august 4 .2000 - Jaaft M tfJ 23
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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
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