Why Do Gay Men Love Their Divas?
I joke that if you are what I call "Gay Orthodox," you can consider it a Gay High Holy Day when a diva comes to town. If Gay Orthodox, you must commit to closing your business or taking the day off. Treat the day as a Sabbath or consider yourself a sinner. Gay neighborhoods will be ghost towns as we flock to stadiums-our places of worship-for any Diana Ross, Cher, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Madonna, Janet Jackson, or Dolly Parton concert. Today's younger gay men flock to Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, Beyonc�, and Christina Aguilera.
I, of course, am Gay Orthodox and must follow the Gay Bible, which is to close shop at sunset on these days to pay respects to these beautiful gay icons! We even saw Jack from Will & Grace briefly die and go to heaven, where he found that Cher was a goddess. "It all makes sense," Jack said on meeting Goddess Cher. "Elijah and Chastity are the names of your children, it's true you are!"
One can never forget, of course, dearly departed divas such as the late, great Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and the original grande dame of divas-Judy Garland. While not every gay boy or man worships divas, a good many do. Why is that?There are many theories. In The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, Daniel Harris suggests that "at the very heart of gay diva worship is not the diva herself but the almost universal homosexual experience of ostracism and insecurity." Harris feels that we gay men live vicariously through divas who snare the handsome heterosexual men and that we like to imagine ourselves in their place. He equates diva worship to watching football and says that it's actually just as unfeminine as football: "it is a bone-crushing spectator sport in which one watches the triumph of feminine wiles over masculine walls of a voluptuous and presumably helpless damsel in distress single-handedly moving down a lineup of hulking quarterbacks who fall dead at her feet."
Time magazine even addressed diva worship in a review of Judy Garland's final concert on August 18, 1967, at New York's Palace Theatre. The article read, "A disproportionate part of her nightly claque seems to be homosexual. The boys in the tight trousers roll their eyes, tear at their hair and practically levitate from their seats, particularly when Judy sings ['Over the Rainbow'] . . . Judy was beaten up by life, embattled and ultimately had to become more masculine. She has the power that homosexuals would like to have, and they attempt to attain it by idolizing her."
On closer examination, we can see there is something decidedly masculine about these divas. They have a hardened, sometimes aggressively feminine side. In their performance mode, they are almost as hyperfeminine as drag queens-Diana Ross's big exaggerated hair, for example, and Cher's heavily beaded gowns and overly glittering eye shadow
Another theory I hold strongly is that these divas are our stand-in mothers. Jewish clients and friends of mine have told me that Barbra Streisand saved their lives! Without her movies and songs, they couldn't have survived their childhoods. Many of these men had self-absorbed mothers who were unavailable emotionally, so what better surrogate Jewish mother than Streisand? She is already unavailable in many ways, so clients can worship her and fulfill some needs that their mothers cannot. These divas mommies will never let us down-they are whoever we want them to be. They're our mother shadows.
I am not putting down these divas! I adore and love most of them. My home and office are filled with dolls that celebrate these divas from Cher to Lucille Ball. While growing up, my divas were Diana Ross and Cher-which, if you believe my Mommy Queerest theories, tells you a lot about me and my maternal figures. Perhaps these divas' narcissism is a way to celebrate the narcissistic mothers and female caregivers in our lives.
In our early lives, our inability to attach and identify with men may prompt us to try to escape into the feminine realm to avoid the shame and fear of being compared unfavorably with other males. Although this is true of both gay and straight men, straight men bring these
