The Queer Sixties
by Susan Stryker, Director, GLBT Historical Society
"In the sixties, everybody was queer for fifteen minutes. Sometimes longer." So reads the back cover of Patricia Smith's new anthology, The Queer Sixties (New York: Routledge, 1999). Once you're through reading this book you'll probably agree. Queer sexuality seemed to burst forth in every direction during America's most tumultuous decade, spilling beyond the narrow constraints of homosexual identity politics and transforming the culture at large in perversely unexpected, previously unimaginable ways.
I had more fun reading The Queer Sixties than any other history book I've picked up in a long time. Its contents aren't the usual textbook fodder but rather an eclectic assortment of lively essays, all sporting a high quotient of retrograde chic. Think bell-bottoms and wedgie sandals, not tweed skirts and sensible shoes.
The first section of the anthology deals with gay and lesbian pulp paperback novels, an important medium for queer people trying to form a positive self-image, not to mention a voyeuristic public readership curious about a seemingly exotic sexual subculture. Paired essays by Yvonne Keller and David Bergman look at lesbian and gay titles, respectively.
Part two is devoted to Andy Warhol, the fey genius of pop art. Kelly Cresap discusses Warhol's invention of a "dumb blonde" persona who gleefully dismembers the art establishment. And Laura Winkiel offers a delightfully smart rehabilitation of Valerie Solanis, the woman who shot and nearly killed Warhol. Solanis is often dismissed as a man-hating lesbian crank, but Winkiel reinterprets her over-the-top SCUM Manifesto through the lens of postmodern performativity theory. Both essays have a fine appreciation of queer camp aesthetics.
A third section of the book is devoted to the influence of the British Invasion, with essays on queer aspects of pop-music icons the Beatles and Dusty Springfield, and on gay playwright Joe Orton. The rest of the book returns to North America, with section four offering a pair of essays on Los Angeles. Joseph Bristow's treats the British expatriate Christopher Isherwood's long sojourn in Southern California. The other, by Ricardo Ortiz, makes some speculative connections between rock legend Jim Morrison and celebrated gay novelist John Rechy, based on lines from Rechy's City of Night that Morrison incorporated into the lyrics of "L.A. Woman."
The final section is devoted to literary criticism but otherwise lacks cohesion, although it contains interesting elements. An essay by Jennifer Rich revisits Lillian Hellman's lesbian schoolmarm saga The Children's Hour; William Cohen assesses James Baldwin's Another Country; William Scroggie dissects stereotypes in The Boys in the Band and draws some inferences on the roots of the Stonewall Rebellion; Doug Eisner discusses the "pathology of heterosexuality" made visible in Gore Vidal's transsexual farce Myra Breckenridge; and Blake Allmendinger advances an intriguing hypothesis on the way queer content was systematically obscured by '60s literary criticism of Western American literature.
Like most anthologies, this one is uneven. Some pieces are brilliant, while others struggle with their intrinsically interesting subject matter. Overall, though, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and Patricia Smith should be commended for her admirable job in assembling a collection that throws new light on the florid eruption of queer visibility during the 1960s.
|
|
| PlanetOut Direct |
News to You
Get PlanetOut News headlines mailed directly to you now!
|
|
Search
