If Gay Means Stylish, What’s Up with That Tacky Rainbow Flag?
Dear Hank:
I keep reading that cities like San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Washington, DC, West Hollywood, Key West have painted crosswalks in the gay rainbow flag colors. Yuck! If you gay guys are so stylish, what’s with this tacky rainbow flag thing? Don’t you think Yves Saint Laurent, Gianni Versace, and Halston are rolling in their graves?
WeHo DudeBro
Dear DudeBro:
Well, Halston, Versace, and Saint Laurent died long after the rainbow flag was invented by Gilbert Baker, the gay Betsy Ross. So while they may have viewed his bizarre spangled banner with a fashionista’s contempt, they probably had grown used to it by the time they were forced to don their angelic white robes.
Baker put thread to needle in 1972, when, after an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army, he settled in San Francisco. Like many a gay man of his era in that city, he promptly taught himself to sew. On his website, he explains that he couldn’t afford to buy the glittery clothes his idol, David Bowie, wore. So he decided to make them.
Baker designed the rainbow flag for the San Francisco Gay Pride parade in June 1978 (when, I’m guessing from your use of the words “dude” and “bro,” you weren’t yet born). The original flag featured eight colors, each symbolizing something: hot pink (sexuality), red (life), orange (healing), yellow (sunlight), green (nature), turquoise (magic), indigo (serenity), and violet (spirit). By 1979, the flag had been simplified into six stripes, dropping the oh-so-gay turquoise and pink and changing the indigo to blue.
So why do we gays wave this gaudy rainbow flag? Well, WeHo DudeBro, those in our community who try to parse these things have two theories, which aren’t entirely contradictory. One is that style, for some of us, is larded with oodles of flamboyance. Would you really expect a guy whose handcrafted gym shirt, showing both of his nipples, to be into understated minimalism when it comes to a flag? Another theory is that it’s the gay “daddies” who can’t let go of the flag that inspired them at a time when it was difficult if not dangerous to be gay. Right now those gay daddies are raising some hell in West Hollywood because City Council members want to add a transgender flag at another crosswalk and add some brown and black stripes to the rainbow flag images on the intersection of Santa Monica and San Vicente boulevards to represent people of color.
Like beauty, DudeBro, style is in the eye of the beholder. If the rainbow colors really freak your sense of style, we can recommend some Moss Lipow sunglasses that will dull their flash. They’re a steal at $3,800 — just a tiny percent of the cost of those crosswalks. But if you wear them, we can’t promise some gay guy won’t hit on you while you’re in one of those crosswalks.
Gaily yours,
Hank (a monocolorist)
Questions you can’t bring yourself to ask your gay friends and neighbors? Or maybe you’re just queer and befuddled. Send them to Hank@AskAGay.net. (Warning: The answers will be factually correct, but might not be politically correct)
