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#TaylorSwiftProblems: Billy Eichner’s “Glitter and Ribs” Parody Video Sings Angsty Summer Goodbyes

 

“You’ll never know my heart/like my heart/knows my heart…”

– From Billy Eichner’s Taylor Swift Parody, “Glitter and Ribs”

 

Art Imitating The Art of Emo Country-Pop

First Taylor Swift is the MTV VMAs victim (“I’ma let you finish”) , and now she’s the Mean Girl VMA vamp (just for mouthing the words “shut the eff up?). It’s kinda hard to keep up with all these pop star reality TV tragicomedies, isn’t it?

In the wake of Real Taylor Swift’s (ahem. Choreographed.) STFU incident and her recovery from it, Faux Taylor Swift just wants to muse aloud and brood.

Aloud.

So y’all, can we just take a second to wax nostalgic about the end of another bummer summer? Puh-lease?

Plucked right out of one of the lost episodes of Glee, here comes Billy on the Street with a little comic relief. Leave it to sassy-pants Billy Eichner to add his aggro two cents to the whole thing.

‘Cause really: which Taylor Swift are we supposed to believe in? Good Girl Taylor Swift or Bad Girl Taylor Swift? ‘You know we’re all either one thing or the other, don’t you?

Well, don’t you?!!!

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In the new music video “Glitter and Ribs,” Funny or Die and Fuse TV’s resident smart-aleck sets the record straight. In the video, Faux Taylor Swift is every girl not yet a woman. She’s sassy, cute, happy, frustrated, sad, apologetic. She cries ugly, feels heartbroken, is independent. Yes. She’s strong, young, um…no. She’s old, totally weak and totally dependent. Yeah. Well…?

Celebrities are just like us—totally ambivalent and utterly complex.

 

Hook Up, Heartbreak, Cash In, Repeat

The real target of this video is the crazy, silly entertainment industry. “Glitter and Ribs” breaks down the “summer fling to summer heartbreak” song formula, the lie that is the ingenue/Lolita aesthetic, and the naughty habit pop stars and producers have of recycling the same song and video over and over to communicate the same ideas—and how that theater of the absurd spills into offstage antics, which then strangely become “real-life” antics.

And then the whole (press) cycle begins again.

As with everything in life, there is of course a grain of truth to what’s going on (private details we’ll surely never know) and how that contributes to Swift’s own creative process. Many artists believe that suffering is a key ingredient necessary for creative inspiration, and Swift just rocks that trope in her own Taylor-ish ways.

And why wouldn’t she? Doing so is a lucrative business, and these recurring themes work for her. The music business is indeed a business. Broken-hearted music sells, and “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” doesn’t apply to this particular case study and music biz model.

Swift’s sales figures and chart positions are telling: there’s catharsis to be had from hearing and singing along with this narrative that’s ever on repeat.

Still, when you think about the artistic choices Taylor Swift and her press team make compared to…say, India Arie’s, the repeated messaging, saga and drama that “Real Taylor Swift” is broadcasting do seem to be more than a little bit laughable.

And sometimes, ya gotta laugh to keep from crying.

Unless of course, you’re Faux Taylor Swift, because “life won’t always be glitter and ribs.”

So ciao for now…see you next summer never-ever-ever!

xo (sniffle, sniffle) xox,

– Faux Taylor Swift 

P.S. Ms. Faux Taylor, wash your face full of runny mascara away, come back to your viewing device of choice, and watch Billy on the Street. That’ll solve everything. For now.

Kisses!

 

Cowboys Are Secretly Fond of Each Other:” Singing Gay Cowboys and The Wild, Wild West

This Cowboy Ain’t Found the Right Woman Yet

“John Wayne and Will Rogers, they made real cowboy movies. They portrayed us like we are. There ain’t no queer in cowboy and I don’t care for anyone suggesting there is.”

– (Heterosexual) Rancher Dave Miller, to The Telegraph

When we think of “the cowboy,” we envision Old West or the Wild Wild West. “Rugged America.” Ranch Hand Nobility. Tobacco-Stained Chivalry. Guys who were tough, but fair. We think of heroes. We think of—well—men’s men.

In the States, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers became popular studio-cowpokes, wearing white hats and sweetly singing nostalgic, lonesome songs, wailing to the desert sky in a series of B-movies from the 30s and 40s. “Happy Trails,” anyone? “‘Until we meet again?”

Even Good ol’ John Wayne sang a rare cowboy song, playing the role of Singin’ Sandy Saunders (“Riders of Destiny,” 1933). Somehow, singing cowboys were not seen as effeminate—just dreamy. The trope became popular and took hold worldwide. So much so, inspired Italian/European directors began recruiting American actors to film their own “spaghetti westerns” overseas.

