'I know that all through his life Fred didn't think that whether he was gay or not was important...He loved music, he loved his work, and he didn't want anything to get in the way.'
Brian May (qtd. In Luersson)
Every pop-star is a 'text', a created cultural item made up of a series of gestures and symbols, all of which carry various connotations. This creation is not necessarily a conscious process; a 'star text' can be sometimes created via means of sub-conscious reaction to societal and cultural norms, either adopting a stance of opposition to them, or else acceptance and adherence. The public persona (or personae) of a recording artist can be utilised to target discrete generic groups; 'different genres of music have become associated with and signify different images, which in turn connote particular attitudes, values and beliefs' (Negus 66). Certain behaviours, modes of dress, speech or demeanour help to delineate particular audiences, yes, and this is an extremely useful commercial marketing tool, but in some cases it is also a form of artistic expression, a mask worn, a persona performed. Some artists' public personae can differ wildly from their private personalities; there is also a great deal of difficulty in determining where the mask ends and where the person begins. There are even some recording artists who change their names, adopting characters which allow them the freedom to project whatever public image they see fit. These artists are, in effect, a store of symbols, a text which can be consumed and interpreted in various different ways, and it is this that I will examine here.
In this essay, I will discuss the public persona of one Farrokh Bulsara, also known as Freddie Mercury, lead vocalist with British rock band Queen. I will focus on Mercury's portrayal of sexuality in his public life and performance, and the differing ways in which this portrayal can be read. I want to look at why there was such confusion surrounding his sexuality in the 1970s and 1980s, and the part his various outward symbolic gestures played in that.
It seems difficult to believe now, but once upon a time, people were unaware of Freddie Mercury's sexuality. To modern eyes, his demeanour, dress, behaviour and performance style would seem to be virtuoso performances in 'high camp'. What makes such gestures difficult to read? What causes this confusion? The outward symbolic behavioural gesture often has an indexical relationship to that which is being symbolised; for example, the offer of a hand-shake to symbolise welcome, or fellowship. However, as is the case with many forms of cultural expression, this relationship is entirely arbitrary; it is agreed upon within the parent culture. A hand, held out, is simply a hand if one is not in possession of the necessary cultural competency needed to decode the gesture. The same ideas can be applied to seemingly more abstract signifiers; a moustache is rarely 'just a moustache'. Much depends on the context in which it is worn, who it is worn by and for what ostensible purpose.
This creation, transmission, reception and decoding is a form of 'semiosis'; 'the actions and processes by which signs are constructed and transformed' (Tagg 6). This is a theoretically complex model used to explain something which we see as simple, something we almost take for granted: the construction and transmission of meaning. Think of it this way – you have a message you want to send (consciously or not), you transmit that message via means of a medium (in this sense used to mean any mediating factor in the transmission of meaning, artificial or organic), be it speech, dress, or behaviour. This message is received by the receiver, but during the process of transmission it is subject to cultural 'interference'; the receiver may not be familiar with the symbols that you are using to transmit your message. They may be a member of a different cultural group, of which you are not a member, and the symbol might mean something completely different to them. In this way, signifiers can be 'polysemic, 'signifying many things at the same time' (Tagg 7). It is this polysemy which causes confusion and difficulty in the reading of Freddie Mercury as a 'star text'.
I would like to examine some key components of Freddie Mercury's outward persona and discuss their polysemic natures. I would like to make it clear that, in this essay, when I refer to 'Freddie Mercury' it is as the performative persona, the character; by the same token I will refer to the artist himself, the man, as Farrokh Bulsara for ease of distinction.
