MCV 279 – Feature

Desperate div= as

Are we pickin= g our own icons? JOSH DARE investigates.

If the foundation of an economy is supply and demand, = then the gay market is in demand. Promoters and publicists nationwide are counti= ng on the gay market to pick up the divas the rest of the country is refusing = to, and to make sure of that, we’re copping their selected artists ad nau= seum.

Counting her recent ANZAC weekend performance, Inaya D= ay has performed in gay Melbourne venues three times in the last twelve months. Tina Cousins, who has perform= ed twice so far, has another performance coming up this month. And for months = it was hard to turn your head in the gay press without seeing Katie Underwood,= let alone attending GayAZ or Miss Melbourne Drag’s final. Following in th= eir footsteps are a myriad of comeback queens (Melissa Tkautz, Bardot girls, Re= nee Geyer) and self-proclaimed ‘divas’ (any woman related to Australian Idol). So when did appe= aling to a gay audience for instant acclaim become de rigueur?

You can’t appeal to the gay masses without recal= ling the always-touted ‘gay icon’ status of stars like Madonna or Kylie = or Judy. They achieved their iconic status through revealing turbulence in the= ir personal life, or proving a successful run in showbiz. The new breed of sta= rs being force-fed to our community have neither.

The harshest thing Inaya Day has been through is having to admit she was the vocalist on Mousse T’s ‘Horny’. Although Tina Cousins had= a quiet spat with Sash!, the only thing she’s had to endure is the endl= ess flights back here from here home city of Essex (as she’s not found the same level of popularity at home). So how did= our community become viewed as a gateway for mainstream success?

Gay culture has always been celebrated, either correct= ly or falsely, depending on your opinion, for capturing the zeitgeist. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy tau= ght the world that we hold an exportable commodity, although it’s somethi= ng that people like Madonna have been flouting for years. The current crop of cutesy popstars haven’t found anywhere near as much success.

Melissa Tkautz, hot on the heels of a performance at Xchange, peaked at number 31 on the ARIA chart with her comeback single, a cover of ‘Glamourous Life’ (this was hindered by the fact that almost simultaneously, another of our desperate divas, Inaya Day, covered t= he exact song in a similar style. The confusion wasn’t bolstered however= , by the fact that both artists are represented by the same company in Australia<= /st1:place>, who tried their best to distinguish the two by censoring all questions on t= he topic.) Meanwhile, Tina Cousin’s single ‘Wonderful Life’, another cover, reached number 16 on the charts, which while her album Mastermind topped at number 46. Co= ntrast this with recent no-brainer Australian number ones such as Lee Harding, who’s never been offered to the gay press, and you can see that the gay-friendly method may not be as effective as record label’s publici= ty may hope.

The notion of a gay following has some currency, as it= is true that a lot of us do like our disco pop. Everyone knows the gays kept K= ylie afloat, and they’d love to see that replicated with their new, strugg= ling artists. It’s not hard to feed the gay community scraps when the gay community, in terms of recognition, is sitting on the floor with the dog. B= ut it’s a publicists job to oversell, even if one of them let their guard down recently and did both; “She has a huge gay following... In fact,= I think it’s her only following.”

Just like the rest of the desperate divas, her only ap= peal of adoption is that because she agrees to perform in our venues, we should accept them as a fully fledged, bone fide icon. Talent notwithstanding, it would be easier to grant the iconic status they crave if we were given a bit more credit, and treated as more than bankable launch pads.