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

[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)