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What makes a gay icon?So, Kylie has just been voted the greatest gay icon in a recent survey conducted by OnePoll.com. She pips Dolly Parton and ABBA to the post – who came second and third respectively – and heads a list of the ‘top 50 gay icons’ that makes for some interesting reading.
I know you’ll probably roll your eyes in disgust when I ask this, but what makes a gay icon exactly? No really. What is it about some people that jettisons them to gay icon status? How do you define an icon? Check out Encarta on your PC. Look up gay icon and what do you get? No search results. Look up icon and it produces four definitions: an image of a holy person (usually Jesus, the Virgin Mary or a saint); somebody famous for something; a picture on a computer screen; and a recognizable symbol. Now ignoring the fact that Madonna probably falls into all four camps here (especially if she’s your screensaver), the definition most suited to our gay icon is the second one – ‘somebody famous for something’. Encarta expands on this for us “somebody or something widely and uncritically admired, especially somebody or something symbolising a movement or field of activity.” So far so good then – I can see that we all tend to love Kylie in a widely and uncritical, iconic sort of a way, but would you say she symbolises a movement or field of activity? I’m probably being obtuse here but wouldn’t that be where the gay bit comes in to the gay icon label? So, does Kylie symbolise the gay movement or our field of activity? Don’t get me wrong, I love Kylie as much as the next gay person (should that read man?) and I am happy (as Larry probably) that she is a gay icon but since she’s happily heterosexual (unhappily for some of us in our community no doubt) I find it quite difficult to apply the symbolic tag. On the other hand consider George Michael. Here is a man who for better or worse is out, loud and proud about his gay lifestyle. Admittedly he spent many years in the closet, but then how many of us must actually sympathise with him on that score? Did he make ‘the list’? Only as part of Wham! it seems – ironically the time of his life when he was very firmly back in his closet. Since there are very few within OnePoll’s top 50 gay icons that are actually gay (and interestingly not 1 lesbian made the list) I should perhaps give up on applying the ‘symbolising a movement or field of activity’ slant and look elsewhere. Our gay icons are a diverse bunch – who’d have put Gordon Ramsey in the same ‘club’ as Dolly Parton, or Boy George with Fern Britton? Apparently we would. And what’s more we are persistent and loyal with our choices. Attitude magazine (for gay men), back in June 2005 called for ‘a new roll call of the glamorous and the gobby, the desperate and divine sisterhood that make up a gay icon’. Kylie and Madonna, Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand were cast aside in favour of Charlotte Church, Camilla Parker-Bowles and Billie Piper (to name but a few). Only a year or so later and back come Kylie, Madonna, Judy and Barbra to claim their places back at the top of the icon listings. At the time Adam Mattera, the editor of Attitude said of its listing ‘These are the coolest and most interesting people around today that gay people have really taken to their hearts.’ But looking at OnePoll’s list, being a gay icon doesn’t always demand cool, or even interesting (in some cases perhaps!). All it demands is a mass gay following and the reasons for that ‘following’ are as personal and diverse as we are. As Julie Andrews put it, ‘I've never been able to figure out what makes a gay icon, because there are many different kinds. I don't think I have the image that say, Judy Garland has, or Bette Davis.’ (The Guardian, 2004) Liza Minnelli has her own theory, ‘I think probably Barbra and maybe even Cher and myself in school felt like outcasts because we didn’t have standard looks, maybe what a gay icon is, is a person who is rooted for — in other words, cheered on — by people who feel different’. (Newsweek, 2006) Whatever the reason for taking a celebrity to our collective gay heart I suspect that a list compiled purely by our Sapphic community would look slightly different to OnePoll’s list; the result of 5000 gay men and lesbian nominations. Here’s an alternative Sapphic Central listing based on a quick poll of a mere handful of female friends and colleagues. We asked
How far off the mark are we? Nominate the top 3 celebrities that have captured your Sapphic heart, click here. |
Top 50 Greatest Icons 1. Kylie Minogue
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