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wlwcatalogue · 10 months

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Female Queer Icons of Hong Kong // Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙)

Photo 1: Promotional photo for 1955 contemporary movie The Model and the Car (玉女香車) (no video available) (Source: LCSD Museum Collection Search Portal)

Photo 4: Photo from Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe's 1958 trip

Photo 5: Photo from a 1962 newspaper feature on Yam, Pak, and others at their (?) summer villa in Central, Hong Kong

Photo 6: Christmas celebrations with Yam, Pak, and their protégés of the Chor Fung Ming Troupe

Far and away the most iconic duo in Cantonese opera, Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙) – commonly referred to simply as Yam-Pak (任白) – were famed for their partnership both on and off the stage… Click below to learn more!

Edit on 28/07/2023: Updated to link to a photo of the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s Pop Culture 60+ exhibit, and to add information regarding Yam and Pak's marriage status.

Iconic? How?

Yam-Pak are the face of Cantonese opera; you can't talk about the latter without mentioning the former. It's to the point where a gigantic picture of them graces the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s permanent exhibition on Hong Kong pop culture’s evolution across the past 60 years (“Hong Kong Pop 60+”) - they are the first thing you see upon entering!

Best known as the originators - with Yam playing the male leads and Pak the female leads - of five masterpieces of Cantonese opera, namely:

1. Princess Cheung Ping (帝女花) 2. The Legend of the Purple Hairpin (紫釵記) 3. The Dream Tryst in the Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭驚夢) 4. The Reincarnation of Lady Plum Blossom (再世紅梅記) 5. Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) (Note: Princess Cheung Ping, Purple Hairpin, and Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom were made into abridged movie versions, with the Sin Fung Ming troupe members reprising their roles from the theatre productions. Also, the "Fragrant Sacrifice" (香夭) duet from Princess Cheung Ping (movie clip) is one of - if not the most - famous songs in Cantonese opera.)

Yam and Pak were the leading pair and co-founders of the legendary Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe (仙鳳鳴劇團; 1956-1961), which is widely held to have pushed Cantonese opera forward as an artform due to Pak and scriptwriter Tong Tik Sang’s (唐滌生) emphasis on poetic libretti and adapting source material from Chinese literature and history. (Note: it has been common practice since the 1930's for Cantonese opera troupes to be founded by key actor(s).)

They were also very active in the Hong Kong film industry in the 1950's, being paired in over 40 movies together across roughly 8 years. One of those – the aforementioned Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) – is the sole Cantonese opera movie on the Hong Kong Film Archive’s 100-Must See Hong Kong Movies list (IMDB list / archived version of the official PDF). It's a well-deserved inclusion - check out this beautifully-shot dance scene.

Even their post-retirement activities had a significant effect on the industry! In the early 1960’s, they held auditions for prospective students and provided - for free - systematic, hands-on training to those who passed; Yam and Pak even hired other veterans to teach skills they personally were not as familiar with. Prior to this, apprentices were expected to learn primarily from observing their masters, and to pay handsomely for the privilege. Yam-Pak’s methods proved exceedingly effective: the Chor Fung Ming Opera Troupe (雛鳳鳴劇團; 1963-1992) starring their apprentices reigned supreme in the 1970’s-1980’s. Following this success, Cantonese opera institutes - most notably the major 1900s-era guild, the Chinese Artists Association of Hong Kong (八和會館) - started to offer systematic coaching to young hopefuls in the 1980's.

Okay, so why are they queer icons specifically?

The lazy answer is that they're queer icons because nearly all of Yam's roles were male, so Gender is involved by default, and since most hit Cantonese operas of the time were romances, that means you get to see two female actors performing being in love onscreen (and also on stage, but there aren't any video recordings from back then). So far, so Takarazuka Revue.

