morrissey = the new david byrne

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ok usually when i do this kind of thing i frame the question fast and badly (or i wd never frame it at all) and koganbot becomes testy towards my fuzziness

but here is MY "explanation" of morrissey = he brought something to the boywing of britrock = called CAMP -- as in polari, as in an angry bitchy code against the UNSTYLISH USELESSNESS of the STRAIGHTS -- except that, since he wz militantly coy abt his sexuality (korrektly, as "coming out" would have stripped a powerful ambiguity out of what he wz doin), his camp was developed as a kind of MALE HET camp...

ANYWAY -- i have always bin ambivalent abt camp as an attitude (it's quickwitted and funny but it's also a compensatory attitude adopted by those who take themselves to be victims and are sniping secretly back...)

and given the shifts since the mid-80s in fashions in sexuality and within sexuality blah blah, i think morrissey's STYLE (sex! yes! but not for me...) reveals itself as a lot more reactionary a-and larkinesque than it did at the time

(again i feel i have not got at the nubbin of what i'm on about but have at it anyway)

Comments

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ok i can understand being territorial about camp but to me that does kind of affirm its flaws -- it suggest that what what "indie" is actually doing that is so horrible is holding up a mirror, bcz camp ISN'T a needed weapon to confident out well-sexed gay men, it's a kind of well-wielded victimhood-as-weapon; ie it actually exposes the inner passive-aggressive indieness of some of gay culture (esp.gay culture as of the mid-80s, when social exclusion was much more monolithic) (at which time the passive aggression was possibly more justified)

(also: in the bi male haha "community", esp.of a certain age -- mine -- there are a LOT of very unconfident how you say "social retards" who were actually not bi at all but full-on gay, except really alienated from the enforced manners of the clone-style of the day and unhappy that they didn't accord with the brazen fronting stereotype)

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

also also: GURLS LIKED THE SMITHS?! (and liked guys who liked them too)

this is a list of contradictions btw, not a series of points towards an argument

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes, camp in gay men doesn't appeal either, for exactly those reasons, but at least there are reasons, a sense of history, a communal humour and so on.

"Girls like the Smiths" = "girls have terrible terrible taste in men"! It is the same thing as girls nowadays going crazy for Bright Eyes or someone.

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yay that's kind of what i expected (and hoped) you'd say re: camp -- viz "hurrah for tradition but sell-by-date is also always an issue plz thx"

have you ever read dan rebello's "1956 and all that"? it's about the kitchen sink moment in theatre esp., and how it swept in after noel coward and "changed everything" --- i think it's REALLY REALLY fascinating on the pro and con of these various issues

it even sort of jigsaws in w.the brady-hindley stuff -- maybe i should write something abt it one day

:(

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

PSB aren't passive aggressive -- they explore melancholy and loneliness and aleination within a "club context" but MUCH more successfully bridge the homo vs het divide in this regard (indeed deal with it as if it didn't exist)

obv xhuxk's eternal tuff question "YES BUT HOW DOES THIS MAKE THEM ROCK HARDER" still obtains, but i think it goes some way to explaining the fondness many of us have for them

(worth noting maybe: as of 1986 neither psb or morrissey were OUT, and PSB were getting a LOT of flak for it from the activists) (haha not so much morrissey as there was a "you can keep him" sentiment possibly!)

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha but hadn't PSB already released 'It's A Sin'??? What did the activists THINK that was about?!

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

well they thought it was "coded" which was not approved of at the time -- this is the era of "outing" as a mliitant weapon

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

"everything i long to do/no matter when or where or who" ===> how is this remotely coded! ah 80s militants and your need for STRAIGHT TALKING.

i have not read that book but it looks interesting!

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

to be (un)fair to the militants - i don't think they were actually PARSING LYRICS much, more like piggybacking on a certain level of fame to make a FASHIONABLE POINT point based on MINIMAL actual attention to content (erm same old same old there, then, marvellous)

Re: REPOSTED FROM ORIGINAL PAZZ & JOP THREAD

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I do not know when I realised N Tennant was gay but it was well after hearing and liking It's A Sin. (admittedly also well before him actually coming out)