'Oh You Pretty Thing!': How David Bowie 'Unlocked Everybody's Inner Queen' in spite of the music press. Issue 3 (3rd July 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Glen, Patrick
• Is Part Of: Contemporary British history. Volume 31:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 407
• Page End: 429
• Publication Date: 2017-07-03
• Subjects: Media -- sexuality -- permissiveness -- popular music -- music press -- David Bowie; Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth II, 1952- -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- History -- 20th century -- Periodicals; 941.085
• DOI: 10.1080/13619462.2016.1261696
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1361-9462

Abstract

Abstract: The 1967 Sexual Offence Act decriminalised homosexual acts between men allowing gay men to discuss their sexuality in public. Few prominent popular musicians came-out until 1972 when David Bowie claimed that he was bisexual in an interview with Melody Maker . Music papers and Bowie had substantial cultural power: Bowie was a rising star and music papers recruited journalists who discussed and perpetuated social change. The subsequent conversation, however, reinforced negative stereotypes in constructing the queer subject and tried to safeguard commercial concerns due to the assumption that the market for popular music avoided queer music. This undermined arguments that associate permissive legislation with a permissive media and society, but, to some, representation alone empowered people and destabilised preconceptions about queer identity.