All this is to say that it’s hard to separate the engrained stereotypes from the reality that carries through to this day, and once established, tropes, metaphors and stereotypes therein can leave lasting impressions in others’ minds about how they think things were versus how they truly are. Masculinity, when contextualized in the world of cowboys, incorporates entirely new meanings when you include LGBTQ experience in the mix—this includes modern-day trans* men and women who, living in rural areas and on farmland (or close to it) embrace rodeo/cowboy culture and lifestyle.

“There have been gay cowboys for as long as there have been gay people…. It’s always been a part of the Western frontier lifestyle that wasn’t talked about. It was just there.”

– Brian Helander, for the International Gay Rodeo Association

As for cowboys, the most often looked-to idea in the Old West, the lyrical romanticism of Ang Lee’s brilliantly crafted film “Brokeback Mountain,” begin to build a bridge to speak to LGBTQ desert/rural/migratory experiences, but that too veered toward the tragic, therefore dropping one stereotype to pick up another (gay romance and agreed-upon rules in relationships don’t always have to end in tears).

Interestingly enough, world-famous country musician Willie Nelson’s soundtrack work on Lee’s film (“He Was a Friend of Mine”) and his cover of “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other” (the first LGBT-focused mainstream country song by a major label artist) brought the idea back into our consciousness beyond the Gay Rodeo circuit.

Gay Rodeo culture represents our (still) unsung heroes: the underground men and women athletes and community made up of the unofficial historians who’ve always cherished this way of life, and who’ve shared it for generations.

Cowboys Never Kiss And Tell

“I’m…a heterosexual guy without any apparent sexual hang-ups. I say that so you know where I stand. Gay people don’t scare me. They don’t repulse me. And they sure as hell don’t offend me. I know that there are gay athletes. There were gay cowboys…. Greeks took homosexuality to whole new levels, as do some Middle Eastern cultures…. Homosexuality is not new, it is not strange. It is also not going away. So why the fear and backlash over a movie? Easy. Men are cowards. They are also more confused and uptight than they should be.”

– Doug Brunell, for “Film Threat”

“There is a fair amount of sexual contact among the older males in western rural areas.”

-Alfred Kinsey, from a 1948 sexuality study

Picture gay cowboys—or even lesbian nuns—having more than a platonic relationship. Do the words “know duh” come to mind? Not when it comes to cultural constructs, facades and fears. In a world so tethered to binary/compartmentalized thinking, it can be challenging to look back retroactively and tease out more accurate versions of the truth.

Of course not all man-man and woman-woman situations are queer-only. Neither are they heteronormative only. Such is the case many historians make, and oftentimes we need pictures and additional documented evidence to firmly believe in the truth of it, even for ourselves. And we need to see and experience not only one image or piece of evidence, but several. It still seems somewhat otherworldly. Unbelievable. As we begin to hear the stories and to bear witness, then the truth begins to unfold itself to us so that we can accept to be true in our souls.

“In These Here Cowboying Circles:” No More Secrets

Geographically, the Old West is image and ideation most often dreamed of and seen. But of course, cowboys and gals rode the open range and worked on ranches from California to Montana and beyond.

More and more urban cowboys and cowgirls as well as out gay country stars help to modernize our imagery and understanding. They continue to sing, share, reveal our stories, letting those of us who are in-community write and experience our own narratives.

Just as we (LGBTQIA persons) are everywhere, so are cowboys and cowgirls who are “especially fond of one another.” Euphemisms are still used for literal survival (to avoid violence or shame-based thinking or incidents). Small-town gay and lesbian bars, any cow-town dance-halls in remote or rural areas, community centers near sprawling green pastures and wide open spaces, that’s where folks folks reside. So, that’s where love, lust and all good things in between will reside. So of course, that’s where queer cowboys work and play, and reside.

Coming full circle: just a handful of years ago, the Autry Cowboy Museum took an in-depth look at gay and trans* cowboy culture via their Out West exhibit. They continue to study queer culture and to blog about it. (See: http://blog.theautry.org/tag/brokeback-mountain)

To check out a gay cowboy movie in a post-Brokeback world, click on over to watch the Rom-Com “Adam and Steve” (featuring Parker Posey, no less!) and have a laugh on us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=970IMbt9JkE

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And to you queer theory and gay film elitists out there, sheep herders (Jack and Ennis from “Brokeback”) can also be called cowboys. Did you follow them around all day and night? Did you pay their well-earned wages? We thought not.

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A “Brokeback Mountain” opera will premiere in 2014. Even if you’re not into opera, aren’t you curious?