Hekles has a point: Liz was a tireless advocate for both equality and AIDS/HIV causes. Britney is manufactured sugar whom gays consumed with so many cosmos, but by no interpretation is Britney a "gay icon." When the Concert in the Castro was announced, the universal reaction among the local gays was "Oh, she's trying to market herself as cool again—making it look like she has a big gay fan base." The term most used in this discussion was variable forms of the word "pander." Ultimately threats of inclimate weather and logistical nightmares pushed the GMA concert to an indoor auditorium.
From there it seems GMA producers used local drag talent as toilet paper-used to take care of their needs then to be discarded, if possible sight unseen. First the selected divas of SF had to fill more than an hour with clean banter (harder than it sounds) and only one or two mics to an uninterested audience. Then as soon as Britney was supposed to appear, the Good Morning America folks made damn sure the drag queens could never been seen by the cameras, nor could they approach Miss Spears. Every account of their booking and treatment sounds incredibly offensive, except for Pollo's printed piece, which in her usual grace had some very kind words on the event. But the SFist is right in that the GMA people and the Chronicle need some serious schooling in their local celebs.
The videos and comments on the four-song concert are pretty awesome, if only for their cruelty. For a singer/dancer, Britney neither sang nor danced. The overwhelmingly popular and incredibly on-point comment around town (and the interwebs) was the Ru Paul call: "Britney is going to lip sync for her life!" And Honey did Britney have to sashay away.
At any rate, I was scheduled to entertain some gay friends of friends visiting SF from South Carolina that Sunday morning and we thought we'd show them some local color in the form of Brunk. And judging by the friend we had in common, I though this would be up their dark alley. Thank God the show moved to Civic Center else the neighborhood would have been a wreck. As it was, we had a lovely and intoxicating morning/afternoon.
We did note some plainclothes police people about and sure enough, by the afternoon a caravan of black SUV's were escorted by a horde of police cars and motorcycles so Britney could "visit the Castro as promised." From all accounts at the show, her fans were of the tween girl variety. Fags aren't all that into Britney, and SF'ers aren't all that into celebrity, but when the motorcade spectacle came through, crowds formed. I honestly think if she wanted to actually hang, she could have come in under the radar. Enormous SUVs, motorcade and black helicopters were a bit much and made it a "big deal." I think Lady Gaga is much more popular and could have had a couple of pints at the bar without much fuss or a dozen bodyguards. I felt it was only a big deal only because they made it a big deal. The big free rainbow "SF hearts Britney" posters were a little offensive to me, as she laid claim to a devotion from "the gays" which she neither has nor has earned. But apparently a PR agency and a trip to Kinkos can make it seem so.
For the amount of fanfare we would have expected a greater Britney Moment. As it happened, she stepped out in front of Under One Roof for less than a minute for a photo op, then the whole motorcade pulled a U-ey to drive the 50 feet up to Q-Bar for another one minute photo op of "Britney parties in the Castro with her gay fans" and then split, leaving one or two black vans behind to circle suspiciously.
Don't get me wrong, as sort of offended by the whole pandering/using the gays bit I was, spectacle is always fun-either in celebration or mockery, and we were the eye of the mockery storm. We, as is now our way, waited for the corner table at Harvey's so we could watch the usual Sunday parade and lean out to greet friends as they passed by. This put us in prime clusterfuck viewing position.
While the tween girls wanted to be Britney (that should horrify their mothers), the gay fans had an entirely different vision of Britney Be. There was a Britney look-alike drag contest, which was pretty awesome, at Under One Roof. Then there were those whose interpretation ran more like this:
SFers will take any opportunity for a theme or a costume.
Sudsy dashed out to get a glimpse of Miss Spears, and returned with this priceless reaction.
This clip pretty much sums it all up:
No comments:
Post a Comment