Female actors playing male roles in Cantonese opera To give some context, each Cantonese opera performer specialises in one of four major role-types, and Yam was a sung (生) - i.e. an actor specialised in playing standard male roles. Female sung were fairly common in the 1910's-1930's due to women being banned from performing with men during that period, but when the ban lifted in the mid-1930's, many troupes shifted towards cis-casting. Yam was pretty much the only one whose popularity survived the transition. Just take a look at the huge number of Cantonese opera movies produced during the 1950’s-1960’s – you’ll be hard-pressed to find a female sung other than Yam, let alone one with top billing. Happily, thanks to Yam's immense popularity, her profilic film career (over 300 movies!), and the prominence of Sin Fung Ming works in the Cantonese opera canon, there has been a resurgence in female sung which endures to this day. Two noteworthy examples are Yam's protégé Sabrina Lee/ Loong Kim Sang (龍劍笙) - a star in her own right - and Joyce Koi/ Koi Ming Fai (蓋鳴暉), one of the biggest names still active in the industry. (Note: perhaps due to cinema being more "realistic" in nature, Yam's early movies often involved her playing female characters cross-dressing as men, including in some Cantonese opera movies. However, she received increasingly more male roles as her fame grew, and from the mid-1950's onwards she was playing male characters onscreen nearly exclusively-- even in non-Cantonese opera movies! See Photo 1 above.)

What sets Yam and Pak apart is that they were particularly known for their chemistry. Long before Sin Fung Ming's formation in 1956, the advertising copy for their first Cantonese opera movie together - Frolicking with a Pretty Maid in the Wineshop (酒樓戲鳳, 1952) - declared "Only this movie has Yam-Pak flirting on the silver screen" (source - 華僑日報 1952/05/23-26). And indeed, they were popular for their flirtatious duets: their Cantonese opera works invariably contained at least one, and such scenes made it into some of non-Cantonese opera (i.e. "contemporary") movies too. In fact, there are not one but two contemporary movies where Yam and Pak's characters are not paired up and yet still sing a duet together in such a way that their significant other(s) become convinced that the two are in romantically interested in each other - see 1952's Lovesick (為情顛倒) and 1956's The Happy Hall (滿堂吉慶) - a weirdly specific situation which doesn't crop up in the other, non-Yam-Pak movies I have seen.

Speaking of contemporary movies, let's talk about a certain plotline that keeps cropping up in works featuring the both of them and where Yam plays a woman! Six of the eleven movies which fit that criteria involve Yam's character cross-dressing as a man (a common characteristic across Yam's handful of female roles), and Pak's character falling for her. Nothing ever comes of it, of course, but, um. It was certainly a trend. Actually, even their very first movie together - 1951's Lucky Strike (福至心靈) - falls into this category.

Such storylines, and the emphasis on their chemistry, are particularly interesting given that both Yam and Pak remained ostensibly unmarried throughout. This was unusual for female performers of their stature, who tended to wed in their twenties, often to fellow-actors or wealthy men (e.g. Hung Sin Nui/紅線女, Fong Yim Fun/芳艷芬, and Tang Pik Wan/鄧碧雲)... In contrast, by the time Yam-Pak retired from the stage in 1961, they were both over 30 years old and without husbands.

Also, did I mention they were popularly believed to be living together? There doesn't seem to be any conclusive evidence either way... although it's a little strange that separate newspaper pictorials depicting "Yam at home" and "Pak at home" seem to be of the same location... however what is conclusive is that they did spent a lot of time together offstage. Pak has talked about how when they had no guests over, Yam would watch TV by herself while Pak was in the living room (source - p93), and protégé Mandy Fung/ Mui Suet Sze (梅雪詩) has said that Pak would sometimes cook for Yam at home (source - 03:53~). They would also celebrate birthdays, New Year's, and Christmas together (see Photo 6 for an example of the latter).

Shortly after Yam's passing in 1989, Pak set up the Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin Charitable Foundation (任白慈善基金) to support the arts and provide welfare for the elderly. In 1996, Pak made a large donation to Hong Kong University, resulting in one of the buildings being renamed Yam Pak Building (任白樓) in thanks (source).

