sin_lgbt

LOOK AT THAT. Buschbaum’d definitely turn gay men um…gay.

OMG is there an English version of her his book?

DON’T FORGET to check his galerie.

OH YES. Congratulations to his successful transformation.

Lady Gaga strapped a dildo to her vagina for a Q magazine photo shoot. This is a statement about “the most humorous rumour of her life” and her femininity, and to make fun of “the hilarity of the media”. Going too far as perceived by many, Gaga is not only a fame monster sculpted in designer clothescreations. She has a vision that is artistic and that speaks to (young) people who’re little monsters. She believes money ruined this world and she used to read tabloids with a scholarly approach. The fact that she was a prodigiously talented child, studied at a Catholic high school and led a disciplined high school life (I believe she’s still very disciplined, considering her professional and constant better-than-ever output), and enrolled early in a prestigious arts school is perhaps often missed. While her talent lies in both her music and her image, the two are in fact one and the latter shouldn’t have overshadowed the former as she always answers. She’s gained enormous attention worldwide, but she deserves yet more positive attention. Please try to listen to her more and criticise her less. Here are some of the things she told Q.

On the MTV Awards fame kills spectacle,  she explained the metaphor and the reason for denying Interscope something beautiful:

The world is looking for a story about me being fallen. So maybe if I just show them what it looks like, they’ll stop looking. Here’s what I look like while I’m dying. And I bled to death surrounded by flashing lights and was hung like a martyr in all of my blonde glory. Like many others before. Princess Diana. Marilyn Monroe. Anna Nicole Smith. …the last thing any young person needs is another photograph of a woman rubbing her glistening tits, enjoying life, because that’s not how we fucking feel.

As a teenage art student Gaga wrote about the death of God (no, she doesn’t hate God, she always thanks God and her fans) in relation to shock art and analysed Spencer Tunick:

Why are people so offended by the naked, organic person and not offended by the evil that’s surrounding them in Times Square? The commercialism, corporate America… And I talked about how the apocalypse has already happened. Racism, gay-bashing, wars, the Presidents we’ve been through. [Whispering] We’re already in it. So now we must be joyful and rebuild.

I must admit I myself am a little surprised to read Gaga commenting on money and commercialism, as she’s always so branded and Warhol-reincarnated (well, technically it wasn’t possible…Gaga’s an ’86 kid), and extravagantly glamorous. This is exactly the type of misconception around her. She truly devotes herself to art:

But you don’t have to know anything about art to love it. And if you’re reading this article and think Lady Gaga is wildly pretentious and think the cat’s miaow, that’s not the case. I just take what I do seriously. My art is liberation. Things confine us as human beings. As a society. And I want to free you. I want to free you.

Now, are we really so incapable of accepting this little girl from New York?

Tilda talked about androgyny:

Q. You’ve played a number of men in your career, most notably in “Orlando.” What does the idea of androgyny bring to your performance of Gabriel?

A. The director, Francis Lawrence, did the sensible thing by just presenting the idea to me and then letting it percolate through my brain. It felt like a little bit of a dangerous idea in a big Hollywood movie, and then I ended up thinking it was a good idea, because an angel is not immutable but fluid, and so his identity is amorphous and not strictly human.

Q. How much do you think your looks have to do with this protean quality you have?

A. Quite a lot. The other day, I was going through the airport security and I was searched by a male security guard. I’m very often referred to as “Sir” in elevators and such. I think it has to do with being this tall and not wearing much lipstick. I think people just can’t imagine I’d be a woman if I look like this.

Q. Why does it interest you as a performer to play men?

A. I’m basically interested in identity, and I still find fascinating the question, “How do we identify ourselves, and how do we settle into other people’s expectations for our identity?” This is not only true in stories like “Orlando,” who spends the first half of his life as a boy and then becomes a woman, and, even though he’s the same soul, there are all these different projections on him because he’s now a woman. But even in a story about a suburban mother, like “The Deep End,” you have an idea of yourself based on living your life, and then you feel something else coming up in you. Like you’re quite used to being a soccer mom living in Lake Tahoe with a husband who is mostly absent, and then maybe you fall in love with a gambler. The moment when one realizes one might not be fixed, that one’s story might not be over. This is the transformation we all go through all the time.

Freja for Purple:

Purple Naked:

Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin photographed 22-year-old Danish model, Freja Beha Erichsen, whose unabashed androgyny is living proof that you can be one of the most important models in current fashion without having to hide your body or your sexuality, and without having to conform to a stereotypically female look — just as the tattoo on her right arm reads: “Serendipity is Life.”

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Shane for Boss:

Bluffin’ with my muffin wasn’t intended to seek (gay) attention. Gaga does like women and certainly had sexual relationships with women.

Beautiful eyes under the glasses, real ones, no more misconception about the tiny girl from New York, please.

BW: What’s the biggest misconception about you?

LG: That I am artificial and attention-seeking, when the truth is that every bit of me is devoted to love and art, and I aspired to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger.

BW: Which was?

