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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 4, 2000)
august 4 .2000 - Jaaft M tfJ 23 » line at the supermarket! In the article, lang ventured even further with this statement: “1 have a little bit of penis envy, they’re ridiculous but cool.” Gay men, too, can relate to the controversial androgyne. “In her pinstripe suits and slicked-back hair, it’s easy for me to think of k.d. as a hot guy, and the deep register she can go to with her voice also helps,” confides Bob Wilson of Beaverton. “I’m a really big fan; I’ll probably see several of her con certs on this tour.” And Angela Jones, who attend ed lang’s recent concert in Port land, says: “W hen she came out it was a confirmation, it was an empowering experience. It showed the genuineness of her.” k,d. language of love Continued /rom Page 21 author stroll hand-in-hand into the moonlight. “I have pictures of k.d. everywhere, and I fall asleep looking at her so she’ll star in my dreams,” another fan writes. This doesn’t terrify lang. “I’ve been to the extremes of loving an artist," she confides. “But it’s a hard thing to understand about yourself, your own appeal.” Although she says she used to check in on some of the many Internet sites devoted to her, she stopped because “It’s not about me, it’s about them.” And thanks to the role the Internet plays as a fire-breathing, rumor-fueling monster, lots of misinformation also floats around in cyber space. As lang told Entertainment Weekly Online: “I try to ignore all that, because even if it’s not tme, it can affect you negatively and take the wind right out of your sails. Why bother with it?” But in fact, lang as a lesbian icon is such a phenomenon that she is studied in academic circles. Sociologist Louise Allen has written a fascinating hook, The Lesbian Idol: Martina, k.d. and the Consumption of Lesbian Masculinity (Cas sell, 1997), in which she dissects every aspect of lang’s appeal and demonstrates her larger value in lesbian culture. How do we love k.d. lang? Let Allen count the ways. Probably first and foremost for many queer fans is lang’s sexual magnetism. “The relationship between k.d. and M artina [Navratilova] and their fans is not one of simple identification, hut is specifically informed by sexual desire,” Allen writes. As evidence, she cites this fan: “I dream that her life will only he complete when she meets me and we become lovers.” Although she thinks the worship of celebri ty is weird, lang also understands it firsthand. “I’ve certainly revered other artists to that extent in my life— I can remember sitting in the lobby of a hotel for 15 hours waiting to get a Peggy Lee autograph,” she recalls. “I’ve been there, so I can’t judge people who do that to 1» me. According to Allen, another strong appeal is lang’s innate gender ambiguity and how she plays with her public image. As one fan inter viewed for the btxik says, “I fantasize about hav ing sex with her, but I think mostly about her face...how lovely her face is—so boyish and androgynous.. .that ambiguity is very appealing, like the naughty feeling of holding hands in public with someone everyone assumes is your boyfriend, but is your girlfriend.” But lang’s overt masculinity is what often gets engines roaring. Her fans relate to the lang yang because she embodies an idealized butch dyke. In fact, as a young girl lang idolized Cana dian roller derby queens for the same reason. “There weren’t many gay role models at that time, and roller derby was a recognition of butch women, and I wanted to be that!” Allen states: “The stardom of k.d. and Mar tina as famous masculine lesbians must alter how we think about the notion of ‘woman,’ because these are women who are idealized and idolized for their masculinity. This dynamic changes both the notion of masculinity and the category of woman.” Allen reminds us that fans also love lang for her feminine attributes, especially her beautiful singing voice, which can sound so pure and lilt ing. nd that comment proba bly would make k.d. lang smile, because she’s made it her mission to relate better to the real people she encounters. As she sings on Invincible Summer, “Truth is delirious in love’s great atmosphere.” A mellower lang also talks about her soul: “I’ve always tried to le more m a voca approach my songs from an open place and incorporate my spiritu move ality in that.” She names “Simple” as the song on her new record with the deepest personal significance. “I think of it as a mantra, a prayer or a hymn. It’s about how love is really a simple thing, not nearly as mu so una is mu voice. complex or complicated as hu mans make it.” And on the final cut of the And lang herself readily admits she loves to person now, and it’s almost as though k.d. has album, lang sings, “With every drop of life inside explore all facets of herself simultaneously, often given me so much, and she will always mean a us, with every heart we’ve left behind us, every wearing lacy lingerie beneath her tailored suits. lot to me.” where you’ll find it’s only love brings you back In fact, she’s even coined a term for it: High To further gauge lang’s influence, Allen around.” For someone who just a few years ago Concept Living, or HCL, a subject she wrote notes how implausible it would be for a female was on the brink of burnout, that song sums it about earlier this year in Jane: “I love embracing fan of Barry Manilow to realize she was hetero up. As lang says, “It’s about how love is really the both the male and female energies of life— and sexual from watching him perform! only thing that can both kill you and bring you having a very male exterior and a very female Allen pinpoints the moment k.d. lang back to life.” interior is the way I do it.... It’s about ignoring achieved iconic status: the infamous Vanity Fair the traps of stereotyping and expectation." cover and article from 1993 featuring the trux:k ■ O R IA N A GREEN is the Entertainment Editor of W hen I ask lang for another example of seduction of lang by a scantily clad Cindy Craw Just O u t and can be reached at HCL, she says, “It would be inviting Ellen ford pretending to shave lang’s face. It’s impossi oriana@justout.com. She would walk through the DeGeneres and Laura Schlessinger to the same ble to convey how subversive that cover was and snow barefoot—for a few blocks, anyway— to see dinner party.” W hich leads to a riff on George what a shock it was to be found in the checkout k.d. lang. W. Bush and how he’s an example of the oppo site of HCL. “My mum and I call it capping the value system—never evolving or challenging your belief system.” Rocking the boat of preconception is anoth er thing fans love about lang. From her early days as a hybrid punk/cowgirl performer, queers have identified with lang’s otherness. Her hum ble economic and rural origins contribute to her otherness, as does her exotic mixed ethnicity: you appeal Irish, Icelandic, Dutch, Sioux, English, Scottish and Russian Jew. “I’m a hodgepodge,” she says with a laugh. Another appealing thing about lang is the vicarious thrill her fans get witnessing her rise in show business and her increasing power. To a group that often is marginalized, seeing one of their own being accepted on the larger world stage somehow validates their own progress. "Lesbian fandom as a subculture in itself is a fairly new phenomenon,” Allen writes. She doc uments how lang’s coming out affected countless other women who then were emboldened and how just seeing lang on television changed one woman’s life: “It has taken me a while to realize that I am attracted to women—and now I real ize that I always have been. I feel I’m a different A; ^she older 3 qet, tl 'e 3 see 3 i 3 studied old-school vocalists who h a d the liberty to arotuia gem 'es. 3 m not a hand, 3 m not reft. r n9 3 ve heen to the extremes o f loving an artist. E u t its a h a rd thing to uriderstand about yourself, r own r 4