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to DM me or send an ask if you have any questions, or are just interested in learning more.

If you made it here, have this bonus piece of trivia - Yam and Pak were also well-acquainted with Hong Kong's preeminent queer icon, Leslie Cheung (張國榮), who was a massive fan of theirs. Sadly there don't seem to be any pictures of them before Yam's passing, but here's one of Pak (centre) having afternoon tea with Cheung (left) and his long-term romantic partner Daffy Tong (唐鶴德) (right) at the Cova cafe in the Pacific Place shopping mall.

#wlw recommendations #sapphic #lgbtq #asian lgbtq #hong kong #theatre #cantonese opera #chinese opera #yam kim fai #leslie cheung #pak suet sin #yampak #yambak #pak sheut sin #bak sheut sin #hong kong queer icons #not me hastily adding tags because i keep forgetting certain ones

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chilewithcarnage · 4 months

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I, a very white and somewhat privileged person, am absolutely terrified to draw colored people. Because I don’t know if I’d cross the thin line of tasteful and authentic or racist and stereotypical…

Lol for starters don't refer to us as coloured people. This ain't 1955. Secondly my best advice to you is to use references of actual people of color. I would highly recommend staying away from those white men art station youtuber type artists for tutorials because they get a majority of their techniques and style from main stream video games and comic books, which to put it nicely don't have the best reputation for representing women and poc. tangent over, so yeah references. real life photographs of brown and black people.

pinterest is a site that a lot of current, especially younger artists like to use, but in all honesty it's not a very good source for someone trying to learn the fundamentals. it'll mainly show you 20 something year old ig and twitter models which is okay if you wanna just draw pretty people; but not the best if you wanna like I said learn fundamentals + have a portfolio that's varied. also it's rife with ai shit and stolen art, so yeah would only recommend that as an initial starting point/using it to make your own personal board for your saved images.

stock photo sites are my go to for refs. getty images, istock, alamy, etc. a simple right click save image or screenshot will work to get the images you want for free. of course there will be the watermarks, but they're honestly a very small issue to bypass. as long as they're not opaque and nearly covering the entire subject; you're good. a nice thing about stock photo sites is they usually give you the option to filter the image search results. say for instance you want to draw an elderly asian woman cooking or a young black man painting a picture or an indigenous child playing with dolls. you can look up certain terms you want in the search bar & specify gender, age and ethnicity to narrow down your search to what you want.

another awesome place for references i discovered during college is posespace.com

like with getty images, it gives you the option to filter your searches. they also have their models in clothed or nude shoots in the event that you want to practice some bare bones anatomy.

also also, get your info from artists of color. there's a decent amount of tutorials ive found over the years on here and youtube on coloring skintones, drawing certain hair types, how to avoid caricatures and stereotyping, different facial features, cultural hairstyles. the list goes on. don't be afraid to depict people outside of your race. literally just go about drawing us the same way you would a white person. don't be scared, as long as you remain respectful and make an honest effort to learn; you'll do fine.

resource links by and from artists of color:

'how i draw south + southeast asian people'

an example of what to avoid when stylizing east asian characters

'drawing asian people, source: i'm asian'

'lessons from drawing I: what is asian anyways?'

'how to draw indians'

'how to draw arabs'

'How I draw skin Part 2: DON”T DRAW NATIVE PEOPLE WITH RED SKIN!!!! A tutorial' (the link to the first part of this tutorial is broken sorry)

How to Draw Native People: a Tutorial/Reference Guide

How to Draw Black People by peachdeluxe

tips for drawing black people by rosheruu

drawing east asian faces by chuwenjie

how to draw black people series by Artistik Freedom (youtube)

✏️How I draw black hairstyles (simple) 🌱 by Likelihood Art (youtube)

there's also a bunch of black and brown artists on twitter and tiktok, so checking those sites for tutorials would be a good additional resource

good luck on your illustrating melanin endeavors 👍🏾

#anonymous ask hour #sorry for the late reply it took a while to compile all these links #art resources #long post

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ladybegood · 1 year

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Anita Ekberg photographed by Bob Willoughby on the set of Artists and Models (1955)

#Anita Ekberg #Bob Willoughby #Artists and Models #vintage #old hollywood #ladybegoodscan

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homomenhommes · 2 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … March 23

1653 – In New Haven Colony, six teenage males are sentenced to be flogged for "wickedness in a filthy corrupting way with one another."