Killer/Queen
Mercury was flamboyant, there can be no secret about that. After all, how could there be? His on-stage antics were theatrical, 'over-the-top' – outrageous even. He was no stranger to lycra jump-suits, PVC biker outfits – even going so far as to close concert shows by parading out onto the stage in an ermine cape and jewelled crown to the strains of 'God Save The Queen' reworked on electric guitar by Queen lead guitarist Brian May. Mercury was a lover of opera, and the operatic aesthetic. This manifested itself in his song-writing, but also his personal bearing on-stage, his every gesture and raised eyebrow exaggerated so that no-one could miss a single move he made. He almost over-enunciated every word he uttered in between songs, using perfect 'cut-glass' English (no doubt a result of his studies at an exclusive English school whilst living in India), creating what, for the time, was an anachronistic-sounding verbal style which recalled music-hall performance, Noel Coward and perhaps even the work of Oscar Wilde. In addition, there was always something of the 'dandy' about Freddie Mercury in the performance style, and in his 'private' life as a performer. I use parentheses here because the 'private' life of Freddie Mercury, chameleonic pop-star, is a completely different consideration to the (actually) private life of Farrokh Bulsara, British-Asian, bisexual recording artist and former art-student. Farrokh Bulsara was, by all accounts, a very sensitive, private individual, a man who became increasingly reluctant to give personal interviews as his life drew to a close. Indeed, he continued to deny that he was HIV positive right up until the day before his death from AIDS on the 24th of November 1991. Yet, when he was being Freddie, which included any and every time he was out in public, he was the life and soul of the party, sexually aggressive, mischievous, puckish and pugnacious. He was every inch the 'diva of rock and roll' (Freestone 82). He wore ostentatious clothing and make-up for most of his life and had a love of glamour which probably dated back to his pre-Queen days selling second-clothes on London's Kensington Market in the late '60s. Even back then, he was identified as being someone who already looked like a rock-star, even before he was famous, as his former personal assistant and biographer Peter Freestone attests:
'Freddie's charisma took over the place he occupied...Freddie ensconced in his seat with his long black hair and dressed in the short fox-fur jacket really turned heads.' (Freestone 15)
He was gay, in other words. He was, at least, definitely bisexual, having had numerous relationships with both men and women. But without any intimate knowledge of Bulsara's life, how do we conclude this from the outward behaviour and mannerisms of Freddy Mercury? Is it because 'homosexuals are simply supposed to be histrionic, flamboyant' (Sinfield 43)? This is problematic, not least because, plainly, not all gay men are flamboyant. There is a certain amount of association of 'dandyism' with 'camp', and of 'camp' with 'gay' in the popular consciousness, yet in the 1970s hard-rock scene, such androgyny, 'irresponsible wit, affectation and high spirits' (Sinfield 52) was common, de rigueur, perhaps. Even such supposed paragons of heterosexual male virility as Robert Plant could be seen bare-chested and bejewelled, in skin-tight trousers, capering limp-wristedly to the monolithic sounds of Led Zeppelin. Long hair, for example, was not always seen as a symbol of untamed masculinity, and was interpreted as 'gay' in the earlier days of rock and roll. The aspects of Freddie Mercury's personality and performance style which could have been read as displaying homosexual indicators were also present in the personae of other leading performers of the time; 'his campy (sic) demeanor and flashy outfits did not seem to raise many eyebrows. "Ambiguous sexuality was par for the course then," recalled one former band-mate.' (Highleyman) Even Brian May, Queen's guitarist, and arguably Mercury's closest working colleague, claims to have been unaware that the lead vocalist in the band was interested in men:
'No, I didn't know. I don't think even he was fully cognizant in the beginning," May told British newspaper The Daily Express. "You're talking to someone who shared rooms with Fred on the first couple of tours, so I knew him pretty well...I knew a lot of his girlfriends and he certainly didn't have boyfriends, that's for sure...I think there was a slight suspicion, but it never occurred to me that he was gay.' (qtd. In Luerssen)
There was an abundance of camp connotations not just in the personal text, but also in the musical texts that Freddie Mercury created. A lover of innuendo (to the extend that he named an album after it), it has been suggested that Mercury very often performed gender substitutions on the subjects of his songs, one notable example being promoter Eric Hall's claim that an infatuated Freddy Mercury wrote 'Killer Queen' (1974) about him. Mercury, however, claimed that:
'It's about a high class call girl. I'm trying to say that classy people can be whores as well. That's what the song is about, though I'd prefer people to put their interpretation upon it – to read into it what they like.'
(qtd in www.queenarchives.com)
And of course, they did. The song can either be read as a self-portrait or as a paean to another gay man ('queen' being a gay slang term used to refer to effeminate gay men). However, many people readily accepted the explicit meaning of the text, either having no knowledge or interest in gay culture, or else being unwilling to acknowledge the possibility of such implications within the text. A slightly more problematic text in this regard would be 'Don't Stop Me Now', taken from the 1978's Jazz album, which is fairly widely considered to contain references to gay sex. The song itself certainly presents a strong likelihood that sexual activity is the main topic of discussion, with lines such as 'I'm a sex-machine ready to reload, like an atom-bomb about to oh-oh-oh-oh EXPLODE!' leaving the listener in little doubt as to the implicit meaning. That this is coupled with 'I wanna make a supersonic man out of you' presents the possibility that the object of Mercury's amorousness is, in fact, a man. Or woman. In 'Don't Stop Me Now' the same line is repeated in the song several times, twice using the word 'man', and once with the word 'woman'.
