Madonna and the gay community
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Pop singer Madonna and the gay community have had a strong relationship for the entire span of her career as a pop culture icon.
Madonna was introduced to the gay community while still a teenager. It was her ballet teacher, Christopher Flynn, a gay man, who first told Madonna that she was beautiful. He also introduced her to the local gay community of Detroit, Michigan, often taking her to local gay bars. It is Flynn who encouraged Madonna to walk away from her full scholarship to the University of Michigan and move to Manhattan to pursue a career as a professional dancer. Upon her arrival, some of the people she befriended were drag queens and gay rentboys
After the launch of her music career and her entry into public consciousness, Madonna began to solidify her reputation as a gay icon. In the 1980s, Madonna was one of the first major celebrities to lend her support to AIDS causes. Many of her friends and inspirations, such as her ballet teacher Christopher Flynn, artist Keith Haring, and photographer Herb Ritts - as well as her brother Christopher - are gay males, and some of them have died of AIDS. The song "In This Life" from her fith studio album, Erotica, is about the loss of Madonna's (gay) friends to AIDS, containing the line, "Have you ever watched your best friend die?"
One of Madonna's biggest hits, 1990's "Vogue", is a song in tribute to the underground dance form known as vogueing which first found popularity in gay bars and discos of New York City. "Deeper and Deeper," a 1992 hit about a young man's coming out, featured a small reprise of "Vogue".
In 2003 Madonna kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards. According to Out Madonna shrugs off the attention the act garnered and her daughter Lourdes' reaction to it (Lourdes told her mother people call the pop star gay and the girl has gained more consciousness of the gay community). "I kind of assume everything I do is going to appeal to the gay audience. I'm just a big queen... it just means I kissed Britney Spears. I am the mommy pop star and she is the baby pop star. And I am kissing her and passing my energy onto her. Like, kind of a mythological fairy tale", Madonna stated of the incident.
Madonna has been named by The Advocate as the biggest gay icon of all time over such icons as Judy Garland and Cher. To this day, Madonna's gay following is one of the most loyal segments of her audience. While her popularity among certain other communities (like the African American and Hispanic communities, for example) has fluctuated over the years, her gay following seems to stay strongly intact.
On the eve of the release of Madonna's album Confessions on a Dance Floor, Steve Gdula of The Advocate wrote:
In the beginning, back in the 1980s and even the early 1990s, the release of a new Madonna video or single was akin to a national holiday, at least among her gay fans. The devotion, the urgency, and the fervor with which we rushed to buy her music, set the VCRs to record her every appearance, and raced to the newsstand to pour [sic] over the Vogue and Vanity Fair spreads became nearly ritualistic. Whether documented by Herb Ritts or Steven Meisel, we anticipated each new incarnation of our Madonna like pilgrims waiting for a vision.... Madonna’s dance tracks offered a necessary escape that was nearly transcendental during an era when our community was seeing more than its share of heartbreak and horror.... Off the dance floor, she was just as supportive, becoming an outspoken AIDS activist and promoting education and compassion over ignorance and intolerance. At a time when other artists tried to distance themselves from the very audience that helped their stars to rise, Madonna only turned the light back on her gay fans and made it burn all the brighter. [1]
At a certain moment of her Confessions Tour, Madonna brings two shirtless male dancers on stage, one with a Jewish symbol painted in his chest and the other with a Muslim symbol also painted in his chest, and they kiss each other on the mouth. The singer then asks for peace in the Middle East. This irritated both Jews and Muslims (considering the fact that homosexuality is forbidden in most of the nations in which Islam is the official religion).