1874 – J.C. Leyendecker, German-American commercial artist, born (d.1951); A highly popular American illustrator of Dutch ancestry, Leyendecker was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States at the age of eight in 1882 with his parents, his sister, Augusta, and two brothers, Francis Xavier "Frank" Leyendecker, and Adolph Leyendecker.

Arrow Collar Man

J.C. Leyendecker was one of the most successful and recognizable commercial artists of the 20th century, best known, perhaps as the creator of the sleekly handsome Arrow Collar Man. Almost seven decades after the height of his vogue, the Arrow Collar Man still appeals. Blond, classically handsome, patrician, somewhat aloof, probably a bit of a shit, he is definitely more interested in himself than he is in any of the beautiful women pictured with him. When he first appeared in magazine ads, the Arrow Collar people received carloads of fan letters from adoring women eager to discover the identity of the sexy artist's model. Some proposed marriage. Little did they know that the Arrow Collar Man was the artist's lover, Charles Beach, blond, handsome, patrician, and vain.

1932 Olympic Rowing Champs

Over forty years, Leyendecker illustrated covers for the enormously popular Saturday Evening Post. In total, he produced over 300 illustrations for the magazine. The mainstream image of Santa Claus as a jolly fat man in a red fur- trimmed coat was popularized by Leyendecker, as was the image of the New Year Baby. Also notable is Leyendecker's illustration of the Three Kings, from the Christmas 1900 edition of the Saturday Evening Post and the one above honoring the 1932 Olympic Champions U.S. Rowing Team.

Leyendecker drew propaganda posters during WWI, encouraging people to buy war bonds. But what could be more deliberately homoerotic than his recruiting poster for the U.S. Navy with its semi-naked men and the phallus symbolism of the cannon and the shell, not to mention the line "These men have COME ACROSS."

In 1914 the Leyendecker brothers built an estate in New Rochelle, NY, where they, their sister, and Charles Beach, lived. Leyendecker was the chief influence on, and a friend of Norman Rockwell, who was a pallbearer at Leyendecker's funeral in 1951. Leyendecker was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1977.

1903 – Frank Sargeson (d.1982) was the pen name of Norris Frank Davey. He is considered one of New Zealand's foremost short story writers. Like Katherine Mansfield, Sargeson helped to put New Zealand literature on the world map.

Born in Hamilton, Sargeson has been credited with introducing New Zealand English into short stories. His technique was to write the story without mentioning the setting. He also used a semi-articulate style which means that the story was written from a naive point of view. Events are simply told but are not explained.

Although Sargeson became known for his literary depiction of the laconic and unsophisticated New Zealand male, his upbringing had in fact been middle-class comfortable. Upon completing his training as a solicitor, he spent two years in the United Kingdom. Sometime in the 1930s, he began living year-round in his parents' holiday cottage in Takapuna, a northern suburb of Auckland. He eventually inherited the property which became for several decades an important gathering place for Auckland's bohemia and literati.

When author Janet Frame was released in 1955 from eight years of voluntary incarceration in New Zealand psychiatric hospitals, Sargeson invited her to stay in a former army hut on his property. He introduced her to other writers and affirmed her literary vocation and encouraged her to adopt good working habits. She lived in the shed for about a year, during which time she wrote her first novel, Owls Do Cry.

During the 1930s and 40s, Sargeson experienced considerable economic hardship, as his literary output earned him very little money. This experience left him permanently sympathetic to the Left. For example, he quietly advocated closer relations between New Zealand and Maoist China.

