A Gay Photographer/Writer’s Escape Essay
The Art of Camp: Expressive Text and Image Say ‘Gay, Gay, Gay’ My Way!
Narrative niche: Blast from the past
“We have no bait! Sure, we have bait…by Cartier!” — Tallulah Bankhead from Lifeboat (1944)
From the 1950s to the ’70s, the in-the-closet gays were raging their voices on screens everywhere. Yes, it was “don’t say gay” all of the time, yet doing a gay song and dance was perfectly acceptable, from Audrey Hepburn dancing in a smoky gay bar with sleek and slender men in Funny Face to the flair of Liberace’s galloping fingers gliding up and down a grand piano’s keys with a pink boa swaying along with his marvelous figure.
This was the other side of manhood. You could be tray gay, yet couldn’t declare it in words.
As I brushed off the moths from my closet, I realized that popular culture had yet to scream GAY loud and clear, yet you could flaunt it every way you pleased.
I’ve finally figured out how to share the past I don’t regret — eighteen years of life in Bagdad by the Bay.
While I’m not Armistead Maupin in terms of writing fame, I have learned during my long jaunt in The City how to communicate gay, gay, gay…and other mischievous camp in print and…