Another aspect of Freddie Mercury's character is that of machismo. He exuded the air of the strutting peacock onstage, and many of his performative gestures were implicitly aggressive or phallo-centric; for example, punching the air to punctuate certain passages of songs, or his use of his specially modified microphone stand as a surrogate penis, alternately fondled, stroked, or else thrust at the audience emphatically. This all combined to create an image of sexual power and bravado, of 'hyper-masculinity'. As the 1970s gave way to the 1980s, Mercury appropriated a sartorial style which was, at the time, en vogue throughout the American gay clubs of New York City and San Francisco: The 'Clone' look. He began to crop his hair short and took to wearing a moustache, as was the 'clone' style, so called because the rugged, hyper-masculine, working class-aesthetic took on an aspect of uniformity as the fashion spread. Another related stylistic characteristic was a particular style of dress, tight denim jeans and tight t-shirts or muscle-vests, which Freddy can be seen wearing in Queen's famous performance at Live Aid in 1985. It is, perhaps, unsurprising that people attempting to decode Mercury's outward gestural symbols would run into slight confusion, as regards Freddie Mercury's overtly masculine dress; the clone aesthetic was partly intended to make the subject look 'manly' – something which at that time was not traditionally associated with gay culture by a largely homophobic, or else homo-ignorant, mainstream culture. The wearer's outward sexuality was supposed to be ambiguous as a result of the clone 'look'. It was meant to look 'butch', which it did. It is only later, and with increased openness and acceptance of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-gender) culture that people began to decode 'butch' as gay.
In Conclusion
As we can see, ambiguity is key to the construction of Freddie Mercury's identity as a performer, and as a possibly bisexual man. Some cultural commentators suggest that this ambiguity is a firmly-embedded aspect of the wider gay identity, historically as a matter of necessity in the face of an world which did not tolerate homosexuality; 'The closet (as discreet homosexuality was named when it came under scrutiny in the 1960s) did not obscure homosexuality...it created it.' (Sinfield 48) The argument is that, for so long, it was not possible to 'come out of the closet', meaning that 'the closet' comes to define and shape gay experience and gay culture. Instead of being expressed, homosexuality was implied, through modes of speech and behavioural aesthetic. For the gay performer, 'homosexuality might emerge through the veil of discretion into misty visibility as the alternative that must, for the conventional... audience, be held at the boundary of thought.' (Sinfield 57) The emergence of Queen in the early 1970s meant that, despite greater visibility of androgyny in the hard rock scene of the time, Farrokh Bulsara would be targeting his band's music at a largely conventional rock audience. It would have been difficult for him to ascertain whether or not it was worth the risk of openly displaying his sexuality, even if, as noted earlier, he was aware of it. For Bulsara, the creation of Freddy Mercury provided a possibility to express himself and his sexuality, but to do so in such a way that it would not alienate the wider audience; for the public 'there is a frisson of naughtiness, but because it is only that, and is placed as that, the customary boundaries are confirmed.' (Sinfield 58) In a more modern context, it would, perhaps be easy to judge Farrokh Bulsara – in modern western culture 'being yourself' is everything. Anything else is seen as dishonest, or somehow inauthentic. But let us remember: Bulsara had no choice. He had to 'pass for' most of his adult life in order to succeed. Farrokh Bulsara was an Indian emigrè of Persian descent, and bisexual. He was an outsider. However, 'a feature of subordinated cultures often is inventiveness in negotiating the conditions of their subordination – it is forced upon them.' (Sinfield 60) In order to fulfil his destiny as one of the greatest rock stars in musical history, Farrokh Balsara had to wear that most elaborate of masks; the one which allowed him to both exhibit and obscure his true sexuality - Freddie Mercury.
Bibliography
Books
Freestone, P. 2001. Freddie Mercury. London. Omnibus.
Negus, K. 1992. Producing Pop: Culture and Conflict in the Popular Music Industry. London. Edward-Arnold.
Journals
Amico, S. 2001. ''I Want Muscles': House Music, Homosexuality and Masculine Signification'. Popular Music. Vol. 20: (3) Gender and Sexuality, pp.359-378
Glick, E. 2001. 'The Dialectics of Dandyism'. Cultural Critique. No. 48: (Spring), pp.129-163
Sinfield, A. 1991. 'Private Lives/Public Theatre: Noel Coward and the Politics of Homosexual Representation. Representations. No. 36:(Autumn), pp.43-63
Online Resources
Author Unknown. 1974. NME Archived Queen Interview. Available at:http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_11-02-1974_-_NME
(Accessed on 7th January 2011)
Highleyman, L. 2005. Who Was Freddie Mercury? Available at: http://www.gmax.co.za/think/history/2005/050905-freddymercury.html
(Accessed on 7th January 2011)
Luerssen, J. D. 2008. Queen Guitarist Didn't Know Freddie Mercury Was Gay. Available at:
(Accessed on 7th January 2011)
Freddie was smokin hot:)
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