He was also gay at a time when sodomy was illegal in New Zealand. In 1929, he was arrested on a morals charge in Wellington, but later acquitted. His biographer believes that this trial explains why Sargeson adopted a pen name and never practised the profession for which he had trained.

Sargeson died in Auckland.

1923 – Georgina Somerset (d.2013) was a British dentist and former Royal Navy officer. She was the first openly intersex person in the United Kingdom.

Somerset was born on 23 March 1923 in Purley and christened George Edwin Turtle. Her birth was registered outside of the usual time limit because of confusion as to her sex. Ultimately, the obstetricians decided to assign her male. She was educated at Purley High School for Boys, a grammar school in Croydon and Reigate Grammar School, an all-boys free school. She went on to study dentistry at King's College Hospital, London, and qualified in 1944.

As a newly qualified dentist, Somerset was called up to the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as the Second World War was coming to an end. She was promoted to temporary surgeon-lieutenant on 27 March 1946 with seniority from 21 September 1945. She left the military in 1948.Upon returning to civilian life, she established a dental practice in Croydon, London. In early 1960, she sold this practice and moved to Hove, East Sussex, where she ran another dental practice until retiring in 1985. Somerset wrote two books: Over The Sex Border published in 1963 and her memoir A Girl Called Georgina published in 1992.

Somerset's father was a Freemason and initiated both his sons into the Craft in 1945. She rose to become Worshipful Master of her Lodge but resigned from the craft in 1953. Having felt female from a young age, Somerset underwent gender confirming surgery in January 1957. She had previously been rejected by the eminent plastic surgeon Sir Harold Gillies, as she had turned up to her appointment in male morning dress. In 1960, after sworn testimony from her doctors, she was given a new birth certificate with her chosen name of Georgina Carol Turtle and her sex as female.

In June 1962, her engagement to Christopher Somerset, distantly related to the Duke of Beaufort, was announced in the Court and Social page of The Daily Telegraph. They married in St Margaret's, Westminster, London, in October 1962. This made her the first known woman to marry in a church after officially changing sex.

Georgina Somerset died on 30 November 2013, aged 90.

1956 – Steven Saylor is an American author of historical novels. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied history and Classics.

Saylor's best-known work is his Roma Sub Rosa series, set in ancient Rome. The novels' hero is a detective named Gordianus the Finder, active during the time of Sulla, Cicero, Julius Caesar, and Cleopatra. Outside this crime novel series, Saylor has also written two epic-length historical novels about the city of Rome, Roma and Empire. His work has been published in 21 languages.

In the early 1980s, following a move to San Francisco, Saylor became an editor at Drummer magazine, a popular gay S/M publication at the time. He explained in a later interview that the erotic fiction he wrote in his twenties emphasized the seriousness with which he undertook the task, stating, "I probably did more actual rewriting on those stories than anything I've done since, because for me, writing erotic fiction is like writing a piece of music, because if one note is wrong, you lose the audience."

Saylor has also written two novels set in Texas. A Twist at the End, featuring O. Henry, is set in Austin in the 1880s and based on real-life serial murders and trials (the case of the so-called Servant Girl Annihilator). Have You Seen Dawn? is a contemporary thriller set in a fictional Texas town, Amethyst, based on Saylor's hometown, Goldthwaite, Texas.

Saylor contributed autobiographical essays to three anthologies of gay writing edited by John Preston, Hometowns, A Member of the Family, and Friends and Lovers, and prior to his novel-writing career he published gay erotic fiction under the pen name Aaron Travis.

Saylor has lived with Richard Solomon since 1976; they registered as domestic partners in San Francisco in 1991 and later dissolved that partnership in order to legally marry in October 2008. The couple split their time between Berkeley, California, and Austin, Texas.

1960 – Terry Sweeney is an American writer, comedian and actor. He started identifying himself as gay as early as the fourth grade. Sweeney is best known for his appearances as a regular cast member of Saturday Night Live (SNL) during that program's 1985-86 season. He was discovered by Lorne Michaels while Sweeney was performing in a New York play, Banned in France in 1983.

