cooked in one dish) – but it is also full of indulgence. The tarts, gratins, salads and bakes are dotted with pomegranate seeds or fresh herbs and drizzled with truffle oil or honey. One recipe even has an entire camembert plonked in a tray of potatoes. And ...

Politics

3 w. ago My unexpected Pride icon: Fast & Furious is my favourite camp classic

Any film where cast members talk about chosen family and Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson busts a cast off his broken arm by flexing his biceps has a place in the gay canonI am a 42-year-old lesbian who can’t drive. And, since I’m baring all, I will add that I loathe people who drive extremely fast in obnoxiously large cars. Which, unfortunately, seems to be every third person in the US. In short, I’d wager I’m probably not the target audience for the Fast & Furious films.I’m sure I don’t need to explain the blockbuster franchise to you: the first instalment came out in 2001 and the series has generated billions. But if you are somehow unfamiliar with them, the basic premise is that a ragtag team of misfits and street racers travel around the world, driving cars fast and furiously, beating up baddies. Continue reading...

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