LG: I felt like a freak … I want to liberate them; I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can create their own space in the world.

When Ellen was on the cover of W:

W: We initially asked you to wear a dress. You considered it, but in the end you were passionate about not doing it.

ED: I know what this magazine is. It’s a beauty magazine; it’s a fashion magazine. For me to even be considered and asked to be on the cover—it’s huge…. When I [first] thought about doing it, I thought, Okay, I’ll be open to this. I’ll play dress-up. Then I thought, I just don’t feel comfortable in it. I don’t want to apologize for who I am.

W: Do you enjoy fashion?

ED: I usually wear Jil Sander, or I wear Marc Jacobs, or I wear Viktor & Rolf…. I love Raf Simons, but I didn’t know he was even doing the [Jil Sander] collection. I like Neil Barrett. I love clothes, so when I wear clothes, they’re usually somebody’s. You know, I’m not wearing Kmart.

W: Do you think that’s the perception?

ED: Whenever Portia and I are on the red carpet, they’re yelling out for her to tell them what she’s wearing. But nobody cares [about what I'm wearing] because I have a suit on, even if it’s a Gucci suit. That to me is frustrating, because I put effort into getting ready too. But I guess it’s not as important, and I’m not as dressed up somehow. I also feel myself more of a person than a gender. When people show me clothing that seems very, very feminine, it’s hard for me to embrace that, because it just doesn’t feel like me…. It was fun [for the shoot] having somebody do that to my hair, and do that makeup. But would I want to do that every single day? No.

Digging up another Interview interview:

TB: Do your boyfriends ever get jealous of your relationship?

SG: If so, it’s too bad for them. We are really good friends—that’s it, like brothers. We are family. I say Domenico is the first person in my life. If you don’t like it, it’s your problem.

TB: Do you think your relationship is unusual?

DD: Very unusual.

SG: Our relationship is also a very good example for everybody in the world, gay and straight. Because our love story continued, without sex and without living together. Why not? He was the first big love story in my life. Why do we need to cancel that? And I don’t want to forget it.

So there had been a fuss over whether or not Clementine Ford really came out and whether or not she is really gay. Here’re some of the lines that caused the problem:

The truth is that I’m not technically out yet. Put that in your magazine. For me, there’s never been a distinction about anything to do with sexuality, so there was no declaration to be made. My siblings and I would bring home men and women, and as long as they were human it wasn’t a big deal.

…

I never want to put a label on myself — but knowing that not everyone comes from such a liberal place, when something like Prop 8 comes out, you realize it’s important to stand up and be counted. A little gay kid in a small town is more important than whether I want a label.

Remember Scarlett Johansson — I mean, Cristina — said she didn’t want to label herself bisexual? That’s kind of how this is. Some people are disturbed by ambiguity but really, is it necessary to define love?

Some people eat only cheese their entire life, some drink only milk their entire life, these people do exist, but what gets you the enthusiasm to label them cheese-lovers and milk-lovers, just because you are one of them? And there are people who love both milk and cheese. What do you call them, bi-dairy-lovers? And for the others who prefer either at times, you start making up something like dairy-affection-confused?

AND cheese and milk are not the only dairy matters in this world!

Get over it.

(Dorothy Surrenders is a great fun blog to read, nonetheless.)

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BTW Clementine looks exactly like her mom.

This is a photo from Terence Koh’s Facebook with caption that reads PLOTTING HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD MORE GAY AND MERRIER. (Since a complete stranger like me at the other end of the world can get access to it, I suppose I may share this lovely picture of two of the most famed artists of the whole world with the whole world. Bunny please don’t be mad at me for stealing.)

Why are gay and merry related? Because gay means happy, not stupid! Check the dictionary.

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Update: It’s on Koh’s website now. Check also the FAMEs in B&W.

AND the video!

BOLLEN: You were first lovers and then close friends and collaborators. You were something of a constant when Mapplethorpe was going though so much self-reinvention and self-discovery. The way you describe it in the memoir, it almost seems like it was ripping him apart.

SMITH: I was always a constant because Robert had a lot of duality. Part of it was his Catholicism andhow he was brought up—good versus evil, being straight versus being homosexual. They werebattling in him until he got to a point where these things were no longer a battle. They were just all of the things that he was. Robert and I were always ourselves—’til the day he died, we were just exactly as we were when we met. And we loved each other. Everybody wants to define everything. Is it necessary to define love? We just loved each other.

…

BOLLEN: Were you surprised when the photography veered into homosexual themes and S&M?

SMITH: It wasn’t even homosexual. It was S&M. For me, S&M is its own world. You can’t call it homosexual. It’s so specialized. But, yeah, I was really surprised. I was shocked and frightened, because the pictures were frightening. Robert did shocking work. Those pictures should always be shocking. I shudder to think people could get used to seeing bloody testicles on a wooden board. But I was worried about him getting hurt or killed or something, because it was a world that I didn’t know anything about.

I can’t quote enough. Read, read, read it full.

Holy Christ. I just found out Phyllis was Betsy.