Sweeney was SNL's first openly gay cast member; He was "out" prior to being hired as a cast member. His run on the show came at a time when there were few openly gay characters or actors on television. For roughly 27 years, there were no other openly gay cast members on SNL, until Kate McKinnonwas added to the cast in April 2012. However, as of 2012, no other gay males (out or otherwise) besides Terry Sweeney have been cast members on SNL.

During his season on SNL, he became known for his celebrity impersonations, particularly female impersonations of stars like Diana Ross, Patti LaBelle, Joan Collins, Brooke Shields's mother Teri Shields, and Joan Rivers, as well as Ted Kennedy (the only male celebrity he impersonated). His most notable recurring character was a portrayal of then-First Lady Nancy Reagan.

While at SNL, he faced many hardships from both the writers and cast because of his sexuality, especially from Chevy Chase. Sweeney was told by Ron Reagan, who hosted one of that season's episodes, that he was "more like his [Reagan's] mother than she is."

Terry Sweeney's partner is Lanier Laney, a comedy writer who also wrote for SNL in the 1985-1986 season. According to a 2000 magazine article, they met during a sketch called the "Bess Truman Players". Laney and Sweeney were also writing partners for Saturday Night Live during the 1985-1986 season, the movie Shag, and the Sci-Fi Channel cartoon Tripping The Rift.

1962 – Openly gay Marc Cherry is an American writer and producer. He is best known for being the creator of the show Desperate Housewives.

After graduating from high School, Cherry attended California State University, to study theatre and initially considered a career in performance. He decided to move to Hollywood and pursue writing work. His move came at a bad time; the 1988 writer's strike hit as soon as Cherry arrived.

In 1990, he became a writer and producer for the long-running hit sitcom The Golden Girls. He later created Some of My Best Friends a 2001 sitcom that was based in part on the film Kiss Me, Guido.

In 2002, a conversation with his mother inspired him to develop a show about the fractured lives of four upper middle class suburban women. After HBO, FOX, CBS, NBC, Showtime, and Lifetime Television all passed on the show, Cherry got his big break when his agent was arrested and went to jail for embezzlement. His new agents brought the show to ABC, which decided to pick it up. The series, Desperate Housewives, was an immediate ratings smash and generated enormous national (and subsequently, international) debate. Cherry received several lucrative offers from various parties, but chose to sign a long-term deal with Touchstone, since their network had shown faith in Desperate Housewives when no one else would.

He says he added the gay couple to the script to underline the growing "normality" of having gay neighbors.

Desperate Housewives continued to be popular for seven more seasons and Cherry took more of a back seat during its eight and final season.

Cherry has been described as a 'somewhat conservative gay Republican and was the recipient of the Log Cabin Republicans American Visibility Award in 2006. Cherry was described in an article about him in Newsweek as a "somewhat conservative, gay Republican."

1978 – Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., better known as Perez Hilton (a play on "Paris Hilton"), is an American blogger and television personality. His blog, Perezhilton.com (formerly PageSixSixSix.com), is known for posts covering gossip items about celebrities. His blog has garnered negative attention for its attitude, its outing of alleged closeted celebrities, and its role in the increasing coverage of celebrities in all forms of media.

On his blog, Hilton is open about his homosexuality and about his desire to "out" those who he claims are closeted gay celebrities. When former 'N Sync member Lance Bass officially came out as gay on July 26, 2006, Hilton received criticism for having been partially responsible in the outing. "It upsets me that people think what I'm doing is a bad thing," Hilton told Access Hollywood. "I don't think it's a bad thing. If you know something to be a fact, why not report it? Why is that still taboo?" On November 2, 2006, another celebrity often questioned by Hilton for remaining closeted, actor Neil Patrick Harris, revealed that he is gay.

