Death of the Gay Bar
JUNE 27, 2011 TAGS:
Slate.com's series on the death of the gay bar is fortuitously timed. Last week, at the end of its legislative session, the New York State Senate legalized gay marriage in the Empire State. Pride weekend in NYC, which coincidentally followed the passage of the bill, transformed into a full-throated celebration of the official recognition of gay and lesbian relationships. As the mayor of the city and the governor of the state proudly led the parade down 6th avenue in the warm midday sun, the raids on gay bars and the violent state-sponsored discrimination of decades past seemed as far from the mind as a winter's blizzard.
The question that June Thomas' series examines is whether the gay bar, so long a gathering point for a marginalized group, has a place in the less baldly bigoted 21st century.
This much is clear: as gay and lesbians have gained more mainstream acceptance (albeit with difficulty and an abundance of political and cultural work) the need for separate safe spaces for the sustenance and development of gay culture has waned.
Will gay bars become museum pieces, lose their primacy as the terra firma of gay culture? In some ways this question is generational. With mobile phone apps like Grindr around, who needs to go to a bar to meet someone? Maybe what's also changing is the "third places" theory, coined by Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book The Great Good Place. Either way, somethings afoot, a transition to be explored.
Last year, Matt Katz set off a debate here at Obit and at Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish by suggesting the "death of the gayborhood," -- those enclaves of urban centers in which gays and lesbians carved out a community amidst a less-than-tolerant city -- is both a reflection of an undoubtably laudable development (i.e. acceptance) but also the progression of capitalistic impulses that might hurt the uniqueness of gay and lesbian culture.
The rainbow flag that gays planted signaled to other assorted demographics – hipsters, liberal-leaning couples with young kids, actual artists, myself – that the neighborhood had been conquered, with flair. So we came, hungry for cheap space and a higher cool quotient. The death may have gone unrecognized by some. But for me, a straight man with a proclivity towards societally marginalized people (and neighborhoods), the kind of gayborhood where I lived has disappeared.
Katz's wasn't a Romantic call for a return to the culture of the repressed, but rather an observation that with the movement of societal norms, certain things are left behind.
In an episode of the CBS sitcom How I met Your Mother, (sitcoms are fast-and-loose artifacts: How I Met Your Mother is this decade's Friends), the brood of early 30 year-old New Yorkers venture to a gay bar to dance. The women of the crew revel in not being incessantly hit on. And the straight men of the group, in a "comedic" twist, first gloat at the attention they receive, then bemoan "being treated like a piece of meat."
The pat middle-brow humor of the episode reveals a truth: straight people (or at least young, white, urban straight people) feel comfortable in gay bars, which wasn't always true.
The gayborhood is a larger geographic version of the gay bar. Perhaps New York's Greenwich Village (where Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo strode proudly amidst the flutter of those rainbow flags) or DC's Dupont Circle or Philadelphia's 13th Street (which has been branded "Midtown Village" by developers and real estate agents) will become loci of memory rather than of contemporary action. But that transition, while important to mark and perhaps mourn, is one ultimately to celebrate.
Related Stories
Judy and Stonewall, Together Wherever They Go
by Jeff Weinstein
Remembering both inspirations 40 years later.
The Legacy of Matthew Shephard
by Jeff Weinstein
Ten years ago, someone’s death made major news because that someone was gay.
What Should an Obit Say?
by Jeff Weinstein
“He was a soldier first.” That is the first line of a Washington Post feature story, which also served as the paper’s obituary for Army Maj. Alan G. Rogers, killed Jan. 27 in Baghdad while protecting two fellow soldiers from an explosion.
The question that June Thomas' series examines is whether the gay bar, so long a gathering point for a marginalized group, has a place in the less baldly bigoted 21st century. This much is clear: as gay and lesbians have gained more mainstream acceptance (albeit with difficulty and an abundance of political and cultural work) the need for separate safe spaces for the sustenance and development of gay culture has waned.
Will gay bars become museum pieces, lose their primacy as the terra firma of gay culture? In some ways this question is generational. With mobile phone apps like Grindr around, who needs to go to a bar to meet someone? Maybe what's also changing is the "third places" theory, coined by Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book The Great Good Place. Either way, somethings afoot, a transition to be explored.
Last year, Matt Katz set off a debate here at Obit and at Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish by suggesting the "death of the gayborhood," -- those enclaves of urban centers in which gays and lesbians carved out a community amidst a less-than-tolerant city -- is both a reflection of an undoubtably laudable development (i.e. acceptance) but also the progression of capitalistic impulses that might hurt the uniqueness of gay and lesbian culture.
The rainbow flag that gays planted signaled to other assorted demographics – hipsters, liberal-leaning couples with young kids, actual artists, myself – that the neighborhood had been conquered, with flair. So we came, hungry for cheap space and a higher cool quotient. The death may have gone unrecognized by some. But for me, a straight man with a proclivity towards societally marginalized people (and neighborhoods), the kind of gayborhood where I lived has disappeared.
Katz's wasn't a Romantic call for a return to the culture of the repressed, but rather an observation that with the movement of societal norms, certain things are left behind.
In an episode of the CBS sitcom How I met Your Mother, (sitcoms are fast-and-loose artifacts: How I Met Your Mother is this decade's Friends), the brood of early 30 year-old New Yorkers venture to a gay bar to dance. The women of the crew revel in not being incessantly hit on. And the straight men of the group, in a "comedic" twist, first gloat at the attention they receive, then bemoan "being treated like a piece of meat."
The pat middle-brow humor of the episode reveals a truth: straight people (or at least young, white, urban straight people) feel comfortable in gay bars, which wasn't always true.
The gayborhood is a larger geographic version of the gay bar. Perhaps New York's Greenwich Village (where Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo strode proudly amidst the flutter of those rainbow flags) or DC's Dupont Circle or Philadelphia's 13th Street (which has been branded "Midtown Village" by developers and real estate agents) will become loci of memory rather than of contemporary action. But that transition, while important to mark and perhaps mourn, is one ultimately to celebrate.
Related Stories
Judy and Stonewall, Together Wherever They Goby Jeff Weinstein
Remembering both inspirations 40 years later.
The Legacy of Matthew Shephardby Jeff Weinstein
Ten years ago, someone’s death made major news because that someone was gay.
What Should an Obit Say?by Jeff Weinstein
“He was a soldier first.” That is the first line of a Washington Post feature story, which also served as the paper’s obituary for Army Maj. Alan G. Rogers, killed Jan. 27 in Baghdad while protecting two fellow soldiers from an explosion.
RELATED CONTENT
Latest News Delivered to Your Inbox - Sign up with our site and you will get the latest news about people and subjects that interest you.
