How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization : The Time and Heroic Story of How Gay Men Shaped the Modern World

by Crimmins, Cathy (Author)

• ISBN13: 9781585424252
• ISBN10: 1585424250
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-06-30
• Publisher: Tarcher

Summary

A cultural history of the customs, fashions, and figures of gay life in the twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries-and how they have changed us for the better. How the Homosexuals Saved Civilizationpresents a broad yet incisive look at how an unusual "immigrant" group, homosexual men, has influenced mainstream American society and has, in many ways, become mainstream itself. From the way camp, irony, and the gay aesthetic have become part of our national sensibility to the undeniable effect the gay cognoscenti have had on media and the arts, Cathy Crimmins examines how gay men have changed the concepts of community, family, sex, and fashion.

Author Biography

Cathy Crimmins is the author of Where Is the Mango Princess?

Table of Contents

Prologue: Putting My Finger on It	xiii
The Three Civilized Books: Heart, Body, and Soul	1	(4)
Book One Heart
I Know It When I See It: Camp, Irony, and the Gay Aesthetic	5	(16)
Straight People Who Think Gay
Three Things About Gay/Straight Culture
Gay Men and the Irony Epidemic
What Is Gay? Applying the Lenny Bruce Rule
Ethnic ``Gay'' Stereotypes
Defining Culture, Defining Civilization
Language: Gayspeak and Straight Shooters	21	(18)
Divine Adjectives and Modifiers
The Gay Co-opting of Multicultural Vocabulary, and God Save the Queen
Silver-Screen Speak
Homo-Wit: The Power of Description
Dirty Talk: The Future of Gayspeak's Influence on the Straight World
Community, Rituals, and Home	39	(26)
Pioneers of the New Urban Civilization: Gays as First Movers
The Diaspora, Housing Values, and How Long Can a Neighborhood Stay Gay?
The Definition of a Community: It's Got to Have a Bingo Night!
Sing OUT, Young Man: Gay Choruses, Mixed Audiences
It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To
Halloween: The New Gay Holiday, and Going Straighter Every Year
He's Dead, but We Can Still Have a Party: Gay Advances in Mourning Rituals
Book Two Body
Eat Me: Gay Dishes, Straight Appetites, Common Thirsts	65	(14)
What Makes a Meal Gay, and How Can I Tell If I Am in a Gay Restaurant?
How a Homosexual Invented Straight Barbecue and Deviled Eggs
The Drag-Queen Chef and Icon: Miss Julia
The Cocktail Circle of Life
The Future of Gay Cocktail Culture: Sex on the Beach for Everyone!
Fashion, Style, and Body Image: Gay Guys Do It Better!	79	(20)
Straight Men Who Look Gay: The Fashion Circle
The Amazing Nude Story of Abercrombie & Fitch
Body Beautiful: Six-Pack Abs, Gay Gymrats, and Straight Boys
From Greenwich Village to Target: Homo Style and Pop Culture
Butts and Cocks: Gay Men and the Future of Sex	99	(20)
Straight and Gay: Madonna's Big Book of Sex
Girls and Gays, and the Sex Tips They Share
A Hard Pill for Swallowing, or How Gays Invented Recreational Viagra
The Cult of the Penis and the Deification of the Blow Job
Straight People Become Less Anal-Retentive
Book Three Soul
Movies: My Favorite Things	119	(22)
What Makes a Film Queer?
When Films Scream Gay, Gay, Gay: A Genre Guide
The Gay Event That Made Heterosexuals Sing
The New Gay Melodrama
The Tradition of the Gay Leading Man
Game-Show Sissies and Gay Dads---and Was Gomer Pyle a Fairy?	141	(22)
Proto-Gay Characters, Faux or Real
All in the Game: Charles Nelson Reilly, Paul Lynde, and Rip Taylor
Queer Sitcoms, Wholesome Gay Fathers, and Queer Granddads
Gay Writers, Straight Shows
Big Numbers, Envelopes, and Snow White
Straight Sitcoms That Are Very Gay
Coda: The Inevitable Will & Grace
Music: Play That Funky Music, Gay Boy!	163	(28)
The Church of Cole Porter: The Queer Supremacy of Show Tunes
Shades of Gay: Early Rock and Queerdom
Groin Control to Major Tom: The Father of Glam Rock, David Bowie
Disco Music, a Gay American Art Form
Bubblegum Tunes, Big Diva Dreams, and Boys, Boys, Boys
Heavy Metal Was Gay, Dude!
Theater: Life Is a Drag	191	(20)
Queer Theater: A Redundant Term?
Surprises in the Backstage Closet
Mae West, the Drag Queen's Queen, or the Great Imitator of the Great White Way
Musicals, the Great American Homo Art Form
Stephen and Tony and Mainstream American Theater
Epilogue: Living in a Gay Time: Homos ``R'' Us	211	(4)
Acknowledgments	215