Prominent members of the gay community who have criticized Hilton's outing tactics include Arts & Entertainment Editor of The Advocate Corey Scholibo, AfterElton.com editor Michael Jensen, and Damon Romine, spokesperson for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Kim Ficera, contributing writer for AfterEllen.com, wrote,

"I have to question the character of a man who attacks others on such deeply personal levels, without provocation and for self-benefit, monetary or otherwise...If he's emotionally incapable of exhibiting even the tiniest bit of compassion for closeted people, if he can't be sensitive to the fact that coming out is a very personal decision and that the process can be difficult for some — especially celebrities — I feel sorry for him. If his juvenile behavior is his shtick, I think it makes him a much more pathetic figure, and one the gay and lesbian community should not support....If we support behavior like Hilton's, we applaud shallowness, arrogance, rage and invasion of privacy, and risk becoming what we despise."

Some of Hilton's fellow gossip bloggers have also objected to his approach. Author, screenwriter, and former friend Japhy Grant has also questioned his motives, writing on Salon.com, "Spreading gossip is just your average pedestrian variety of immorality. Claiming that you're doing it to further civil rights is an outright sham."

When questioned on Midweek Politics about whether reporting on celebrities' sexual orientation incites homophobia by making it news, Hilton indicated that he did not believe so. He said that coming out in Hollywood is not necessarily a bad thing, citing Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell as examples:

"I know there is some controversy about outing people, but I also believe the only way we're gonna have change is with visibility. And if I have to drag some people screaming out of the closet, then I will. I think that lots of celebrities have an archaic fear that being gay will hurt their career but look at Rosie. Look at Ellen."

Some prominent gay rights advocates disagree. GLAAD spokesperson Damon Romine told Salon.com,

"Media speculation about a celebrity's orientation is not something we support. This kind of gossip can lead some people to the decision to come out, as we've seen recently, or it may drive others further into the closet. People are going to become more guarded and secretive and not less, because they don't want to create any opportunities [for anyone to out them]."

Actor Bruce Vilanch said, "What purpose does it serve? These [people like Perez] are professional homosexuals. They are gay people for a living. They have to respect the rights of homosexuals who aren't professional." In an article entitled "Just How Dangerous is Perez Hilton?", AfterElton.com suggested that Hilton's actions put people's careers at risk, because anti-gay bias is still a prominent part of American culture. He continued, "Both as a gay man and a journalist, I question whether the gay community should approve of Hilton's actions.... Being associated with someone who publishes photos of panty-less starlets and scribbles dirty notes...makes us look infantile and ridiculous."

2005 – St. Kitts and Nevis: The Windjammer Barefoot Cruise ship with 110 gay men is not allowed to dock on the island. Officials stated that they don’t want homosexuality to be part of their culture.

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do-you-have-a-flag · 8 months

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the one post I saw about burning man on here has missinfo (breaking event so understandable) and a pretty unsympathetic tone (I get it fyre fest or whatever but it is a former arts event that has been around since the 80s a lot of people did not have reason to expect stranded by the weather like this)

there is so much funny and interesting about this event even beyond the rich people stuck in the mud element

if you get a chance to skim the "Event timeline" portion of the Wikipedia article its a mix of creative themes and facts about mishaps

but to summarize the general history and give you a sense of how chaotic this event has been for the last almost 40 years

this event which started as an art collective and encouraged leave no trace trash policies as well as decomodification, a gifting/barter economy, and "radical inclusion and self expression" slowly changed into something critisised as less participatory and more influencer-baity which, when contrasted with the earlier emphasis on self reliance, is a recipe for trouble

By 1988, Larry Harvey formally named the summer solstice ritual "Burning Man" by titling flyers for the happening as such. This was apparently done to ward off references to "wicker man", the reputed Celtic pagan practice of burning live sacrifices in human-shaped wicker cages. Harvey has stated that he had not seen the 1973 cult film The Wicker Man until many years after and claims it did not inspire the action.

THE SOLSTICE BONFIRE OF A HUMAN EFFIGY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MOVIE ???

In 1990, a separate event was planned by Kevin Evans and John Law on the remote and largely unknown playa, known as the Black Rock Desert, about 110 miles (180 km) north of Reno, Nevada.[26] Evans conceived it as a dadaist temporary autonomous zone with sculptures to be burned and situationist performance art. He asked John Law, who also had experience on the dry lake and was a defining founder of the Cacophony Society, to take on central organizing functions of the events. In the Cacophony Society's newsletter, it was announced as Zone Trip No. 4, A Bad Day at Black Rock (inspired by the 1955 film of the same name).

there was a whole OTHER desert art party but this one openly inspired by a CRIME DRAMA?

so anyway several of these desert events of varying artistic and seasonal relevance got merged and grew through word of mouth, Wikipedia gives this insane sentence

1991 was also the year that art model and fire dancer (and later Burning Man's first art director) Crimson Rose attended the event.

this is very much something that started small

There were about 20 participants the first year, and approximately 100 in the second and third year. The annual, several weeks-long event, was held over summer Solstice at various fertile hot springs surrounding the desert. Participants built art and participated in self-directed performances.

and only became a public event in the mid 90s

Some key organizers of Burning Man were also part of Desert Siteworks [...] Hence, the two events saw much cross-pollination of ideas and participants.[...] 1996 was the first year a formal partnership was created to own the name "Burning Man" and was also the last year that the event was held in the middle of the Black Rock Desert with no fence around it.

the year it became a public event 2 deaths happened in the space between camp sites

Harvey insisted that the [crash] had not occurred at Burning Man, since the gates were not yet open. Another couple were run over in their tent by an art car driving to the "rave camp", which was at that time distant from the main camp. After the 1996 event, co-founder and partner John Law broke with Burning Man and publicly said the event should not continue.

so from the late 90s on there's a new location and much more regulations and formal ticket sales, shifting the tone firmly from loose artists commune/solstice bonfire into a more standard festival vibe with the aesthetic qualities of a Mad Max movie.

new rules include:

A grid street structure.

A speed limit of 5 mph (8 km/h)

A ban on driving, except for approved "mutant vehicles" and service vehicles.

Safety standards on mutant vehicles.

Burning of any art must be done on an approved burn platform.

A ban on fireworks.

A ban on animals.

in 2017 someone threw themselves into the flames

in April 2020 covid canceled the event, in September 1000 people tried to hold their own Burning man on a beach and San Francisco's mayor called them reckless and selfish. Similarly some people still showed up to the original location despite it's official cancelation.

in 2021 online events were planned

people showed up to the desert unofficially yet again, even more than in 2020

The Bureau of Land Management implemented restrictions including no structures other than shade structures and no fires other than campfires. There was a massive illuminated drone display outlining the Man instead of the burning of a Man effigy.

the event has had issues of trash, the flames releasing co2, gentrification by silicon Valley, diversity issues

so where we are at now is a lot of clueless and willfully ignorant people, mostly rich, several tech bros, going to an event that used to be an unregulated seasonal arts commune and is now an overpriced photo op with just as much drugs but way less active participation to the point of being like any standard music festival.

and it is in the desert.

and it has flooded for the first time in the event's history due to torrential rain. climate activists trying to block the only route to the event a few days ago make this especially symbolic as an example of dramatic weather conditions.

the mud is solidifying in heavy layers, people are stranded, there are no portable toilets working, they are on limited supplies, they are dressed for a party and celebrities are there and there is a real risk of trenchfoot but no ebola. someone died.

so yes hubris and schadenfreude at the rich people wading through muck during the escalating climate crisis. but also in addition to that a wild event with a wild history for which this is far from the first scandal. there's something to the counterculture and anarchic roots of the event, how they appropriated cultural practices, and how they were commodified in turn. how the pandemic interacted with the messaging of the event, how people with tech money and celebrities got involved, how the event is a particularly flashy and less sympathetic example of climate problems that have been hitting vulnerable communities for years now.

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